Original scientific paper
‘Mapping’ the ‘Other’ in Television News on International Affairs: BBC’s ‘Pre-Accession’ Coverage of EU Membership Candidate Croatia
Zlatan Krajina
; Cmrok 3, HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
This is an enquiry into the ways in which the alleged ‘reality-transmitting’
television genre, namely the news, ‘maps’ ‘other’ cultures when the need to
affirm a sense of belonging to a fragile supranational identity is provoked by a
newcomers’ knock on the door.** As the Croatian application for EU membership
awaited the current members’ decision on the possible start of the membership
negotiations, BBC television coverage brought to light the pertaining
questions of the EU’s cultural boundaries, consequently (re)activating the
classical East-West divide. In grasping the contours of such ‘mappings’, this
study performs a close reading of selected television news stories on Croatia
as cultural narratives, and deconstructs them in the light of the Balkanist discursive
tradition. The analysis suggests that despite of (or, for the benefit of)
the proclaimed credibility of the genre, the international news subject remains
reduced to its particular Balkanist ‘otherness’, preserved in a self-sustaining
visual ‘spectacle-ness’ of an EU candidate.
Keywords
international news coverage; Croatia; Balkanism; EU accession; news-mapping
Hrčak ID:
55637
URI
Publication date:
5.5.2010.
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