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Knowledge, power and discourses in Van Dijk’s Critical Discourse Analysis
94-112Views:125Critical Discourse Analysis (or Critical Discourse Studies – CDA/CDS) examines the relationship between texts, discourses and power, dominance, power abuses and social inequalities. Critical discourse analysis is a multidisciplinary research perspective, which not only examines the interactions between the text, the micro level and its surroundings, the macro level, but its main goal is to uncover social inequalities, expose the forms and modalities of abuse of power. The representatives of CDA are committed to social equality and justice. Present paper presents the work of one of the outstanding representatives of Critical Discourse Analysis, Teun A. Van Dijk, by presenting the history and possibilities of CDA, and also the key elements of Van Dijk’s approach. This study aims to show how knowledge, power and discourse are connected in Van Dijk’s Critical Discourse Analysis.
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Mechanisms of power, victimization and autonomy in the health care system
60-80Views:42The aim of this paper is to describe power relations, doctor-patient relationships among the
many ongoing changes in health care from sociological point of view. This paper is based on
interviews with 17 people who work in various fields of health care. To conduct the interviews as
well as to write the paper, a number of concepts and theoretical approaches were resorted to:
Dominique Memmi’s ’delegated biopower’, Eve Bureau and Judith Hermann-Mesfen’s notion of
’contemporary patient’, François Dubet’s concept of institutional programme as well as results of
Hungarian health sociology. The main focuses of interest of the paper are role models in health
care, the characteristics and consequences of new doctor-patient relations, their manifestations
in Hungary as well as potentials of defencelessness and autonomy in Hungarian health care. -
The moral restoration of business relations: Management from a Christian point of view
71-90Views:36Globalisation is a complex and worldwide process overarching historical times and continents.
It started with the great geographical discoveries, continued with the emergence of world trade
and the development of a truly global market reaching its present status. Globalisation has both
negative and positive effects. Out of the positive effects it has to be emphasised that more and
more zones of our planet benefit from the advances in sciences and techniques, more and more people have better access to work, education and the necessary commodities to meet their basic
needs. Globalisation has brought efficiency and new opportunities to companies, providing practically free access to raw materials, labour and knowledge. Out of the negative effects degradation of the biosphere, the greater social and economic inequality especially in the developing
countries has to be pointed out. Some companies are operating worldwide and have acquired
great economic power and influence. Governments have only limited possibilities to regulate
their operation. The expenses of profit maximisation are high, which are often ‘paid’ by the social-natural environment (as externalities). The aim of our study is to overview how current
business relations could be formed to be more human and environment friendly from the point
of view of Christian philosophy. It has to be pointed out that our study is focusing on the Christian
point of view, although in our globalised world when studying business relations we should not
forget about the role of other world major religious groups. -
Globalization theory of late modernity and identities in risk society
101-121Views:56Modernity is the sum of the fragmented cultural systems of meaning, that are mutually influential
on each other, plus of economic and political relations continually changing and transforming –
a complexity that manifests itself in the structure of the (world) risk society even on the level of
the individual. Following the late modern turn, the phenomenon of the means and opportunities
determining the ability of choice is not being shared equally, but multiplied as regards global
actors, as well as choice of identity, perceptibility of risks and facing them. The study presents
the new inequality factors and the asymmetric power relations of the late modernity along the
works by the recently died sociologists of the globalization theory (Ulrich Beck and Zygmunt
Bauman). In the world risk society, each community and individual bear the risks indifferently.
Accordingly, the ascertainments of the study are that the globalised economy and the subjects
of the local poverty do not possess the same degree of the freedom of maneuvering. In order
to demonstrate this and also to identify each postmodern life-strategy, the study relies on the
works on identity by the discussed sociologists. According to the latter, the study concludes, that
the reflexivity of the risk is the most profitable for those who are in the high position of the new
inequality, thus, have the power to determine conflicts generated by them and inflict them on
those excluded from the struggle of definition of risk. -
Labour law and insurance from patriarchy to the beginning of nationalisation
279-282Views:42If the reader picks up Zsombor Bódy's The Society of Industrial Labour, the title page will probably lead him to a long discussion of the new problems and tasks caused by industrialisation, and the structure and situation of social relations that it changed.
However, reading the first pages, we understand that Bódy, touching on the deeper social context, selects only a slice of the complex problems of industrial society of the time, the development and change of the institutional system related to work from the mid-19th century to the end of the Second World War. The author, who has extensively processed relevant volumes of international and national literature and numerous archival and printed sources, has synthesised his findings in this volume after several smaller studies. The work contains a number of new approaches and new problem definitions, which I would like to reflect on below. From the book we can learn about the views and plans of the time in relation to labour, the provisions that were born, from the patriarchal view to the beginning of the era of nationalisation. A great advantage of the work is that it analyses at length the prevailing social policy ideas of each period, contrasting the different views. It deals not only with governmental ideas, but also with the views of the opposition, the interest groups and, last but not least, the experts and their associations of the time. It examines the power of each organisation in each era and the influence it could exert on decision-makers, achieving different results, even against other groups. All of this is to the advantage of the essay, and the author perhaps sometimes over-details the battles between different views.
