Croatian Language Standardization and the Production of Nationalized Political Subjects through Language?

Author(s): Andrew Hodges,Amelia Abercrombie,Marina Balažev,James Costa,Mate Kapović,Jelena Marković,Tanja Petrović,Ivana Spasić / Language(s): English,Croatian Issue: 39/2016

This paper focuses on language policy and social changes which have taken place in Croatia during and since the 1991-5 war. I first describe the historical background, the war and the nineties being marked by excesses of linguistic purism and prescriptivism, alongside the formation of post-Yugoslav states in which national belonging was key to defining citizenship. Through examining the relationship between changing linguistic and social orders, I raise a number of issues for discussion. I argue that the legal framework of minority language rights has consolidated and legitimated a nationalist imaginary, increasing social divisions and reinforcing hierarchies asserted by some nationalists between national categories. For this reason, I suggest that the uncritical endorsement of or promotion of linguistic diversity can be dangerous. Second, in an activist-anthropological vein, I discuss possible reasons why academics trained in the social sciences and humanities have rarely participated in sociolinguistic debates concerning the new Croatian standard. I suggest such discussions could greatly benefit from interventions by social scientists, so as to bring sociolinguistics into contact with other strands of the social sciences and humanities and move away from what I believe to be a problematic policy focus on "identity".

Inscribing a New Space

Author(s): Giustina Selvelli / Language(s): English Issue: 39/2016

In this paper I consider examples of urban public inscriptions which appeared during the Gezi Park protests of Istanbul in 2013. I consider them both as a form of expression permitting the creation and circulation of utopian messages of resistance, and as relating to the inclusion of a multiplicity of identities in the protest arena, such as Kurdish, Armenian and LGBT identities. I insist on the role the written word plays in forging a specific and non-exclusivist imaginary of the protest, positioned within complex power dynamics and national narratives. I view the physical presence of specific graphic expressions referencing "marginal identities" as part of a set of revolutionary actions, which demonstrate the importance of written-in spaces and surfaces in processes of "symbolic reterritorialization". This theme emerges as one of the central questions in interpretations of events relating to the Gezi resistance.

Telewizyjny dyskurs polityczny

Author(s): Ewa Szkudlarek-Śmiechowicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 3/2016

This article describes polish political discourse on TV. The author considers four parameters of discourse’s general organization. They are: (1) profiling of discourse’s community, (2) generic conventions, which are preponderant on TV and typical in political discourse, (3) primary classes of discourse’s participants, (4) relationship: the discourse world and reality.

EVALUATION OF BLOCKING ACCESS TO TWITTER AND YOUTUBE WITH REGARD TO THE COUNTRY’S REPUTATION

Author(s): Meltem Bostanci / Language(s): English Issue: Special/2014

Reputation of states is an important issue in the international arena. Especially today, since individuals and societies also have a say regarding foreign politics, reputation of a country before the international community has become an important variable. In consideration of the Turkish foreign politics under the Justice and Development Party (AKP), it is not hard to see that actually this period has been the period when the most important steps regarding soft power and public diplomacy were taken. However, despite all these efforts, the government’s designation of rather authoritarian methods can be interpreted as concessions regarding foreign policy and the country’s reputation in the international arena for the sake of domestic politics. Primarily the pressure of the AKP government on the traditional media channels and then the pressures on the social media and the internet, which comprise the subject of this study and have recently been intensely witnessed, are among the touchstones of such authoritarianization. In this study, reflections of the Twitter and YouTube ban of the AKP government in late March 2014 on the French press have been analyzed. As is known, access to Twitter was banned on March 21, 2014 and following that, to YouTube on March 27, 2014, then access to both was restored in the following days as a result of the appeals to the courts. However, the said bans were perceived as direct intervention in personal rights and freedoms both domestically and internationally during this period, and the AKP government in particular has left deep marks with respect to Turkey’s reputation.

USAGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE PROCESS OF ELECTION CAMPAIGNS AND A VIEW TO TURKISH REPUBLIC OF NORTHERN CYPRUS GENERAL ELECTIONS – 28 JULY 2013

Author(s): Simge Kurban Özselçuk / Language(s): English Issue: Special/2014

Policy, based on control mechanism the regular living of community, reached different dimensions in today’s communication conditions. It is not possible to sever the policy from communication. This situation took yet more different turn by diversifying of means of communication. The person or institutions, are in touch with political communication, benefit from various communication methods for be able to manage the perceptions of the mass be able to do behavioral change upon own request and be able to affect the target groups. “Election Campaigns” are one of the first constituents come to mind when you say political communication. It is also important “what you tell” a “how you tell” to target group in communication. Management methods of the political communication, underwent change on several counts along with the introduction of internet technology to our lives. Policy, became digital by the system named as “Social Media”, makes possible interactive, open bilateral communication process. Being the social media faster and cheaper than traditional means of communication and using the social media densely by electorate, gain the upper hand to political parties in the executive process the election campaigns.

(Nie)topika Zagłady w NN „Opowieściach zasłyszanych”

Author(s): Katarzyna Kuczyńska-Koschany / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2016

The article is a twofold attempt: at re‑reading the category of a topos after the Shoah and at interpreting the particular record of the oral history in the context of the liminal metamorphoses the notion of the topoi – crucial in European culture and literature – has undergone. In the first part of the text, the author recapitulates the studies on the aforementioned category – from Aristoteles to the twentieth century scholars (Curtius, Lausberg, Ziomek, Abramowska, Panas); in the second part, she tries to apply it in interpretative practice.

Teorije zavjera kao urbane predaje/ /legende s paranoidnom matricom

Author(s): Suzana Marjanić / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 2/2016

Given that Croatian folklore studies, ethnology and cultural anthropology have not yet interpreted conspiracy theories, the text emphasizes the systematic work of Krešimir Mišak, a science journalist, rock musician and science fiction author, who, as a conspiracy theory theorist, deals with the issue in the cult TV show Na rubu znanosti (On the Edge of Science; Croatian Television, airing since 2002). As far as Croatian scholarly interests are concerned only Nebojša Blanuša, an assitent professor at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb has dealt with the subject in his book Teorije zavjera i hrvatska politička zbilja 1980.2007 (Conspiracy Theories and Croatian Political reality 1980-2007, published in 2011).

Practice of propaganda on Korean peninsula (1945-1960)

Author(s): Olexii Zhyvora / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2016

The topic of propaganda, which was thought to be a part of the Cold War past, was recently revived by modern and rather successful application in Georgian, Syrian and Ukrainian conflicts. In this regard Korean Peninsula is a perfect example of prolonged use of mutual practice of indoctrination to study its origins. This article discuses the evolution of propaganda use by both Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and Republic of Korea (1945-1960) in cultural, economic and political dimensions. Qualitative text analysis and case study in conjunction with theoretical framework of A. E. Cassirer, S. Langer, E. Barneys and W. Lippmann are used to establish techniques used, and to explain its overall success.

Modern literature after the 1960s in Korea

Author(s): LI Sanggum / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2016

Since the beginning of the 1990s in Korea, the category and definition of new generation literature have become the topic of heated debate. One may understand this tendency as ‘generation severance’, ‘alienation between social classes’, or the ‘consumption oriented culture of the masses’. Here, we call the literary youth born in approximately 1960 ‘the new generation’. In literature, the new generation refers to the appearance of a new culture and way of thinking. This generation passed their childhood in the 1970s and faced no such great difficulties as their parents combating poverty. However, they grew up under the indirect influence of a dark political outlook and suppression. Generally, they have a great affection for the culture produced by mass media. If we compare their development process with the literary stream in Korea, the 1960s could be defined as the era of literature for independence and strong self-awareness, the 1970s as the era for people, the 1980s as the era for the rights or emancipation of labor, and the 1990s as the era of new generation literature. Meanwhile, the appearance of the ‘Korean Wave’, or so-called ‘Hallyu’, has become one of the most beloved popular cultural phenomena both in Asia and in other countries since the late 1990s.

Katharina Ute Mann, Polonia. Eine Nationalallegorie als Erinnerungsort in der polnischen Malerei des 19. Jahrhunderts (Katharina Ute MANN, Polonia. Narodowa alegoria jako „miejsce pamięci” w malarstwie polskim XIX wieku)

Author(s): Anna Myślińska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2017

Transitions Online_Around the Bloc-UN Report Warns of Growing Clampdown in Belarus

Author(s): TOL TOL / Language(s): English Issue: 05/30/2017

After a period of going easy on dissent, the Lukashenka regime crushed nationwide protests in March.

Snowdeni skandaali kujutamine eesti meedias: hirmu ja ohtude konstrueerimine

Author(s): Mari-Liis Madisson / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 13/2016

This study concentrates on the discourse of e-Estonia, which is one of the most significant cornerstones of contemporary Estonian identity. The discourse of e-Estonia is articulated in Estonian official selfdescriptions, but it also has an important role in the self-understanding of various peripheral spheres. The aim of this article is to explain how the leakages concerning details of the top secret United States government mass surveillance program PRISM were contextualised in various dimensions of the Estonian public informational sphere and how it was related to techno-optimistic identity-discourse. The analysis indicates that the reflection of Snowden’s leaks is dominated by a discourse of fear which connects PRISM to instant threats but also to more abstract dangers. I outline three dominant subtypes of that discourse: (1) Phobophobia – the fear of fear, (2) the fear that surveillance technology may directly cause harm to a) global democracy and/or b) the human rights of individual citizens, and (3) the fear that PRISM is a sign of NWO conspiracy. PRISM’s reception demonstrates that in many aspects, the techno-utopian sphere of meaning is inverted and replaced with a dystopian one. Perceiving the significance of the social impacts of information and communication technologies remains relatively constant in both cases, but the positive charge of meaning is transformed into a negative one. For example, the important keywords of the e-success story (e.g., NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre, e-healthcare system, paper-free bureaucracy) start to signify hidden danger. The constituent topics of the discourse of e-democracy (e.g., horizontal power-relations, freedom of expression and transparent governing) are, in many cases, replaced with the images that are familiar from the description of totalitarian regimes or NWO conspiracy theories.

Članak vredniji od knjige?! Razaranje interpretativnog suvereniteta srpskog društva

Author(s): Ivan Kovačević,Miloš Milenković / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 4/2013

The article analyzes the consequences of the reductionist application of criteria typical of the natural, mainly laboratory sciences, in the process of evaluation of the results of the work of researchers and institutions in all the other scientific disciplines, mainly in the field of social sciences and humanities, in the Republic of Serbia. As an example of this trend, the analysis focuses on the absurd criteria, currently in effect, for the conducting of PhD studies in the field of social sciences and humanities, which exclude the scientific books written by lecturers and only value articles published in journals. After this, the ignorance, misapprehensions, logical fallacies and interests which might be behind these criteria are analyzed. Special attention in the analysis is given to the reduction of global to fundamental. It is concluded that the application of the criteria currently in effect leads to the loss of interpretative sovereignty, which occurs when institutions, authors, referees and editors who are highly competent experts in regional and national issues are sacrificed in favor of foreign owners, institutions, authors, referees and editors that, by and large, possess less competence and expertise in regional and national issues, and have non-scientific interests and loyalties which don’t necessarily coincide with the interests of Serbian citizens. Finally, the consequences of the ongoing ethnocidal renunciation of scientific interpretative sovereignty are considered, especially the relinquishing of interpretations of history, identity and interconnected cultural issues and social problems to nonscientific discourses in Serbian society. Discourses which inevitably fill the empty room left in the public sphere by the ever-faster extinguishing of journals and publications in Serbian and the languages of ethnic minorities.

The constitution of a ‘new politics beyond left and right’: From ideological ambiguity to populist political communication

Author(s): Blerjana Bino / Language(s): English Issue: 16/2017

This article examines the political discourse of the Albanian Socialist Party from 2005 to 2009 during which it establishment a new profile under the leadership of Edi Rama. The article is intentionally constrained in scope and time as it seeks to zoom into the interrelation between the chairman’s political discourse and the political profile of his party. More concretely, this article investigates to what extent does Rama’s core theme of a ‘new politics beyond left and right’ frame the profile of the Socialist Party of Albania (SPA) in terms of: (i) political identity; (ii) political program; and (iii) relationship to constituents. Through discourse analysis of the SPA manifesto and Rama’s speeches, the article argues that the ideological ambiguity of Rama’s political discourse for a ‘new politics beyond left and right’ gives way to a political party, which moves sometimes on the right and other times on the left, without constituting a clear political identity and thus conducting a politics of avoidance. The article concludes that the SPA suffers from the absence of a coherent political program and is losing its representative function, by pretending to be the ‘party of all citizens’. The politics of avoidance and the ideological ambiguity have led to an increase in the use of populist political communication.

Европеизация и периферизация на българската публична сфера

Author(s): Ralitsa Kovacheva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2015

Against the background of the new core-periphery divisions in the EU, while expecting them to go beyond the socioeconomic dimensions, the research interest is reasonably provoked by the question of whether and how the process of two-tier EU integration would affect the process of Europeanisation of national public spheres, in the perspective of the concept of the European public sphere. This article is focused on Bulgaria, where, as in a new member ofthe EU we could easily assume that the process of Europeanisation is in a very early phase.The article presents the findings of a comparative analysis of 2014 European elections` media coverage in the most popular newspaper websites in Bulgaria and the UK. Based on the results,it can be assumed that a process opposit to the Europeanisation is taking place – we call it the process of peripheralisation: when national public spheres do not actively participate in the European debate, due to the lack of wide and informed national public debates on European issues, so they have no discursive influence on EU debate.

Around the Bloc - Czech PM Babis Joins Opposition to UN Migration Pact

Author(s): TOL TOL / Language(s): English Issue: 11/06/2018

Centrist Czech government aligns with right-wing Central European critics of the non-binding agreement.

Transitions Online_Around the Bloc-Huaweis Central European Signal Fades

Author(s): TOL TOL / Language(s): English Issue: 02/05/2019

Governments in the region have avidly sought Chinese investment, but the telecoms giant may be too hot a property.

Uloga medija u satanizaciji srpskog naroda tokom građanskog rata u Bosni i Hercegovini

Author(s): Milovan Milutinović / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 5/2013

Politics and the media will never have a relationship which would be equally suited to both. The phenomena of negative symbiosis, which have occurred quite often in recent years, encourage the dysfunction of the political and media systems. Massive abuse of the media by political powers is present by means of blurring, hindering and even blocking of the processes of objective reporting and qualified decision-making about events. During the civil war in BH, media reports were limited; information and facts were censored; the truth of events was produced, blurred or hidden through manipulation and disinformation; which prevented and/or completely limited the freedom of information and expression of truthful information. Powerful circles blocked the channels for the flow of information which came from the Serbian side, while many journalists employed by the western agencies were acting contrary to the journalistic code of practice, partially reporting on events and thus choosing a side in the BH conflict, while the Serbian side was slurred and constantly and uniformly satanised in the international public.

Национални и политички идентитет у контексту медијске одговорности

Author(s): Đorđe Vuković,Aleksandar Vranješ / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 1/2011

The crisis of identity is the underlying hallmark of the contemporary era. It is not confined to the question of the individual but also applies to a more politically serious problem. After the breakup of Yugoslavia and the interethnic and civil war, the newly established political entities were faced with ongoing and parallel processes of reverting to the form of collective identity as well as the formulating new facets of national and political identities. These aspects denote an intentionally conceived selfdetermination in the face of impending challenges. In this paper, emphasis is placed on the role of mass media in terms of identifycation and self-identification of people, social groups, political communities, and the promotion of political values and goals as well as the encouragement of behavioral patterns concerning mediated political initiateves

Transitions Online_News-Around the Bloc - 10 June

Author(s): TOL TOL / Language(s): English Issue: 06/11/2019

The important, interesting, or just downright quirky news from TOL’s coverage region. Today: Moldova on the brink; Austro-Hungarian memories; mandatory religion classes in Azerbaijan; protests greet Kazakh election; and Chernobyl, part 2.