Official Memory Texts and Discursive Politics: A Case Analysis of the Chinese WWII Victims' Redress Movement.

Previous theories and empirical studies of politics of memory have not paid sufficient attention to the discursive aspect of collective memory. This paper is intended to show memory is essentially a discourse whose reiteration structure is strategically arranged to perform political functions. To empirically illustrate the point, the author examines the Chinese WWII victims' redress movement against Japan and specifically investigate how the Chinese core state media present the movement linguistically in the context of a subtle state-society relationship since the student protests in 1989. The analysis of both textual and ethnographic data indicates that the Chinese state media uses three different reiteration models, that is, authenticity, state-dominated, and entrepreneur models, to present the memory movement by omitting or downplaying some significant participants in the movements while highlighting others in various reiteration structures. The political functions of the discourses are to legitimize the state by boosting nationalistic sentiments as well as reduce the risk of uncontrolled collective actions and civil society. This study is hoped to pave the way for future research on discourses and structures in politics of memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]