Keyword – discourse

Torbó, Annamária:

Representational Politics and Discourses on Racial Minorities in Contemporary Popculture

Discourses on the representation of different minorities are a daily part of contemporary social debates. In recent years, a number of articles in the online press have dealt with the practice of changing some traits of the main characters in adaptations or sequels of pop-cultural stories. Most of these modifications have to do with skin colour, which provides an opportunity for a more varied and pronounced representation of racial and ethnic minorities than before. This paper presents the representational politics associated with the Netflix series Bridgerton on the basis of a discourse analysis on relevant articles in the Hungarian online media. It reveals the different ways of speaking such as the defence of historical fidelity or the legitimisation of alternative histories. It also shows how pop-cultural works like Bridgerton may be linked to broader social phenomena such as political correctness or racism that dominate contemporary public discourse.

Keywords: discourse, inclusive casting, people of colour, popular culture, representation

Zakinszky Toma, Viktória:

“According to press information.”

Migration from the Middle East, North Africa and Asia and the migration crisis got into the focus of media reporting in Central and South-East Europe after the spring of 2015 when the largest wave of migrants arrived into the region, and the topic of migration has remained a major issue in the media all around Europe until to date. It has been more or less intense, politicised, biased, over-simplified or overtly full of disinformation. In most cases, this is explained by pure ignorance, but a deliberate use of lies can also be detected. Sometimes journalists/reporters were unfamiliar with the correct terms and phrases, while sometimes there were no appropriate definitions. Using a comparative method, this paper offers a discourse analysis of Hungarian and Serbian national and regional media. These two countries are both on the ‘West-Balkan route,’ both are transit countries, not destination for migrants. However, they are in different political positions: Hungary being an EU member state, and Serbia wishing to become one. The focus of this research is on the comparative analysis of media discourses between 2016 and 2019 in Hungary and Serbia.

Keywords: asylum seekers, content analysis, crisis, discourse, Hungary, media, migrants, refugees, Serbia, Vojvodina