Suchergebnisse

In this paper I analyse narratives and discourses mobilised in the prime-time videos Croatian Government aired on national television channels prior to the country's EU referendum, in which citizens were to be informed on the possible advantages and disadvantages of Croatia's accession to the EU. I adopt a double focus. First, I seek to identify some of the key communicative forms utilised in those videos for purposes of achieving the electoral consent to Croatia's entrance in the EU. Second, I discuss the significance of those videos for an understanding of Croatian government's relationship with citizens, that is, for the overall democratic process in which part of sovereignty is to be transferred to the supra-national level. By deconstructing linguistic (audiovisual) dynamics within the featured videos, I identify typical discursive components across the featured videos, that is, the implicit power relation between the producer of the videos (the Government) and the addressees (citizens), as articulated in the thematic consistencies (a systematic absence of the outcomes of EU entry negotiations) and structural patterns (a 'person in the street' performs posing a question to the camera and an anonymous voice responds through denial, ridicule or diversion from the posed question) within the analysed videos. My research suggests that the videos served not as information platforms (which they were supposedly designed to be) but as Government's propaganda. Instead of balanced information on Croatia's entry to the EU, the Government aired commercially formed advertisements in which it was 'selling' the alleged benefits of accession, guaranteed by nothing else but the mere 'entry'. Instead of demonstrating the results of Croatian negotiations with the EU, the videos told stories about miraculous economic welfares achieved by some of the member states. I contextualise the videos with reference to wider debates on political communications concerning the pre-accession period in some other member states, and to the legacy of authoritarian communications of the elites with the citizens in the specific Croatian context. Adapted from the source document.

The paper gives a comparative overview of the politics of history that were characteristic for the HDZ's government in Croatia & HZDS's government in Slovakia (during the 1990s). Those politics worked to overcome the democratic deficit of the two regimes. Firstly an overview of the discipline is given, with subsequent emphasis on the importance of the comparative perspective, especially with respect to the role of the politics of history in legitimizing the political regimes of Central & Southeast European. The comparison of the Croatian & Slovakian cases is in the focus since both countries share similar history, & hence a similar structure of the national collective memory. The discourse analyses show that both regimes used very similar self-legitimating historical discourse: the myth of the thousand-year uninterrupted statehood finally accomplished in the 1990s, & the twentieth century nations' victimization by Serb/Czech hegemony, contested by the partial rehabilitation of the Croat & Slovak World War II states. Moreover, the analyses show differences originating from the different historical experience during the period of the common Hungarian rule, as well as the different experience of the Yugoslav & the Czechoslovak federation, with final differences of the role of the political actors in the two countries. The author points to a gap in the relevant research of the nexus between historical narratives & political power. Adapted from the source document.

The author's comprehensive research project, of which this article is but an introductory outline, inquires into the kind of history written out by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). In order to investigate the interrelation between criminal law & history, the author faced the following question: what would the history of the disintegration of Yugoslavia & of conflicts in its territory look like if all we had were the judgments of the Hague Tribunal? The author bases his reply on an analysis of first-instance judgments of the Trial Chamber, from which he singles out "historical facts," & rejects the reflections of the Chamber on legal & procedural issues. As a model case he uses the first ICTY judgment pronounced against Dusko Tadic (the trial started on May 7, 1996, & the judgment was pronounced a year later). Although he estimates that the first judgment was not written in an optimal way, the author deems that most preliminarily established historical facts were relevant to historiography, & that, in particular, the judgment offers a universally acceptable notion of the history of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia & of socialist Yugoslavia. He is of the opinion that the extensive documentation of ICTY (the "Hague Tribunal") will have a major influence on the work of future generations of historians. Such a unique & replete archive of historical material is increasingly available to the public & to scientists through ICTY's online database. The most recent scientific works dealing with the former Yugoslavia also make use of the Tribunal's judgments & documentation. Scientists will have to pay due attention to the narratives included therein. Adapted from the source document.

Almost seventy years ago German philosophers Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno predicted the immense influence of capitalism and commercialization on media systems and media content. Today commodification and the hunger for fun, spectacle, shock and emotions have become an intrinsic part of media offer and consumption. The central place belongs to television and the transformation of the news industry into packages of high-emotional stories, very often in sequels. Spectacle, strong emotional bond and empathetic members of audience are important elements of what media expert Brian A. Monahan calls public drama - a new hybrid form of television news. The American mainstream media transformed the terrorist attack on the USA on the 11th of September 2001 into '9/11' - a series of dramatic and emotional stories which imposed certain frames of understanding of what happened - and which were built into the cultural memory. In the first few hours after the attack the core of the 9/11 narrative was born: moral shock, a strong emotional bond with the victims of the attacks, transformation of rescuers into heroes, a feeling of love and togetherness among Americans, along with worldwide compassion. Emphasis was put on emotions, fear and a sort of spectacle of crisis, with little discussion about responsibility and critical evaluation of the reasons behind the attacks. Focus on human tragedies, fear and panic are immersed in a wider story about terrorist attacks which is a big threat to America. The power of television and its pictures to form and impose frames of understanding events is huge, along with the long-term consequences this can have on the audience, but politics as well. Adapted from the source document.

Almost seventy years ago German philosophers Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno predicted the immense influence of capitalism and commercialization on media systems and media content. Today commodification and the hunger for fun, spectacle, shock and emotions have become an intrinsic part of media offer and consumption. The central place belongs to television and the transformation of the news industry into packages of high-emotional stories, very often in sequels. Spectacle, strong emotional bond and empathetic members of audience are important elements of what media expert Brian A. Monahan calls public drama - a new hybrid form of television news. The American mainstream media transformed the terrorist attack on the USA on the 11th of September 2001 into '9/11' - a series of dramatic and emotional stories which imposed certain frames of understanding of what happened - and which were built into the cultural memory. In the first few hours after the attack the core of the 9/11 narrative was born: moral shock, a strong emotional bond with the victims of the attacks, transformation of rescuers into heroes, a feeling of love and togetherness among Americans, along with worldwide compassion. Emphasis was put on emotions, fear and a sort of spectacle of crisis, with little discussion about responsibility and critical evaluation of the reasons behind the attacks. Focus on human tragedies, fear and panic are immersed in a wider story about terrorist attacks which is a big threat to America. The power of television and its pictures to form and impose frames of understanding events is huge, along with the long-term consequences this can have on the audience, but politics as well. Adapted from the source document.