Introduction

The Greek crisis and the memoranda

In 2009, Greece entered an unprecedented economic crisis, well beyond the scale that other countries faced during the same period, in terms of duration and productive decline. The cumulative loss of around 26% of GDP during the 2009–2016 period, the skyrocketing unemployment that reached 27% in 2014 (nearly three times the previous 10 years’ average) and the bankruptcy of 200,000 small and medium enterprises were just the tips of the iceberg.

The crisis in Greece was an integral part of a broader structural crisis that was described as a crisis of neoliberalism, perceived as the insistence on private enterprise and on the weakening of the broader public sector (Dumenil and Levy 2011). The crisis showcased the weaknesses and the frailty of an economic structure that depended on the excessive growth of fictitious capital (Harvey 2010). The increase of public and private debt, and the dependence of consumption on lending as a counterweight to the austerity policies, was not a Greek peculiarity. It became a common characteristic of all Western economies immediately after the structural crisis of the early 1970s. In the United States, the economy was shaken by the securitisation of structured bonds that included an unknown amount of high-risk loans of the mortgage market (Krugman 2012). In Ireland and Spain, the overdeveloped mortgage market was also at the heart of the financial crisis. In Cyprus, the banks themselves and in particular their risky investments led the state to emergency lending to prevent their collapse. Greece was led to the memorandum of understanding (MoU) (conditionalities) imposed by the IMF and the EU as a prerequisite for its lending, due to its inability to borrow and service the public debt, which was the trigger of its economic crisis. Thus, public debt proved to be the weak link in a long chain of structural imbalances (Bofinger 2012).

A common feature of all these different crises was the reproductive incapacitation, under its working terms, of an economic model based on two pillars. The first pillar was continuous austerity and low wages (Blyth 2013). The second pillar was borrowing by employees, households and businesses, which facilitated the expansion of commodity production, the realisation of surplus value and the expanded reproduction of capital (Streeck 2014).

In the euro area in particular, the distorted structure of the monetary union was made obvious (Lapavitsas et al. 2012).

One of the key differences between Chinese video-streaming platforms (VSPs) and Netflix is the bullet screen option. Bullet screen, or “Danmaku” in Japanese, and dan’mu in Chinese, refers to the overlaid audience comments flying from right to left across the screen. These comments are displayed in the timeline when they were created, so later viewers may see exactly what comments have been left at a certain point in time during the show. Thus, the bullet screen is synchronous for the viewer, and also a form of asynchronous and trans-spatial interaction between the comment creators and their readers.

There have been many studies on the bullet screen. Its origins in the Japanese video website Niconico . jp in 2006 and how it became popular in China have been thoroughly described (Liu et al. 2016; Ni 2017). Chinese VSPs such as LeTV, iQIYI, Tencent and Sohu adopted the bullet screen feature in 2014. Youku and Tudou adopted it in 2015. It has since become a default feature of Chinese VSPs.

We analyzed 24,937 bullet screen comments from Crime Crackdown (2021) on Tencent Video, with the assistance of the data-mining software Pycharm. The 28-episode drama series Crime Crackdown (2021) was produced by Shanghai Tencent Penguin Film Culture Communication Co., Ltd, a subsidiary of Tencent, the leading listed company in media and communication in China. The show premiered simultaneously on the Beijing TV Station Dongfang TV and online on Tencent Video on August 9, 2021. It reached 5.5 billion views as of March 2022 and received a rating of 8.9 points (out of 10 on Tencent Video). This chapter focuses on why the bullet screen is such a widespread functionality in China, what audiences bullet-screen about and how the bullet screen affects the viewing experience of TV series online, especially in the case of suspense genres.

Understanding the Bullet Screen

Bullet screen culture was first popular among viewers described as “Otaku,” a Japanese word for the group of people interested in consuming anime and manga online who live in their “two-dimensional” world. This shared subcultural interest can be associated with bullet screen in-group comments. The bullet screen thus offers a sense of “social presence,” according to Ni (2017). The concept of “social presence” was first raised by Short, Williams and Christie. They defined social presence as “the degree of salience of the other person in the interaction” (Short et al. 1976, 65).

Widely evident in the great halls from imperial China, and exhibiting superb craftsmanship, zaojing are taken for granted as symbols of prestige (see Figures 2–4). Some researchers affirm that zaojing were a product of Confucianism, as it helped to emphasize the unity of heaven and man on the one hand, and a hierarchical society on the other. Situated in a central position of a ceiling, zaojing may be a square, an octagon, or a circle, among a number of shapes. Equivalent to domes of heaven in the Western context, zaojing were believed to have a magic power protecting the architecture and inhabitants it enshrined. In particular, a zaojing was built within a structure to prevent the building from fire, an urban disaster that frequently took place in the past. Focusing on the archeological and literary sources from early China, this chapter inquiries about the origin of zaojing and attempts to articulate how zaojing evolved as an architectural means to assuage human fears, as well as to express human desires and longing.

Zaojing and Water Well

Both the physical form and the literary term jing 井 suggest that zaojing had an inherent connection with a water well. To further illustrate this linkage, a Neolithic water well in the Hemudu cultural relic site (modern Yuyao, Zhejiang Province) is selected as a case study (Figure 3.1). The plan of this well consists of an irregular circle on the periphery and a square in the center (Figure 3.2). Viewing the section, the circle is actually the surface of a basin that was full of water during the flooding season.

With a side length of two meters, the square is a shaft that sinks to the bottom of the basin, thereby forming a water well. During periods of drought, the well continued as a water source. Circular and semicircular wooden piles, whose diameters are about six centimeters, were densely erected against the four internal sides of the well. They were then reinforced by a square frame constructed by four horizontally laid round logs, each with a diameter of about 17 centimeters (see Figure 3.2). These four wooden logs were assembled with tenon and mortise joints. The wooden structure of the well, particularly its square frame on the upper edge, reflects the early pictograph character of jing (Figure 3.3).

Introduction

This chapter looks at how the newspapers that position themselves as politically close to the government portrayed and presented the health sector agenda of the government. The chapter is based on a scan of two major pro-government newspapers of the period, Zaman and Yeni Şafak, between 2002 and 2011.

These two dailies were scanned for news articles and columns on health policy changes in particular and the Turkish health sector in general. The aim of this chapter is to show how the pro-government media portrayal of the health sector complemented a broader discursive narrative of the government on health. This portrayal positions the government determined to end victimisations caused by the pre-AKP (Justice and Development Party) era healthcare system, presents changes introduced to the healthcare system by the AKP as unprecedented developments and depicts opponents of the reform – namely doctors – as driven by self-interest.

In the AKP's populist discourse, serving the people, treating all citizens as equal, being just, representing a radically different approach from previous governments and the claiming to introduce a total change of mentality in the country emerge as central themes. This populist politics rests on a discursive opposition constructed between the ‘Old Turkey’, where the AKP claims the citizens were victimised by the elites, and the ‘New Turkey’ that the AKP offers to construct on the basis of equality.

Day-to-day issues such as health and transformation are areas through which the populist politics are constructed as the short-term consequences of those issues are compatible with the short-term result-oriented agenda of populist politics. This study will look at how the populist politics of AKP is constructed through health reform. In this broader political picture, healthcare emerged as a key discursive space where the AKP's populist claims to end ‘Old Turkey’s’ social inequalities and ‘victimisations’ materialised. Furthermore, the AKP's changes to the healthcare system were presented as steps that symbolised the creation of a ‘New Turkey’ where previously victimised people are saved from privileged elites.

In other words, it was not only structural changes that the AKP insistently aimed to introduce into the health system through the Health Transformation Programme (HTP) but also a strong discursive determinacy to propagate these changes as the end of the inequalities of ‘Old Turkey’ that created a rupture in Turkey's larger political field.

Introduction

Set up in 2010, iQIYI was famous for its technical innovation and creative video content and was merged with Baidu Company in 2013. Listed on NASDAQ in 2018, iQIYI leads the market and has claimed to be China's Netflix (Pham 2018).

Webisodes, with a few new features in content, platforms and technology, shape a new ecology of online distribution. Initially, the content of videostreaming platforms (VSPs) came from purchased copyright, which became increasingly expensive, so VSPs turned to produce originals to attract subscribers.

With its large popularity, China is a potential VSP(s) market. However, due to state censorship, Netflix has not made its way into the Chinese mainland, so the Chinese market is shared by local VSPs, including iQIYI, Tencent Video and Youku.

Among these online video platforms, iQIYI leads the group by originals and also reflects how innovative strategies have shaped the ecology of Chinese VSP(s).

The popularity of iQIYI started with originals, which were similar to Netflix's House of Cards (2010). The 12-episode drama Time Raiders(2015), coproduced by iQIYI and Huanrui Century Union (with 5 million CNY for each episode), was launched, and members could get a sneak peek of the webisode (iQIYI Inc 2020). This resulted in a craze for viewing and explosive growth in paid users. By the end of 2015, iQIYI's paid members had hit 10 million for the first time (Frater 2020).

Therefore, focusing on iQIYI, we discuss the features of original creations and how they constructed basic laws for the creation of the VSP(s). In this way, we provide an indication of the innovation of VSP(s) in China, which greatly influenced the TV industry.

Besides, iQIYI has applied many audience strategies to improve the audience's loyalty. With combined membership interest, iQIYI is trying to improve audience interest in renewing their subscription. Cooperating with TV terminals, iQIYI has extended its platform to access more audiences. By technology application, iQIYI, powered by Baidu, analyzes user information, bringing interesting content to satisfy the viewing experience.

So, it is worthwhile to discuss what are the audience strategies of iQIYI so that we can know how VSP(s) thoroughly attract their audience.

In addition, VSPs have been seeking outward expansion in their development. iQIYI prefers creations with Chinese characteristics in the global market. For example, iQIYI internationalized its content and entered the Asia market in cooperation with Netflix and Sony.

Introduction

As the world continues to linger in the gloom of COVID-19, the narrative of the epidemic has been flipped in China where the virus controversially originated. With the public memories about the missteps took by the Wuhan government in handling the outbreak fading away, the mass media adapted the tragic story to a national victory achieved by the central government (Case 2020). Proactive diplomatic strategies, such as providing masks and vaccines to other countries, have been taken to boost the soft power of China in the global sphere (Verma 2020). Accordingly, it is argued that instead of being weakened by the ‘blundering initial responses’, Xi Jinping managed to present himself as ‘a forceful and triumphant leader on the world stage’ (Huang 2020). Such reversal was accomplished through ‘a tremendous behind-the-scene effort’ made by the domestic media (Yuan 2021a). Facilitated by the tightened censorship during the pandemic (Shibu 2020), state media abiding by the party line has been the dominant sources of information that has been shaping the mainland audiences’ perception of the crisis. It is revealed in a recent study that by ‘sharing positive stories and promoting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) pandemic response, rewriting recent history in a manner favourable to the CCP as the coronavirus pandemic evolved, and using targeted ads to spread preferred messages’ (Molter and DiResta 2020) the state media frames the onslaught of COVID-19 as an ‘extraordinary and historic test’ that the Chinese nation led by the CCP eventually passed after hard fighting (Zhao and Liu 2020).

Among the heroic figures that constitute the epic narrative of conquering the contagion, medical professionals seem the most outstanding group highlighted by the government and the media (Stanway and Pollard 2020). In September 2020, on a ceremony celebrating the victory over the crisis held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Xi Jinping awarded four medical experts who are regarded as the ‘role models in the country's fight against the COVID-19 epidemic’ (CGTN 2020). As the awardee of the highest honour in China – ‘Medal of the Republic’, respiratory expert Zhong Nanshan along with many other scientists and specialists contributed significantly to rewriting the tragedy of the COVID-19 pandemic into an inspiring story of the central government leading its people to overcome disasters.

Although wooden structures have dominated Chinese architecture for more than three millennia, none from before the Tang dynasty have survived. Fortunately, their forms were mirrored in stone architecture, reliefs, pottery models (mingqi), murals, and even decorative housewares. The Han dynasty, in particular, gave rise to numerous representations of dougong in tomb structures, stone reliefs, pottery models, freestanding stone towers (que), and literary descriptions. My research builds on these available sources.

To Liang Sicheng and Liu Zhiping, the development of dougong in architecture reached mature status during the Han dynasty. Yet they, like most modern researchers, have regarded it primarily as a structural element, and their analyses have been largely typological, tracing the evolution of various dougong systems over succeeding dynasties. As Nancy Steinhardt has summarized, “Han bracket sets were studied according to three principal features used in all later bracketing”— that is, the cap block and other blocks, the arm, and the number of layers.

Chapter 2 takes a different approach, examining the column and bracket set not as a formal or structural element, but as a symbolic, social, and cultural one. In this respect, I partly follow the lead of Jiren Feng, who has studied the symbolic associations of column and bracket sets in the Song dynasty. Through a detailed analysis of literary sources from the tenth to the twelfth centuries, with the focus on Yingzao fashi, Feng points out that the multilayered dougong system was often likened to flowers and branches to suggest the auspicious “blossoming” of the structure. Although Feng adduces some physical and literary evidence from early China to support his argument, I find that the meanings attendant on the column and bracket set in earlier centuries differed considerably from those prevalent during the Tang–Song dynasties. The account below focuses on the role of dougong during the Han dynasty, when the element was primarily associated not with natural forms, but rather with beliefs about the heavens, mythology, and the afterlife.

The Political Symbolism of the Han Dynasty

As the second regime to unify the central territories of what is now known as China, the Han dynasty is commonly regarded as a golden age in Chinese history, the influence of which is still evident. The Han gives its name, for example, to China's majority ethnic group and to its common written script.

If there is something that we have learned as an international community during the past few (and not only) years is that in today's interconnected world, a crisis is never ‘far away’ from us. From the recent paradigms of the international financial crisis in 2008 and its aftermath to the pandemic of COVID-19 and the war between Russia and Ukraine, we have all experienced the effects of a crisis in different contexts and depths.

Research on crisis and crisis communication involves many models and definitions, but with the common denominator that a crisis is a major occurrence with a potentially negative outcome (Coombs 2015). A basic condition of a crisis is a non-specific event, which has a strong effect on the entire social tissue and creates feelings of uncertainty (Seeger 1998). In this environment, political communication is expected to highlight clear leadership with the aim of alleviating the symptoms of this crisis and strengthening the structures so that the next crisis will have milder effects. Along with the term ‘crisis’, that is both experientially and scholarly defined, the term ‘political communication’ has been widely researched and sometimes vaguely defined. For example, Pye (1993: 422) follows a social-constructivist definition by arguing that political communication is ‘the flow of messages and information that gives structure and meaning to the political process’. In addition, Blumler (2014: 39) highlights the importance of the media organisations suggesting that political and media organisations ‘show a horizontal interaction while on a vertical axis, they separately and jointly engage in disseminating and processing information and ideas to and from the mass citizenry’. Other scholars (Jamieson and Kenski 2014; Powell and Cowart 2003) with a wider approach define political communication as a communicative activity of citizens, individual political figures, public institutions, media and social movements. Perloff (2018: 12) defines political communication as a ‘complex, communicative activity in which language and symbols, employed by leaders, media, citizens and citizen groups, exert a multitude of effects on individuals and society, as well as on outcomes that bear on the public policy of a nation, state or community’, highlighting the notion of political leadership.

At this point, Kahn (2020) identifies two models of leadership, namely the Political Prominence Model, where the political protagonist receives advice from experts but still reserves the decision-making process and the Expert Appointee Prominence Model, where the politician focuses on delegation of the decisionmaking process.

As the two important elements in Chinese architecture, dougong and zaojing are beyond structural or functional necessity, and they are largely absent in most commoner's dwellings—the housing form for the majority in premodern China. Perhaps it is due to their lack of connection with basic needs or utilitarian architectural necessity that their cultural significance, as the connotation of transcendence, can be understood.

To attribute a transcendental quality to dougong and zaojing is because both are transformed from ordinary objects to something extraordinary. Dou in its original text means a ladle that is an everyday living utensil, and the term zaojing was derived from a water well that provided natural resources for daily life. In the process of transformation, arts played an essential role of adopting dou and well in important buildings, and then, within these small cosmoses, uplifting them to celestial bodies. The Chinese longing for heavens, also as a ruling social theme, is evident through the development of dougong and zaojing. As this book has demonstrated, the sources of inquiry extend far beyond architectural purview, involving scholarship in archaeology, philology, sociology, arts, and history. From such multidisciplinary perspectives, I hope that the connection between small architectural elements (i.e., dougong and zaojing) and broad Chinese cosmology can be revealed more fully.

As Chapter 1 has demonstrated, due to very limited textual record from the Shang-Zhou dynasties, pictorial patterns and physical forms of bronze vessels become the main source of inquiry. In these pieces of bronzes and associated ritual ceremonies, there is a strong religious struggle to establish a dialogue with the gods, searching for assurance and blessing. In response to the uncertain living environment, dictated by unforeseeable natural disasters or human wars, the bronze artifacts were solid and tangible, and served as an emotional anchor to the early Chinese in their unstable world. They had a close relation with their contemporaneous architecture too. In this sense, the scholarly claims that the Chinese did not intend to lodge their urban history in buildings, but rather in text as a form of accumulated memories, seems untrue. Such claims can also be contested by numerous solid artifacts, such as stone tombs, reliefs, and pottery models, from the Han dynasty.

As Chapter 2 indicates, both text and material objects flourished in the Han period, both expressing certain worldviews.

Historical Context

First memorandum

In January 2019, the increased borrowing needs of Greece, which signalled the concept of ‘public debt crisis’, led the rating agency Standard & Poor's to downgrade the country's credit rating from A to A–. Under such pressure, the prime minister of Greece, K. Karamanlis, affiliated with New Democracy (ND) (the Greek right-wing party), announced early elections for 4 October 2009, where PASOK (the Greek centre party) emerged as the winning party with a percentage of 43.92% with the party leader G. Papandreou uttering the characteristic words ‘The money's there’. Sixteen days later, on 20 October 2009, the – at the time – Minister of Finance G. Papakonstantinou announced to ECOFIN that the deficit for 2009 would be around 12.7% as a percentage of GDP and not 6%, as had been calculated by the previous government of ND. At the same time, on 22 October, the rating agency Fitch downgraded Greece's credit rating from level A to level A– and on 8 December, from A– to BBB+. Eight days later, the Standard & Poor's agency downgraded Greece from status A to status BBB+ and, on 23 December, the Moody's from level A1 to level A2. At the same time, the European press appeared to be aggressive towards Greece (see the cover of the German magazine Focus, on 22 February 2010, with the title ‘Swindlers in the Euro Family’ and the statue of the Goddess Aphrodite (Venus de Milo) ‘making an obscene gesture’ against Europe or the cover of The Economist reminiscent of the movie Apocalypse Now with the modified title Acropolis now, which depicts the Acropolis surrounded by military helicopters and Angela Merkel on the right side of the cover next to the subtitle ‘The horror, the horror’). In this context of solid European pressure, Greece was called upon to comply with the European labour market reform and fiscal consolidation, which has begun since the 1990s, with the main aim of strengthening competitiveness.

Second memorandum

Following Papandreou government's first memorandum and the severe social unrest, Papandreou resigned. Before that, he had announced a referendum on the new loan agreement that was cancelled four days later, following the stance of the European partners, who jointly decided that in the event of a referendum, the question should be whether Greece will remain in the EU or not.

Crisis is an opaque term, applicable to a range of different domains and practices. Its origins lie in the progression and treatment of disease, where crisis indicates a turning point at which the disease becomes more serious (Kamei 2019). Central to many definitions that are shared across different disciplines is that a crisis is an unexpected disruption that will, or is perceived by some, lead to adverse outcomes. In sociology and political science, a crisis is characterised as a ‘period of discontinuity, marking the breaking point in a patterned process of linearity’ (Boin 2005).

Crises and their effects have been conceptualised at different levels at which they occur. First is the micro level. These are crises that affect or are a result of errors made by an individual. Next is the meso level, which are the crises that impact on organisations or are a consequence of organisational failures. Finally, there is the macro level, the crises that have widespread repercussions for society. The focus of this chapter is these crises that have a wider societal impact. While some may appear more limited in their geographic or temporal latitudes, with their acute impacts experienced by a particular state or country, many reflect the accumulation and intersection of vulnerabilities that lead to crisis. This includes those that connect to or are a consequence of global challenges, the climate crisis, pandemic risks and structural inequalities, for example.

This chapter seeks to illuminate the concept of crisis. It addresses questions concerning the nature of crisis, their different forms and the underlying processes and actors that shape crisis and their outcomes. To this end, it begins by evaluating the contrasting definitions and the common characteristics of crises. At a macro level, a crisis is often understood as a disruptive event or process that will have a significant impact on society. These may be slow burning, evolving gradually and over time, environmental degradation and persistent conflict are two evident examples here, and, as a consequence, there may be uncertainty about the appropriate course of action (Nohrstedt 2008). Others, such as disaster and financial shocks, are characterised as acute events. While this typology of crises is well established within the literature, it is unable to encompass the breadth of risks, vulnerabilities and underpinning processes that precipitate crisis.

Among various research topics on dougong, the most intriguing question is how dougong was formed in the first place. There have been seemingly ceaseless efforts in searching for the origin of dougong. Yang Hongxun, for example, pointed out that the birth of dougong was a result of structural evolution. In early wooden architecture, he posits that there was a physical transformation of posts supporting an eave to an oblique beam, then to a curved beam, and eventually to a curved arm with block (Figure 1.1). In the essay titled “The Origin and Development of Dougong,” Han Baode ponders over the early forms of dougong. Through inquiring about the physical remains and literature related to dougong, mainly from the Han dynasty, he challenges one theory that dougong was derived from the stone architecture in the West. Han raises the hypothesis that the birth and development of dougong was most likely influenced by religious forces. Guo Huayu also enquires about the origin and development of dougong and from a typological perspective, presents some early cases reflecting the forms of dougong in chronological order, including a bronze vessel, a lacquerware illustration, a bronze table, some pottery models, and their associations with many remaining historic buildings.

According to archaeological discoveries, Chinese architecture can be well traced back to the Neolithic settlements. Many foundations of palace and religious buildings from the Chinese Bronze Age have also been excavated. Yet the form of dougong is largely absent from these archaeological sites. It is in the Han dynasty that the flourishing of dougong is widely evident (as discussed in Chapter 2). Certainly, there is a gap between the absence and the flourishing of dougong, which suggests a long formative period of centuries of dougong prior to the Han period.

In examining the early form of dougong, some research has observed the emergence of dougong patterns in the bronze vessels and furniture from the Shang and Zhou dynasties. Yet these studies only briefly discuss the physical form and its association with the bracket set system in much later architecture. Chapter 1 thus revisits the topics on the origin of dougong. Through examining a number of bronze vessels, bronze furniture, and bronze structural components from early China that relate to dougong in particular and architecture in general, the research attempts to articulate a possible path of the development of the dougong bracket set during the Chinese Bronze Age.

Dougong 斗栱 and zaojing 藻井 are two important architectural elements that were constructed in the great halls of China's royal palaces, major temples, as well as in the underground tombs of social elites. The former consists of dou (block) and gong (arm) that form a structural unit as bracket set. Often in multiple forms known as chonggong 重栱 and placed on the top of columns and beams, dougong plays a critical role in holding the upper structure securely (Figure 1). The latter is a special structure sunken into the ceiling, often profusely decorated with carvings and colorful paintings in various motifs (Figures 2–4). Zaojing is translated variously as “caisson,” “cupola,” and “lantern ceiling.”

The construction of zaojing, quite often, would involve dougong as either structural units or decorative elements. Both of them would appear at the upper proportion of architecture, and they were once the symbols of social status in imperial China. Sumptuary law in the Tang dynasty (618–907), for example, codified that nobles below the royal family members could not adopt the construction treatment of zaojing and chonggong (i.e., dougong in its multiple form) in their houses. Although housing control was loosened in the Song dynasty (960–1279), zaojing and chonggong were still prestigious architectural features that were forbidden in commoners’ houses. In addition, their houses were not allowed to adopt the five-color decoration motif. In the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), sumptuary law for housing seemed to be tightened up, as it stipulated that the court officials’ houses could neither build the double-eave roof and chonggong nor the painted zaojing. The commoner's houses could not apply dougong or colored paintings.

The seamless connection between zaojing and dougong is also reflected in the famous Song construction manual Yingzao fashi 营造法式 (1103), in which zaojing has a particular term douba zaojing 斗八藻井, suggesting a dome-like zaojing supported by eight dougong units. This literary account is perfectly manifested by a relic of zaojing built in 1013 that remains in the great hall of Baoguo Temple, in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province (Figure 5).

As unique and important elements in classical Chinese architecture, dougong and zaojing have been richly studied by scholars from the West and Asia ever since the early twentieth century.