Transitions Online_Around the Bloc-17 March
Today’s regional roundup: U.S. threatens Kosovo aid cutoff; Crimea, six years on; human rights in Moldova; bloggers in Uzbekistan; and Russian hackers.
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Today’s regional roundup: U.S. threatens Kosovo aid cutoff; Crimea, six years on; human rights in Moldova; bloggers in Uzbekistan; and Russian hackers.
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Deconstructionism teaches us, that power lies within language, or rather that power decides,what language is supposed to mean. The old question asked in Alice in Wonderland: „Who decides, what words mean?“ builds up to the discrepancy in any language between the individual speaker’s intention and his or her position in the political power hierarchy. In recent decades calls for a more humane language have arisen, giving birth to movements of political correctness in the Western hemisphere, making it an issue of globalisation being fairly paired with left-wing ideology, making everyday conversation a subject of critique, calling for normative changes in language and ultimately facing the same question everywhere: Does it in fact help? This paper will shed light on the empirical linguistic knowledge we possess on the connection between form and content, going back to De Saussure and following the discourse of language and power in an historical manner, thus taking a hard look at the theoretical background of the dynamics of power and language, building a chronology of deconstructivist theorists like Derrida, Foucault, Bourdieu, and Barthes. These theories will be paralleled with the so-called linguistic turn from its beginning to the nowadays so popular Neo-Whorfian approach. Finally the deconstructivist method will be put in contrast to what we know about the connection between language on action following John Austin, circling back to the postmodern discursive approach known in everyday life: The language policing of everyday conversations by individual speakers,representing the deconstructivist movement, comparing it to the empirical data about language and culture, the named and the unnamed, empowerment and the mechanics of language shifting that were subject to studies already more than a hundred years ago, focusing on the shift of meaning and tabooing of vocabulary, dissecting what critics of political correctness call the „euphemism treadmill“, building up to the effects of political correctness we have come to experience so far. The goal is to finally answer the question, whether language policing and the growing public attention to the use of language do have an egalitarian effect on reality.
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This study explores the discourse of Trump as a businessman and as a president regarding the topic of immigration. Data for this research were gathered from four speeches and four interviews delivered by Trump in the eighties-nineties and four speeches and four interviews after being elected president. The analysis focuses on the way Trump represents US (ingroup) versus THEM (outgroup) at the local semantic level through the use of pronouns and implicatures and, at the local form through the use of syntax, that is, the formal relationship between clauses and sentences. In particular, I want to shed light on the following research questions: (1) How does Donald Trump represent the topic of immigration as a businessman? (2) How does Donald Trump represent the topic of immigration as a president? On the basis of the results of this research, it can be concluded that the period in which the discourse was uttered seems to have a strong bearing on the discursive strategies employed by Trump. It should be also pointed out that nowadays, the linguistic analysis of Trump’s discourses area touchstone issue in political and social affairs. This paper contributes to this volume offering insights regarding the analysis of political discourse. More specifically, research on political discourse is considered as a branch within social science.
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Growing overall interest in visual sources both from social sciences and humanities has resulted also in research on cartoons across a range of fields including art history, communication science, history and others. In recent years several aspects of Latvian press cartoons have been studied. The aim of the article is to outline the potential of the political cartoon as a historical source using the examples of several cartoons from periodicals dating from the democratic period (1918-1934) of the Republic of Latvia. During the democratic period there were not only different satirical magazines but also daily newspapers that contained published cartoons, and even well-known Latvian artists worked as cartoonists―among them Rihards Zariņš, Jānis Roberts Tillbergs, Romans Suta, Aleksandra Beļcova and others. A Significant number of the cartoons in periodicals―dealing with both domestic and international politics―offer material for further discussions on the use of cartoons as well as the role of the cartoonist and the newspaper in political communication.
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The paper analyses metaphorical linguistic expressions and their corresponding cognitive structures in online debates on the European Migrant Crisis. It provides an overview of the variety of mechanisms we use to talk and think about an important socio-political issue such as migration. The aim is to reveal the ideological background of metaphors identified in online migration debates in Bosnian / Croatian / Serbian languages.
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Problem setting. The formation of the rule of law state and civil society in Ukraine is largely conditioned by the state of political culture, which emerges as an important component of the socio-cultural image of the nation and at the same time as a structural element of the political system of the state, which determines the nature of the interaction between the state and citizens, the state and institutions of democracy.Recent research and publications analysis. The study of political culture belongs to the sphere of scientific interests of Ukrainian and foreign scientists. Problems of studying political culture were addressed by such Ukrainian scientists as V. Bebyk, M. Golovaty, L. Gorodenko, M. Dmytrenko, L. Nagorna, V Rebkalo, N. Repina, O. Rudakevich, O. Stehnii, M. Trebin, B. Tsymbalistyi and others. Important contributions to the theoretical development ofpolitical culture ideas have also been made by foreign scholars, including G. Almond, R. Jackman, L. Dittmer, R. Ellis, D. Fuchs, R. Lane, J. Lorenz, I. Lustick, S. Maerz, R. Miller, W. Mishler, M. Neumann, L. Pye, W. Rosenbaum, C. Schneider, R. Tucker, S. Verba, et al.Paper objective. The purpose of the article is to study the nature and structure of political culture, to consider the features of its typology.Paper main body. The concept of «political culture» as a subjective dimension of politics was introduced in to scientific circulation only in the XVIII century by German philosopher J. Herder and until the middle of the twentieth century it was view ed rather at the level of world-view universalism rather than in its specific form sand manifestations. Through the efforts of G. Almond, S. Verba, L. Pye, D. Kavanagh, and other researchers, the theoretical foundations for considering political culture were developed.In the future, three major theoretical and methodological approaches to defining the essence of political culture have emerged in political science. The first of these, including the time of its appearance, is an orientation approach that, by its very nature, reduces political culture to the sphere of political consciousness (G. Almond, S. Verba, L. Pye, J. Powell, etc.). But it should be noted that representatives of the orientation approach to the consideration of political culture leave out of its content elements o fpolitical behavior that have been the subject of special analysis in the writings of a number of scholars (R. Tucker, E. Wind, D. Paul, etc.), who believe that along with the «samples» of political consciousness, political samples must necessarily include «samples» of political behavior. The third theoretical and methodological approach to the analysis of political culture is reflected in the works of such foreign scholars as I. Shapiro, P. Sharan, and others. In these works, political culture is interpreted as a way, style of political activity, as a system of behavioral values, peculiar «spiritual codes» of the behavior of individuals in the political sphere, which testify to the degree of free assimilation of the generally accepted norms and traditions of public life, to the combination in their daily activities of standard and creative techniques for the exercise of their rights and responsibilities. It should be noted that today the concept of political culture is increasingly enriched by the meanings derived from «culture» as a supernatural reality, which expresses the integrity of life manifestations of society. As a result, political culture acts as a political dimension of the cultural environment, as a characteristic of the consciousness and behavior of individuals and social groups, as an indicator of civilizational development. In this regard, political culture can be interpreted as part of a general culture and inheritance, including a historically formed set of political knowledge, values, behavior patterns of a social subject (individual, social group, society as a whole) and their implementation in a particular system political relations and political activity. Such an understanding of political culture allows us to distinguish it, according to N. Semke, into three main components: 1) regulatory element (political experience), 2) the value element (political consciousness), 3) behavioral element (models of political behavior). Theoretical and methodological analysis of political culture requires consideration of the typology of this phenomenon. The most popular and scientific application was the classification of political cultures, proposed by G. Almond and S. Verba. The criterion for the typology of political cultures was the level of «frequency of different types of cognitive, emotional and evaluative orientations to the political system». On this basis, pure types of political cultures were distinguished: patriarchal, subordinate and participatory.Conclusions of the research. Political culture characterizes the degree and quality of political consciousness and political participation of people in solving state and public affairs, as well as ideological worldview aspects of the spiritual life of society in a specific historical period of its development and existence.
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Problem setting. The interdependence of quarantine facilities and the economic crisis makes the coronavirus epidemic an extraordinary social experiment, not only political and economic but mainly sociocultural value transformations are manifested. There is no doubt that restriction of movement, stopping of business activity and control over citizens is perceived differently by the population of different countries and depends on whether people trust the information being provided or their basic needs met. If all these components are not satisfied, the population ignores the restrictions, does not accept the instructions, increases social conflicts, increases the cost of necessities, rumors, looting, corruption and more.Recent research and publications analysis. The issue of trust in power is quite popular among scholars. The problem of trust in power at different times was the object of research of a galaxy of famous foreign scientists, including R. Aron, M. Weber, D. Gibson, R. Dahl, D. Easton, H. Lasswell, S. Lipset, V. Mishler, R. Putnam, B. Russell, F. Fukuyama and others. Recently, the problem of citizens ’ trust in power was addressed by domestic researchers V. Akhkasov, S. Beloshitsky, E. Golovakha, M. Golovin, S. Yeliseyev,D. Dzvinchuk, V. Ignatov, Y. Kovbasyuk, A. Kovaleva, V. Kremen, O. Kruty, S. Lantsova, V. Ledyayev, V. Maltsev, I. Martyniuk, S. Naumov, V Nechiporenko, N. Panina, O. Radchenko, V. Sychev, V. Khalipov, A. Khokhlov, etc., which considered issues of trust in the government in the context of its legitimacy, the development of the institute for democracy and social protection, the emergence of civil society.Paper objective. The purpose of this article is to identify the components of trust in public authority as factors that ensure social stability during disasters.Paper main body. The main components of trust in public authority in the face of a threat or crisis, based on the rational and emotional interaction of the subject and the subject of power relations and cooperation within formal and informal civil society institutions. We have included the following components: provision of urgent needs (meeting the need for security), responsibility for risky decisions, situation control, transparency of information, providing guarantees for future development.Provision of urgent needs. It should be noted that trust in government provides the population with a basic level of security or social guarantees. This need is especially exacerbated during disasters. Yes, most governments in the world have allocated considerable sums from their budgets to provide their citizens with special conditions for quarantine.Liability for risk in situations of uncertainty. Because trust refers to the future actions of others, it hides the uncertainty and risk that are its characteristic features.Ability to control the actions of a trusted entity. In close connection with risk perception, one of the signs of trust is the aspect of objective loss of control.Providing up-to-date truthful information. The problem is that the excess of information (the phenomenon of information wealth) has generated such a phenomenon as information noise - a chaotic mixture of true and false information from so-called fake sources and the consumer ceases to filter information, as a result why the population loses the ability to accurately understand the current socio-political and economic processes, adequately respond to them, and make the right decisions.Conclusions of the research. Trust in authorities in periods of uncertainty is associated with the expectation of fateful decisions. At the same time, the effectiveness of actions, which include minimizing the effects of the viral epidemic and the economic crisis, creating conditions for transparency and openness of the functioning of public authorities, enabling citizens not to lose business activity, prevent criminalization, fight against corruption, support the protection of the vulnerable, protect the vulnerable employees involved in work in risk situations (doctors, police, etc.) will increase the level of trust in political institutions as subjects of implementation her public interest.
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Review of: Lu Seegers: „Vati blieb im Krieg“. Vaterlosigkeit als generationelle Erfahrung im 20. Jahrhundert – Deutschland und Polen. Wallstein. Göttingen 2013. 610 S. ISBN 978-3-8353-1251-7. (€ 49,90.). Reviewed by Maren Röger.
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During the Polish-German war in September 1939 about 4000-5000 Volksdeutsche were killed by Poles in anti-German riots. These events, which in some cases were a reaction to engagements between Polish troops and German subversives, suited German propaganda well: Newspaper articles about the incidents accused the Poles and their government of atrocities against the German minority and claimed that the killings aimed at the extinction of the whole German population in Poland. Therefore the numbers of victims was declared to amount to 58 000 in February 1940. The “September crimes” were used to intensify the negative image of the Poles. Newspaper articles about the alleged Polish atrocities were designed to justify the German occupation and the German reprisals against the Polish civilian population. In the context of propaganda, court trials played a central role. German special courts were set up in the occupied territories right after the Wehrmacht had invaded Poland. Their most important duty in 1939-40 was to penalize the alleged murder of Volksdeutsche by Poles. Because court proceedings followed a formal “legal corset”, they were assigned a high degree of credibility and were seen as objective. It was their purpose to prove the incidents and to punish the perpetrators. Moreover, the courts were asked to verify that the “mass murder” of Volksdeutsche was ordered by the Polish government and military and that “the whole Polish people were guilty” of this. With these conclusions the courts confirmed the propaganda tale. Therefore, especially in the annexed Polish territories, but also in the Reich, newspapers reported constantly about the trials. The account of the Polish crimes took up most of the space in these articles, but they also told the reader that the proceedings were held according to the law and thus emphasized the supposed objectivity of the trials. The public of the proceedings and their depiction in the newspapers enabled the courts to fulfil their core task: to legitimate the occupation and the anti-Polish measures.
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A research of proper nouns in language focuses on analysis of their persuasive function in journalism. The results are part of the dissertation project on the manifestations of political ideology of 1960´s socialism in language. The aim of the study is to point out, through names of institutions, political documents and anthroponyms, the way of enforcing a power of the Communist Party in society. Analyses based on political party press material reflect not only the built of party authorities, but especially the interconnection between history, language and the media. In the study there is a consideration between historical context of the era and its linguistic representation in the chosen sphere of language. As a result of the research of the power components in order to bring their ideological and authoritarian character closer, the text contributes to the critical analysis of political and ideological discourse of the 1960s in Slovakia.
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The aim of this study is to understand and explain how the US instrumentalizes and perceives cinema for its own hegemonic policies. Our work is a qualitative one and is based around two Hollywood films. In this context, interviews and focus group interviews were conducted with Turkish and foreign, Muslim and Christian students and their opinions about two Hollywood productions were analyzed and the data obtained were analyzed within the framework of descriptive analysis and thematic analysis methods. The data obtained from the students participating in the study give an idea of how educated young people evaluate, perceive and use the relationship between cinema films and the global hegemony of the USA. In this sense, the results of our study is about the use of cinemanion in the presentation of the United States and how the situation is perceived and understood by young people from different regions, countries, religions and ethnicities.
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Dieser Beitrag richtet seinen Blick auf den Gebrauch von Plakaten in den Wahlkämpfen während Lettlands parlamentarischer Ära von 1920 bis 1934. In diesen Jahren bildeten sich politische und wirtschaftliche Prozesse und Verhaltensmuster aus, es etablierten sich die politischen Institutionen, die für die staatliche Entwicklung verantwortlich waren, und Lettland durchlebte einen Lernprozess hinsichtlich der öffentlichen Teilhabe am politischen Geschehen; all dies hatte Auswirkungen auf die Gesamtentwicklung der Lettischen Republik. Besondere Aufmerksamkeit wird Plakaten als Bestandteil von Wahlkämpfen gewidmet, wobei die Frage nach der Verwendung unterschiedlicher Ausdrucksformen von Gewalt im Mittelpunkt steht – der bildlichen Darstellung auf Plakaten sowie den praktischen Ausdrucksformen auf den Straßen als Überzeugungsmittel im Wahlkampf. Das Hauptinteresse gilt der visuellen Bildsprache der politischen Parteien und der Rolle der dafür verwendeten unterschiedlichen Gewaltsymbole. Folgende Symbole für Gewalt fanden sich auf den Wahlplakaten wieder: verschiedene Arten von Waffen (Schusswaffen, Messer, Äxte, Knüppel), tote Menschen, Blut, Schießereien sowie Kampfszenen. Eine der Besonderheiten im Gebrauch dieser Symbole bestand darin, dass sie sowohl positiv als auch negativ konnotiert waren, immer abhängig davon, welche Botschaft der dazugehörigen Partei das jeweilige Poster vermitteln sollte. Im Zusammenhang mit den unterschiedlichen Darstellungen von Gewalt wird den kommunistischen Plakaten in Lettland besondere Aufmerksamkeit gewidmet, da sie, verglichen mit den übrigen Wahlplakaten in dem berücksichtigten Zeitraum, am eindrucksvollsten und aggressivsten erscheinen. Der Beitrag untersucht außerdem, wie die anderen Parteien auf die Plakate der Kommunisten reagierten; zumeist wurde anhand dieser Plakate ein Negativbild der Kommunisten gezeichnet. Zu einem wichtigen Bestandteil der Wahlkämpfe wurden Straßenschlachten, die als eher harmlose Rivalitäten zwischen politischen Kontrahenten ihren Anfang nahmen und dann zu Konflikten ausarteten, die mitunter Todesopfer forderten.
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The American Revolution as reported in Polish journalism between 1788 and 1792 shows the coherence of 18th Century-Poland with the European Enlightenment and the May Constitution’s objective to display Poland’s independence. Furthermore, it provides a good example of the evolutionary understanding of the constitution as the result of interaction between the wording, the social context, political practice and scholarly interpretation. Unlike the American and the French Constitutions, the Polish Constitution of May 3rd, 1791, was not intended to legitimise a new type of post-Revolutionary governance. Rather, more in the tradition of the old pre-Revolutionary System, the preamble can be read as covenant between the nation and the King. The “nation”, however, was not the sovereign people, but the noble estates as representatives of the nation. Nevertheless, the 1791 Constitution shows impressively progressive aspects. It established the political as well as the legal accountability of ministers, uniting constitutionalism and parliamentarism. The legatees from the provincial councils, assembling in the legislative Chamber of Representatives, had a free mandate. Unlike the American Senate, the Polish Senate, as the second legislative chamber, consisting mainly of magnates, only had a suspensive veto. Both chambers decided by majority vote. Furthermore, the above-mentioned Polish Constitution is the only constitution of that period stipulating expressly its preeminence over ordinary law. Even in American constitutional law, the preeminence of the constitution was only developed as judge-made law, in order to legitimise the revolution as legal resistance against “unconstitutional” acts of the British Parliament. During the Great Sejm the conservative-reactionary Old-Republicans as well as the reformist Patriots used the Polish journals to promote their positions. The patriotic journals and other newspapers published several articles describing the allegedly classless American society as a model for Poland, emphasizing personal abilities as being more important than noble ancestry. Other essays highlighted the dependency between economic prosperity and political freedom in the United States. In the regular reports about the American political system and economic situation, the American president was a central feature. For the Patriots and the King, who considered a hereditary monarchy to be necessary to strengthen the Polish executive against the neighbouring despotic monarchies, the American President was only a surrogate for a monarchical executive. For the OldRepublicans, who favoured the elective monarchy of the old nobles’ republic, American Federalism would best be copied with the Polish system of a nobles’ republic and an elective monarchy. In the end, the reformers prevailed. During the festivities for the introduction of the new constitution, Washington and Franklin were celebrated as heroes. Thomas Jefferson praised the Polish Constitution as being equally as outstanding as the American. Even the brevity of the reformers’ success-story which ended with the partitions of Poland, does nothing to detract from the estimation that the reception of the American Constitution in Polish journalism is a typical example for communication of governance in the constitutional process.
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Dilsel kurgulama ve tasarım, düşünmeyi biçimlendirir. Her türlü düşünce anlatımı, özünde dilin düzenlenmesiyle, bir başka deyişle, kurgulanmasıyla olanaklıdır. Bütün dünyada özellikle seçim dönemlerinde dil, politik amaçlar için, giderek artan ölçüde propaganda aracına dönüştürülmektedir. Dil ile her şey yapılabilir; çünkü dil, öz-yapısı gereği, kurgulamaya, sözcüklerin anlamlarını ters yüz etmeye elverişlidir. Bu bakımdan, dil, bireysel bilinci bulandırmak ve tek-tipleştirmek için de kullanılabilir.
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The orthodox theory of value is one of the dogmas of the justificationregime of capitalism. Yet this theory suffers from many ills. Consequently, it isadvisable to try, in the wake of A. Orléan and F. Perroux, to think of a new theory ofvalue. The work presented here is part of a broader research that we presented in thissame journal four years ago. It aims at inserting the understanding of value into the normative framework of democratic society. Drawing on the methodologicalachievements of contemporary sociology, it proposes to go beyond the Habermasiantheory of deliberation by drawing on work in information and communicationsciences. This interdisciplinary approach makes it possible to go beyond theclassical opposition between subjectivism and holism: values are intersubjective:they are the fruit of deliberation, i.e. contradictory and sensitive communication.Values are the ends, desirable and continuously debated, that a democratic societygives itself in the course of its evolution. Economic value is only one of its desirableand debated ends.
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Georgia has been particularly affected by Russian information operations, especially in light of its troubled political relations with Moscow and the country’s generally unabated pro-western course. Over the last few years, large numbers of Kremlin-funded and domestic news websites and social media pages have carried out a massive information offensive against the country, undermining societal trust towards the West, public institutions and civil society organisations. They have been particularly active in the electoral periods, campaigning extensively against liberal values and liberal-minded politicians.
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The article analyses contexts in which the category of hope appears in the texts of Mikhail Gorbachev’s speeches and writings. His main programmatic texts and political manifestoes, in which the creator of the perestroika policy explained and justified its main assumptions, have been taken into account. Although “hope” does not belong among words with which Gorbachev’s reader is confronted on every page his writings, considered against the background of the Soviet authorities’ discourse, the last leader of the USSR uses this term in an extraordinary, courageous manner, testifying to a qualitative change in the way of the formulation of political messages in the Soviet Union.
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Political parties and candidates set off with the promise of a better future for the society and in the political advertisements, they try to convey what they will do when they come to power or what they did when they were in power, positive and negative aspects of the current situation. They achieve this by means of a discourse, which they use to convince them according to their objectives by accessing to the emotions and opinions of their target audience. In politics, language is a significant tool in terms of providing communication between the rulers and the ruled. This language is not only based on verbal means. The aim of this study is to explain the language of politics linguistically. This study also aims to explain the society and social environment in which the leaders use the jargon and texts. With this study, the posters used by the leaders in the June 24, 2018 Presidential elections were analyzed by considering both visual and linguistic indicators, operant, pragmatic and semantic planes and cultural indicators. The findings obtained in the study are that the effective use of visual messages used in political advertisements and linguistic messages reinforces the persuasiveness of the advertisement.
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The mediatisation of politics and social life, as well as the resulting celebratization of politics, are the processes observed by the author in the media reality with particular attention paid to those phenomena analyzed through the prism of political communication. Political celebrities complement the phenomenon of stars from the well known popular culture and nowadays the most of people live constantly connected to social media services, which is why the post-modern culture can be a propitious time of such phenomena. Bearing in mind the influence of the political system and its relation with the dependencies of communication, observed public sphere is a space for exchanging opinions, discussions on topics relevant to the society, in result of which we can talk about public opinion. The discourse and the media content with its affection on society are extremely important when it comes to the participation in the public debate.
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The article will present the analysis of direct meetings of politicians of the Polish Socialist Party in Częstochowa within the framework of „Żywa Gazetka”. A model of H. Laswell's persuasive act was used for the analysis. The analysis is to provide answers to the question to what extent the applied formula of meetings brought measurable benefits to the party, thus proving the legitimacy of adopting such a strategy of building a political image.
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