Keyword – postcolonialism

Jele, Ágnes:

The symbolic shifting of the borders during the Eurozone crisis: two examples from the German press

Using the conceptual set of the representational direction of postcolonial social science, we can identify some important social consequences of economic-ideological conflicts between the member states of the European Union – in the current analysis a narrower area, the Euro area – such as ethnic and regional stereotyping and economic xenophobia. This paper, using the examples of Das Bild and Der Spiegel, shows how the perception of former central bank governor Mario Draghi has changed depending on whether the president was taking the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ economic policy steps according to the two press products. Examining the topos of moral superiority and goodness appearing in the press, it presents the operation of these mechanisms based on the concepts of border and exclusion.

Keywords: border, conditional social exclusion, ECB, Euro area, German press, goodness, informal door-closing mechanisms, internal Otherness, Mario Draghi, postcolonialism, representation of otherness