Research Proposal and Passionate Politics
Research Proposal
Background information:
Since the end of September, Hong Kong student groups have been protesting against the Beijing Decision. Since then, the students had planned to protest after the online universal protest action was not taken seriously. The students from many famous universities occupied the central road of the most important financial districts and peacefully demonstrated their hope on having a real universal election.
The Student said they want their voices to be heard. Their spirit and courage have been cherished by many pro-democracies and many people thought they have seen hope in Hong Kong becoming democratic.
Apparently the central government fails to ease the angry students AND protest continues even after student-government talk recently. However, there seems to be other voices that haven't been heard from the media, especially probably have not reached the pro-democratic nations at the beginning. According to a YouTube recording, on day 2, there was one woman confronted the students, seemingly disagreeing with the student's action. Certainly this is not only one of those incidents.
Unavoidably, after a week of protest, as I have stated in the current situation, many citizens run onto the street and started the Anti-occupy actions. Elder citizens started an alliance which oppose occupy central but support universal election.
Opposing ideas exist between pro-democracies and pro-stabilities.
Research question & method:
What could students have done differently to avoid conflicts with other citizens and be more effective?
To answer this question, the paper firstly intent to look at how ineffective the protests are as well as the social and economical consequences of the protests.
Secondly, the paper is interested in how can the students do a better job motivating other citizens and do more effective protesting without occupying the central.
“Emotions are a core part of action and decisions, which we analysts ignore at our peril. Actions, whether consciously made as choices or not, come with long lists of potential risks, costs, and benefits. We need to include the emotional risks, costs, and benefits, since these guide actions and choices.”(Jasper, 18) Therefore, in order to address this question, the underlying human emotion should be an interesting approach. I would like to quote Collin Barker in Passionate politics, "the cognitive and the affectual are not distinct, and especially not opposed, spheres, but are rather inseparable aspects of each other. There are no emotions without ideas (contrary to some symbolic interactionists, e.g. Blumer 1969), and no ideas without emotions." People actually have better understanding when emotion is involved. Emotion is an inseparable part of us. The students here did show emotion, but their main emotion is anger. However, it doesn’t seem to work well. Jasper’s description of Sensuality in political actions stated: “Sensual motives such as urges privilege the immediate term over longer‐term projects, sometimes disrupting the latter, although this does not mean they are irrational.” Students feel immediate action need to taken and it shows how they protest as an urgent matter. However, this in the longer does seem to be disrupting. The actions of the students eventually pissed off some of the citizens, and it did not really motivate the other citizens to join them. This is exactly what has stated in Jasper’s piece, “Mika (2006) points out that the strong rhetoric and imagery that may shock a few into activism is likely to deter or even annoy the majority.” Although here the emotion of anger is not working effectively, it doesn’t mean their emotion is bad. Maybe another type of emotion would be better in this situation.
Therefore, my hypothesis is that emotion of “helplessness” and “sorrow” is better than anger in this case. Anger would easily make the students look like “villains” instead of victims who have indignation. However, victimization psychologically will attract more supports. “Emotions also come in combinations (Flam 2005). Anger tinged with moral shame differs from anger tinged with indignation, with different implications for action. A combination of a negative and a positive emotion operates as a moral battery driving action forward. We need to understand the rhetoric and practices organizers use to alter these combinations to foster action (Jasper 17)”. Their anger part directed actions that pissed off citizens, but if there is more “victim” and “indignation” part, it could have been more effective.
Thus, the study will design a survey with different wordings with regard to the theme of HK protest, mainly to HK students studying aboard here. One sounds really angry and the other sounds pretty victimized and rightful. After analyzing the result it is possible to test whether the hypothesis holds or not.
Background information:
Since the end of September, Hong Kong student groups have been protesting against the Beijing Decision. Since then, the students had planned to protest after the online universal protest action was not taken seriously. The students from many famous universities occupied the central road of the most important financial districts and peacefully demonstrated their hope on having a real universal election.
The Student said they want their voices to be heard. Their spirit and courage have been cherished by many pro-democracies and many people thought they have seen hope in Hong Kong becoming democratic.
Apparently the central government fails to ease the angry students AND protest continues even after student-government talk recently. However, there seems to be other voices that haven't been heard from the media, especially probably have not reached the pro-democratic nations at the beginning. According to a YouTube recording, on day 2, there was one woman confronted the students, seemingly disagreeing with the student's action. Certainly this is not only one of those incidents.
Unavoidably, after a week of protest, as I have stated in the current situation, many citizens run onto the street and started the Anti-occupy actions. Elder citizens started an alliance which oppose occupy central but support universal election.
Opposing ideas exist between pro-democracies and pro-stabilities.
Research question & method:
What could students have done differently to avoid conflicts with other citizens and be more effective?
To answer this question, the paper firstly intent to look at how ineffective the protests are as well as the social and economical consequences of the protests.
Secondly, the paper is interested in how can the students do a better job motivating other citizens and do more effective protesting without occupying the central.
“Emotions are a core part of action and decisions, which we analysts ignore at our peril. Actions, whether consciously made as choices or not, come with long lists of potential risks, costs, and benefits. We need to include the emotional risks, costs, and benefits, since these guide actions and choices.”(Jasper, 18) Therefore, in order to address this question, the underlying human emotion should be an interesting approach. I would like to quote Collin Barker in Passionate politics, "the cognitive and the affectual are not distinct, and especially not opposed, spheres, but are rather inseparable aspects of each other. There are no emotions without ideas (contrary to some symbolic interactionists, e.g. Blumer 1969), and no ideas without emotions." People actually have better understanding when emotion is involved. Emotion is an inseparable part of us. The students here did show emotion, but their main emotion is anger. However, it doesn’t seem to work well. Jasper’s description of Sensuality in political actions stated: “Sensual motives such as urges privilege the immediate term over longer‐term projects, sometimes disrupting the latter, although this does not mean they are irrational.” Students feel immediate action need to taken and it shows how they protest as an urgent matter. However, this in the longer does seem to be disrupting. The actions of the students eventually pissed off some of the citizens, and it did not really motivate the other citizens to join them. This is exactly what has stated in Jasper’s piece, “Mika (2006) points out that the strong rhetoric and imagery that may shock a few into activism is likely to deter or even annoy the majority.” Although here the emotion of anger is not working effectively, it doesn’t mean their emotion is bad. Maybe another type of emotion would be better in this situation.
Therefore, my hypothesis is that emotion of “helplessness” and “sorrow” is better than anger in this case. Anger would easily make the students look like “villains” instead of victims who have indignation. However, victimization psychologically will attract more supports. “Emotions also come in combinations (Flam 2005). Anger tinged with moral shame differs from anger tinged with indignation, with different implications for action. A combination of a negative and a positive emotion operates as a moral battery driving action forward. We need to understand the rhetoric and practices organizers use to alter these combinations to foster action (Jasper 17)”. Their anger part directed actions that pissed off citizens, but if there is more “victim” and “indignation” part, it could have been more effective.
Thus, the study will design a survey with different wordings with regard to the theme of HK protest, mainly to HK students studying aboard here. One sounds really angry and the other sounds pretty victimized and rightful. After analyzing the result it is possible to test whether the hypothesis holds or not.