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Media Discourses of War and Politics: Perspectives from Bulgaria and Ukraine

Sat, November 22, 12:00 to 1:45pm EST (12:00 to 1:45pm EST), -

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

International tensions, war, disinformation, and the marginalization and victimization of entire populations, reveal that globalization has not translated into a more stable and peaceful world. Post-1989 Eastern has been a central site of unfolding conflict and continues to be in the media spotlight today. Through a focus on Bulgaria and Ukraine this panel interrogates the role of media in shaping public discourses about war, conflict, and political dissent. Through a variety of methods, including archival research, oral history, semi-structured interviews, trade press analysis and textual and content analysis, the panelists consider how journalism, social media, and the promotional industries play different roles in this framing. The four papers consider both the problematic aspects of the mediation of war and conflict and the potentially emancipatory use of the media. The discussion will begin with a historical analysis of the legacy of socialist media with a specific focus on Cold War era Bulgarian foreign correspondents. This analysis will be juxtaposed to the challenges faced by Central and East European international journalists today as they cover the Russia-Ukraine war with much more limited resources than their Western counterparts. The focus will then shift to social media platforms as a new space for digital political activism by looking at female Bulgarian influencers on Instagram and TikTok and examining their strategies of feminist resistance to mainstream political discourses. An analysis of the role of the promotional industries in shaping Western perceptions of global politics and the war in Ukraine will round out the discussion.

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