On The Flok Songs In Social Movements

What this paper tries to answer is how to approach folk songs, the massdiscourse, from a sociological perspective.The paper digs into the progression of specific social events(revolutionarymovements led by the Communist Party of China and the new China’s Great LeapForward), which claim the production of folk songs, takes the songs (revolutionarysongs and red flag ballads) as a kind of discourse and communication practice, revealstheir generation and propagation mechanisms and expounds their feature of "theexpression of social reality and the social movement" and their role in thosemovements. This study suggests that, in social movements, political parties orcountries, write ideological concepts (such as "revolutionary","land reform","turnover","liberation","socialism","communism","the general line","great leapforward","surpass Great Britain and the U. S.") into the songs to construct a discourse,which is in accordance with the will of the Party and the State, to further mobilize themass with strong values and emotional orientation of "Utopia"; and the mass, withtheir own interests and aspirations, accept the ideologically utopian discourse, cognizethe new social prospect with emotions in the songs by taking part in those movements.Emotion expressed is on the one hand the essence of the songs, it is also one of thedriving forces that involve the mass’s participation in social movements.This paper falls into three parts. The first part is the introduction, includingorigin of the research, subject, definition of the basic concepts, and explanation oftheoretical basis, research methods and the thesis’s significance; the second part is thesecond chapter, elaborating theoretically the folk songs, emotion and the socialmovements concerned; the third part includes the third chapter and the fourth chapter,exemplifying with analysis their production mechanism, content, and social functionsin social movements; the fourth part is the conclusion, summarizing the research andreflections and expecting further probes.The introduction includes three aspects. The first is the causal description of thetopic, pointing out that a large number of songs, which acquire values in sociology,are produced without being researched, arguing that their role of expressivecompetence and emotions in social movements is worth of researching. The secondaspect is the expounding that songs created in social activities offer us a grass-rootperspective to the understanding of related historical events and to the testing ofeffects of emotions in them. finally, this part explains the basic theory and methods ofthe research, taking language theory in sociology, social movement theory and thesociology of emotions theory as the theoretical basis for the study and combination oftext elaboration and history analysis as the main method.The second chapter summarizes the general properties, functions and generalcharacteristics of folk songs in social movements. They are proved to be produced in the process of real life and are carried on from mouth to mouth, playing their role;they function as vehicles of emotion expression and catharsis, dissemination ofknowledge, education, public opinion, politics, customs, entertainment, expression ofreligious and spiritual comfort effects; and they offer a "discourse field", intertwinedwith the power of discourse and popular discourse with distinct properties of times,intense emotion and focus on the theme of social movements. And then outlines thelogic of emotion and its effective mechanism in social movements. First of all in thispart, the examination of emotion theories in sociology shows that emotion is a socialprocess, a result of social interaction, and emotions needs to be approached from thesocial interaction perspective; the generation theories of social movements also revealthat emotion is one of the dynamic mechanisms of social movement; secondly,mechanism of functional emotion manifests that social interaction is the fundamentalvehicle for emotion formation and emotional traits, and emotion itself is the drivingforce for social interaction; collective action, the formation and development ofemotions are driven by the interests and modified by social situation. Therefore, ittends to be exaggerated and its maintenance needs continuous social interaction;finally, the emotional operating mechanism is exemplified by the Party’s revolution.The third chapter analyzes with examples the production, operation and theinfluence of revolutionary songs on the Party’s Revolution. Firstly, the partgeneralizes their production and content; then it analyzes the ideological expressionslike "class","revolution" and utopian construction of "turn over","communism",which are reflected by the self construction of the public identity, class consciousness,class emotion, revolutionized mode of life and good vision of future with a contrastbetween expressions of the public and the elite. This part finally evidences theemotional nature and the mobilization function of those songs in revolutionarymovements.The fourth chapter analyzes with examples the production, operation and theinfluence of flag ballads on the Great Leap Forward movement. Firstly, the paperoutlines the origin and content of red flag ballads; then, it analyzes the popularpassion, enthusiasm and some reflections of a few songs on the movement under thecontext of "great leap forward","people’s commune","communism" and otherideological discourses. With a consideration of the failure of the Great Leap Forwardand its rapid decline, the paper expounds the emotional property and mobilizationfunction of the flag ballads in the movement.The fifth chapter is conclusion and reflections. The songs in social movementsbuild up a discourse field intertwined with power and public discourses, reflectingthe social ideals, emotional attitudes and value choice of the participants. In themovements, the elites and the masses, sharing the common ideal (Utopian) expressedby those folk songs and connected by their emotions, perform those social movementsto reform the society, which is the fundamental operating mechanism.