Multiple government Social Credit Systems (SCSs) are being piloted in China in response to the growing calls from the population that there is a breakdown of trust within society. Previous research...Show moreMultiple government Social Credit Systems (SCSs) are being piloted in China in response to the growing calls from the population that there is a breakdown of trust within society. Previous research finds that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are employing a surveillant construction to unite the heterogenous elements of the country using Big Data (BD), including; Chinese individuals, companies, social organizations and government agencies. This thesis focuses on how Foucault’s, Deleuze & Guatarri’s and Jäger’s interpretation of the ‘dispositive’ is being updated onto the digital platform of the SCS. Conducting Siegfried Jäger’s ‘Dispositive Analysis’ over a 3 × 3 analysis framework which includes the three perspectives of Apparatus, Articulation and Assemblage over the three modalities of Law, Ethical and Utilitarian, the thesis presents how the CCP are reconstructing cyberspace for the application of the SCS. More importantly, this research finds that the CCP are drawing upon traditional Confucian & Daoist morals and ethics as the basis for the SCS’s functionality, shaping the actions and behavioural patterns of the population.Show less
This thesis explores cultural paradigms. Part I accepts and expands upon Arditi's base definition of cultural paradigms as being inextricably linked with our understanding of cultural roles. Part...Show moreThis thesis explores cultural paradigms. Part I accepts and expands upon Arditi's base definition of cultural paradigms as being inextricably linked with our understanding of cultural roles. Part II applies Foucauldian theories on 'discursive forms of knowledge' to understand the relationship between 'knowledge' and 'being' that is exemplified by cultural paradigms. Part III focuses on other discursive aspects of cultural paradigms regarding the enunciations of knowledge and being, namely 'bias' and 'style'. While cultural paradigms might be colloquially generalized, that generalization is made up of a web of subject-based breaks and modifications of shared cultural paradigms by way of enunciations of knowledge and being. In conclusion, this thesis establishes that cultural paradigms are themselves indeterminate and that subjectivity ultimately can arise to edit cultural paradigms and alter the contours of their evolution.Show less
