MEDIA & VIOLENCE - A Transnational Perspective

Mon, 14 Apr 2025 18:23:19 +0000

Lesson Module by Keren Wang, updated 4 Nov 2025.

This lesson module examines the contested and ambivalent relationship between media and violence from historical and transnational perspectives.

1. Violence as Ritual & Power: Historical and Global Perspectives

Let's open this session with a reference from Greek mythology: consider the telltale of Prometheus, whose theft of fire from the Olympian gods for humanity’s benefit inadvertently brought both civilization and destruction. Like Prometheus’s fire, the development of media technology simultaneously brings enlightenment and cataclysm.

1.1 Rhetorical Artifacts and Human Sacrifice

The history of the development of writing technology overlaps with the history of war propaganda and human sacrifice.^[1] As early as the Narmer Palette, one of the earliest hieroglyphic artifacts ever found from circa 3200 BCE depicting scenes of conquest and violence:

Similarly, during the height of the Chinese Bronze Age, also known as the Shang dynasty (c. 1250–1046 BC) produced ritual bronze artifacts at monumental proportions -- such as the 833 kg (1,836 lbs) Houmuwu Ding -- one of the heaviest bronze vessel from the ancient world -- and the 13-foot (3.96 m) tall Sanxingdui bronze tree (c. 1200 BC):

New Publication Announcement: The Legitimation Crisis of the Japanese Constitution - Communication Law Review

Thu, 25 Feb 2021 12:05:16 +0000

Happy to announce the publication of my co-authored article with Dr. Tomonori Teraoka - “The Legitimation Crisis of the Japanese Constitution: Reflections on Japan’s Judicial Rhetoric and Its Post-WWII Constitutionalization Process” - on the latest issue of Communication Law Review. Our article presents an interdisciplinary, multilingual collaborative effort to critically examine Japanese constitutional discourse at both domestic and transnational levels.

Abstract: Our article examines the issue of constitutional legitimacy in the post-WWII Japanese legal system. Our analysis proceeds from the judicial rhetoric of postwar Japan, focusing primarily on the state of judicial review and executive legislative practices throughout the Japanese postwar constitutionalization process. The aim of our rhetorical analysis is to identify the main points of discursive tensions as manifested in Japanese judiciary and legislative norms. Although the postwar Japanese constitution provides a judicial review process and separation of powers like its American counterpart, their implementation is constrained by the legislative usurpation of the executive branch and judicial passivity of the Japanese Supreme Court. Whereas the written language in the postwar Japanese constitution adheres to the prevailing transnational dóxa for a democratic rule-of-law society, we find many key constitutional elements are not internationalized within the operational modality of Japanese judicial rhetoric.

Transnational on Keren Wang

MEDIA & VIOLENCE - A Transnational Perspective

1. Violence as Ritual & Power: Historical and Global Perspectives

1.1 Rhetorical Artifacts and Human Sacrifice

New Publication Announcement: The Legitimation Crisis of the Japanese Constitution - Communication Law Review