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The article provides a comparative analysis of the cultural practices of political populism and the popular culture. The leading role of the media in the formation and promotion of popular movements and leaders is emphasized. There is a difference in the understanding of a leader's charisma that brings new values, according to Max Weber, and the pseudo-charisma of modern populist leaders that is created by their regular presence in the media. Populist politician is seen as a sign in cultural communication, where the politician’s personality is put as the signifier, and the ideology that the politician promotes — as the signified. Based on this analysis, three ideal types of populists have been identified: a blank sign that is focused on the present and represents populists without ideology; a sign that is oriented on the past and represents a populist national ideology; the sign that is oriented on the future and represents the reformers, the bearers of new social values. Theoretical approaches to the interpretation of popular culture are analyzed and it is pointed out that a mass society emerging is necessary both for the phenomenon of popular culture and for political populism to perform the quantitative indicator of public preferences. Common characteristics in the functioning of popular culture and populism are revealed — symbolism, emotionality, "origin from people", resistance against the system. The decisive role of the media in cultural communication for both popular culture and political populism is emphasized. However, there are significant differences between popular culture and political populism. Popular culture has its own values, while political populism uses values of others. Comparing popular culture and its impact on culture in general on one hand and political popularization and its impact on the political system on the other, a scrutator could expect for some renewal and diversification of current political institutions that would be a positive factor for the global political system and global society.

The expansion of the government has the role definition and administrative category become more complicated. Meanwhile, the government controls the capacity and power to collect huge domestic national data, whose quantity and quality possessed by the government far exceed those controlled by private enterprises, organizations, and individuals. Along with the boom of digital technology and Internet, the emerging brand-new service depends on huge open government data. The questionnaire for this study is randomly distributed to the mass society in southern Taiwan to understand the weights of factors in the mass society. Total 300 copies of questionnaire are distributed, and 271 valid copies are retrieved, with the retrieval rate 90%. The research results reveal that political and social is mostly emphasized among dimensions in Hierarchy, followed by technical and economic and top five indicators, among 15, are ordered public license, single entry, governance transparency, data resolution, and data reuse. According to the results, discussion and suggestions are proposed, expecting to help the government further legislates for simplifying the openness process, reduce costs or commercial data use, and promote domestic competitiveness.

Pop music has long served as object of study for social scientists and linguists alike. The idea of mass society, mass culture and their influence on the general public is viewed by many as frightening, due to the immense power that it holds on the general public. (Hirsch, 1971: 2) Therefore, due to its large reach, it is impossible to ignore the influence that pop music has on our day-to-day lives. The pop genre, as we know it, emerged during 1950s and it distinguishes itself through its traits. It does not function as an ordinary genre, since it does not have easily detectable features that separate it from other genres. In reality, it includes all music that is popular, and many music styles have been famous over decades, from stadium rock, to disco, hip-hop, dance etc. Song lyrics, varying on context, are very similar, almost indiscernible from poetry, considering that the main thing that separates the two is the association with sound that lyrics have, compared to regular poetry verses. The objective of this study is to analyze the stratification of meaning in the lyrics of a few selected modern pop songs, starting with one of the most notable decades of the genre – which is the 1980s – and ending with selections of contemporary pop songs. This examination has the purpose of identifying certain patterns in the construction of pop song lyrics. This study will research the use of language and the linguistic blueprint on which pop songs are built on a lyrical level. The selected songs were purposely picked in such a manner that they are different of each other in terms of style and commercial success. Even though they are not capable of sketching a full representation of the landscape of pop over the explored decades, they should be able to outline specific particularities or clichés in the process of song writing that have evolved or devolved over time. The layers in which this study is achieved are represented by the confluence realized between a multitude of different domains, particularly stylistics, phonetics, rhetoric and semantics., {"references":["Bahadur, R. R. N. B., Sterling, T.S. 1960. Elements of English Rhetoric and Prosody. Calcutta: Huckervertty, Chatterjee & Co. Beaugrand, R.-A., Dressler, W. 1986. Introduction to Text Linguistics. United Kingdom: Longman. Dancygier, B., Sweetser, E. 2014. Figurative Language. Cambridge University Press. Harris, R. A. 2018. Writing with Clarity and Style, Routledge. Hirsch, P. M. 1971. Sociological Approaches to the Pop Music Phenomenon, American Behavioral Scientist United States, retrieved Mai, 2020, at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/43118514_Sociological_Approaches_to_the_Pop_Music_Phenomenon. Neubert, A., Shreve, G. M. 1992. Translation as Text, Kent State University Press, United States. Pârlog, H. 1997. English Phonetics & Phonology, ALL, Romania."]}

This article examines the correlation between such postmodern phenomena as globalization, "massovization" and national economic centrism. It is concluded that this is national economic centrism which represents a serious alternative to globalization, whereas the projects of so-called civilizational identity act as simulacra. However, this alternative only intensifies economic paranoia and reinforces the religion of comfort in modern mass societies. In other words, within the framework of enhancing national economies, the only social model – mass society – is reproduced due to the reproduction of the same model of increased production, which needs similar increased consumption. Hence, the existence of another society contrary to consumption society is just impossible per se, that is the process of annihilating humanity as a capability of affective (libidinal) control is only increasing. There is almost no gentleness, nor modesty left, which increasingly exacerbates the ethical context of modern social studies. To our mind, we can presume that the crisis of liberalism primarily reflects the crisis of capitalism itself and its mode of social life, which today is trying to protect itself by means of its tested practices. Therefore, a critical social theory in the form of the "theory of mass society" should be generally considered as a separate conceptual social model in the context of globalization, which currently increases the homogenization of cultures in terms of their transformation into a common ‘vulgar’ mass culture., У статті досліджується співвідношення таких постмодерністських явищ, як глобалізація, "масовізація" та національно-економічний центризм. Зроблено висновок, що це національний економічний центризм, який є серйозною альтернативою глобалізації, тоді як проекти так званої цивілізаційної ідентичності виступають як симулякри. Однак ця альтернатива лише посилює економічну параною та зміцнює релігію комфорту в сучасних масових суспільствах. Інакше кажучи, в рамках посилення національних економік відтворюється єдина соціальна модель – масове суспільство – за рахунок відтворення тієї ж моделі збільшеного виробництва, що потребує такого ж збільшення споживання. Отже, існування іншого суспільства, протилежного суспільству споживання, просто неможливе саме по собі, тобто процес знищення людства, як здатності до афективного (лібідинального) контролю, лише зростає. Не залишилося майже ні лагідності, ні скромності, що дедалі більше загострює етичний контекст сучасних суспільних досліджень. Як видається, можна припустити, що криза лібералізму відображає, перш за все, кризу самого капіталізму, його способу організації соціального життя, який сьогодні намагається захистити себе своїми перевіреними практиками. Тому критичну соціальну теорію у формі "теорії масового суспільства" слід загалом розглядати як окрему концептуальну соціальну модель у контексті глобалізації, яка нині посилює гомогенізацію культур у плані їх трансформації у загальну "вульгарну" чи "масову" культуру.

My paper was inspired by Hannah Arendt to induce a reflection on the homo democraticus in a mass society. The philosopher points out that this figure, who is generally oriented to a passive and “conformist” behaviour always at risk of favouring authoritarian political formulas, can also build a political space contrasting the tyranny of the unique thought. This happens if he acts with others through the dialogical "confrontation”, which prevents the fusion of singularities with the Whole. It is an invitation to exercise the kantian “thinking wide”: extraordinary instrument of resistance in “dark times”., Magisterium, V. 1 (2022)

En 1910, en una alocución dirigida a los asistentes al Ier Congreso de la Asociación Alemana de Sociología celebrado en Frankfurt, Max Weber (1864-1920) instó a los académicos germanos a promover investigaciones sobre la condición de la prensa y el ejercicio del periodismo desde un punto de vista sociológico objetivo. Veinte años después de la reflexión weberiana, se edita la obra “La prensa y la opinión pública” de Siegfried Kracauer (1889-1966) publicada en el Frankfurt Zeitung, que presentamos fragmentariamente en este número. Es un ensayo crítico del gran ensayista y experto en la comunicación social, colmado de matices sobre el estudio de uno de los grandes dispositivos de conformación de la sociedad de masas, la prensa. Kracauer se enfrenta al formalismo sociológico que sobrevuela el planteamiento de los primeros estudios sobre la prensa. El autor alienta un análisis empírico sobre los nacientes procesos de manipulación de la opinión pública, y de la banalización de la comunicación que afloran en el horizonte de aquella época.