European Capitals of Culture. Visual Standardization Through Generic Images

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2 (40)) ◽  
pp. 133-148
Author(s):  
Cosmin MARINESCU
Keyword(s):  
Visual Communication ◽  
Global City ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Cultural Space ◽  
Multimodal Analysis ◽  
Two Cities ◽  
International Character ◽  
The Eu

Cities representing European Capitals of Culture (ECCs) are chosen to promote the diversity and multiculturalism of a global city. But this multicultural and international character comes with the price of standardization, a concept enhanced by the EU through the idea of togeth- erness, and individuals belonging to the same cultural space. Therefore, the visual communication of those cities can be more homogenized, less descriptive and without particularities related to a culture of a specific geo- graphic area. Following Jewitt, Bezemer and O`Halloran (2016), this paper aims to employ a multimodal analysis of images used by the local authori- ties of Plovdiv and Matera (European Capitals of Culture in 2019) on their websites. Therefore, it aims to demonstrate how these two cities communi- cate use generic images, focusing on what Machin and van Leeuwen (2007) identify as characteristics of global images, namely timelessness, low mo- dality, decontextualization and also relying on generic attributes, models and settings. As a result, images become more symbolical and conceptual, causing national identities to diminish in the viewers’ eyes, making cities seem familiar, thus enriching the togetherness of globalization.

Sincere Cooperation and Respect for National Identities

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Guastaferro
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
National Identities ◽  
The Other ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
The Third ◽  
Vertical Division ◽  
The One ◽  
The Eu

Article 4 of the Treaty on the European Union is a core provision to understand the ‘federal’ nature of the European Union. It is composed of three paragraphs, any of which tries to strike a balance between the constitutive units of the composite legal order, namely the EU, on the one hand, and the Member States, on the other. The first paragraph enshrines the so-called ‘principle of presumed Member States competences’, according to which competences not conferred upon the EU remain to the Member States. The second paragraph requires the EU to respect Member States’ national identities, inherent in their fundamental political and constitutional structures. The third paragraph enshrines the principle of sincere cooperation. In this respect, all the paragraphs express a sort of ‘federal concern’. Article 4(1) TEU is devoted to the vertical division of competences and strengthens the respect of the principle of conferral, Article 4(2) TEU is devoted to the identities of the Member States of the EU thus protecting diversities in the composite legal order, and Article 4(3) TEU is devoted to loyalty, which, like in many federal or compound legal orders, should inform the cooperation among levels of government.

Conditional support for territorial migrations in Serbian national discourse

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jelena Petrovic
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Ethnic Discrimination ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Eu Integration ◽  
Online Comments ◽  
The Eu

Abstract After more than a decade of Serbia’s investment in the EU integration, its citizens are still imagining their national identities from the externally assigned position of ‘flawed’ Europeans. To respond to this subject position in the context of ongoing migration trends in Europe, these individuals engage in identity politics that both celebrate elements of otherness, and also locate them in the country’s own internal and Eastern Others. This study uses critical discourse analysis to examine the ideological effects of these negotiations in response to the 2010/2011 asylum-seeking crisis, when a number of Serbian citizens applied for asylum in several EU countries, which defined this as an abuse of Schengen system. The analysis of more than 1,000 online comments shows that newsreaders offer conditional support for asylum seekers to (re)inscribe preferred social hierarchies. Represented simultaneously as suffering citizens and immoral internal other, asylum seekers serve as the strategic means by which ethnic discrimination becomes an invisible element of everyday nationalism.

Remembrance tourism in former multicultural Galicia: The revival of the Polish–Ukrainian borderlands

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 206-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Delphine Bechtel
Keyword(s):  
Family History ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Ethnic Cleansing ◽  
Community Activists ◽  
The Family ◽  
Travel Agencies ◽  
Western Ukraine ◽  
Regional Authorities ◽  
The Eu

The historical region of Galicia was appropriated successively by the Habsburg Imperium, Independent Poland, the USSR, Hitler Germany, and Communist Poland and the USSR. It is presently divided in to two by the border between Poland and Ukraine, the EU and the belt of post-Soviet states. Its multicultural past has been eradicated through genocide, ethnic cleansing, and deportations by Hitler and Stalin as well as various interethnic conflicts between Polish and Ukrainian nationalists. From 1989 on, pilgrims, survivors, root tourists, and also religious, political, and community activists have started to rediscover it. Poles, Ukrainians, Jews, as well as Russian and Western travelers cross the borders to remember their childhood places, the locus of their deportation or survival, or the cradle of the family history, or just a province lost. Their expectations are partly met, or sometimes ignored, by municipal and regional authorities, travel agencies, private businesses, and locals, who all contribute to form a network of touristic infrastructures. The memory of WW2 and of the subsequent deportations looms large in the personal agendas of tourists and community activists. However, Poland and Ukraine envision local, historical, and identity tourism in the region variously. While Western Ukraine tries to convey a strongly nationalistic and monoethnic image of the region, Poland, under the influence of EU guidelines and subsidies, has opened to a more multicultural and postmodern concept. Transnational tourism across the border participates in the reassertion of conflicting national identities.

scholarly journals European and National Identities in the Context of Neofunctionalism and “Imagined Communities” Theories

2021 ◽  
Vol 102 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-98
Author(s):  
Elena Viktorova ◽  
◽  
Daria Petrenko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Statistical Data ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Imagined Communities ◽  
European Identity ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
The Eu

The article contains an analysis of the state of European and national identities of modern Europeans. The notion of identities is multi-dimensional and includes many elements. In the scientific discourse the process of the European identity formation is increasingly being considered as a part of the European integration process. Currently the elements of European identity are seen by Europeans as elements of their national, local and other identities. The examples of the Netherlands and Belgium considered in the article confirm this statement. Some researchers believe that the European identity is artificially constructed by political elites. These principles are defined in more details in the theories of neo-functionalism by Deutsch and Haas and the "Imagined Communities" by Anderson. The article considers both theories, as well as examples confirming these ideas. The main methods used in the study were the analysis of scientific literature and European legislation concerning the formation of European identity, and the analysis of statistical data from the Eurobarometer and the European Social Survey in 2016 and 2018. The results of the research confirm the fact that for most Europeans national identity is primary, however they also identify themselves as Europeans. In addition, residents of the EU countries sense a higher level of European identity than the residents of countries outside the EU. The lowest level of European identity is observed among citizens of Russia and Serbia. The results of the research contribute to an evaluation of the success of the political project for the European identity formation.

Two Countries in Crisis: Economic Inequality in the EU and Disidentification With Europe in Spain and Greece

2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (6) ◽  
pp. 888-906 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katerina Petkanopoulou ◽  
Ángel Sánchez-Rodríguez ◽  
Guillermo B. Willis ◽  
Xenia Chryssochoou ◽  
Rosa Rodríguez-Bailón
Keyword(s):  
Economic Inequality ◽  
Economic Recession ◽  
National Identities ◽  
European Identity ◽  
The European Union ◽  
National Sovereignty ◽  
Subjective Socioeconomic Status ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Fundamental Values ◽  
The Eu

European identity is currently facing important challenges. From the beginning, European identity has been related to the national identities of Member States with different economic strengths. The recent economic recession made these disparities salient across countries. In this research conducted in two countries with relative low status in the European Union (EU), we explored whether the perceived disparities in wealth between the countries of the EU—perceived economic inequality—predicted disidentification with Europe. We also examined the mediators of this relationship. Study 1, conducted in Spain, revealed that perceived economic inequality positively predicted disidentification with Europe; importantly, this effect remained when controlling for individuals’ subjective socioeconomic status and the perceived status of the country. The experience of fear of economic inequality in the EU mediated this relationship. The results of Study 1 were replicated comparing a Spanish sample (Study 2a) and a Greek sample (Study 2b). These studies delved deeper into the specific appraisals of fear that mediate the relationship between economic inequality and disidentification with Europe. Four categories of fear appraisals obtained in a preliminary qualitative study were measured as potential mediators: losing national sovereignty, worsening of living conditions, being negatively stereotyped, and Europe losing fundamental values. The relationship between economic inequality in the EU and disidentification with Europe was mediated by fear of losing national sovereignty and fear of Europe losing fundamental values.

scholarly journals Untitled

2006 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 36-41
Author(s):  
Ana Maria Anghelea
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Maastricht Treaty ◽  
National Identities ◽  
European Identity ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Potential Threat ◽  
Member States ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Eu

When at the end of the 1980s the EU launched a number of policies aimed to creating a European identity, the member states responded by incorporating into the Maastricht Treaty a clause stating that the European Union should respect the member states’ respective national identities (article F, point1). This reaction, along with the introduction of principle of subsidiary and the rejection of the word “federal”, revealed that many member states considered the creation of a European identity as a potential threat to their own national identities and their citizen’s national loyalties (Hojelid, 2001).

scholarly journals Europeanness: A Path To Unity Within The European Union

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-61
Author(s):  
Ryszard Piasecki ◽  
Jan Woroniecki
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
European Integration ◽  
National Identities ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The West ◽  
European Institutions ◽  
European Values ◽  
European Education ◽  
Proactive Measures ◽  
The Eu

The postwar experience has shown that the implanting of European consciousness, or Europeanness, calls for coordinated efforts among the European institutions, national states, and NGOs. Such consciousness, a key pillar of the European integration, is necessary for the EU to effectively function and motivate member states’ – also the EU’s – citizens. And yet European institutions and EU governments show little interest in promoting the formation of this European consciousness. Pro-European social movements are weak, while anti-European ones gain strength. This désintéressement of the EU countries probably results from the conviction that the goal has been reached and that there is no more need for a widespread pro-European education of their societies. However analysis of the problem, and in particular of the interaction between European and national identities, shows that this is not the case. We fear that this lack of proactive measures mobilizing EU citizens to keep on struggling for a common Europe will lead to the erosion of existing achievements of integration within the EU, and undermine European values. It may threaten the future of the EU, which is not an ordinary integration grouping but a great peaceful, civilizational, social and economic project. Our hypothesis – positively verified in this article – is that the promotion of Europeanness in the EU societies is urgently needed to maintain the unity (and even membership) of the Union, and to avert trends unfavorable for all of Europe and therefore for the West as a whole.

Competing Visions: Discursive Articulations of Polish and European Identity after the Eastern Enlargement of the EU

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 331-356
Author(s):  
Magdalena Góra ◽  
Katarzyna Zielińska
Keyword(s):  
European Parliament ◽  
National Identities ◽  
European Identity ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
New Members ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Supranational Level ◽  
The Eu

The enlargement of 2004 and 2007 significantly transformed the European Union in political, economic, and social terms. It also challenged the collective identities of Western Europeans as well as each of the newcomers. However, for new members, the prospect of joining a supranational political entity posed a threat to their newly established or regained sovereignty and nationhood. The integration triggered a process of redefinition of both their self-perception and the perception of Europe as a common project. The article offers a case study of how the Polish Members of the European Parliament discursively (re)construct national and European identities and how these constructions relate to each other. The analysis reveals three main visions of the European identity that are voiced by the Polish representation and corresponding visions of national identity. By focusing on the supranational level of the European Parliament and contextualising the analysed constructions with references to national debates, the study is able to nuance the existing theoretical accounts of European and national identities.

scholarly journals Framing right-wing populist satire: The case-study of Ghisberto’s cartoons in Italy

2021 ◽  
Vol 06 (02) ◽  
pp. 29-55
Author(s):  
Chiara Polli ◽  
Carlo Berti
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Communication Strategies ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Multimodal Analysis ◽  
Religious Symbolism ◽  
Good People ◽  
Analysis Tools ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
The Eu

Abstract Over the last few years, right-wing populism has increased its popularity and political weight, successfully merging with Euro-scepticism, nationalism, xenophobia, religious symbolism, and aggressive forms of conservatism (e.g., anti-feminism, homophobia, and, in general, patriarchal politics). Several studies have focused on the communication strategies of contemporary populism, examining the latter’s use of traditional and new media. So far, however, little attention has been paid to the role and language of right-wing populist satire. Our study draws on the ideational approach to populism to explore how right-wing populism is expressed in satirical cartoons. This approach perceives populism as a thin-centered ideology, based on a Manichean division between ‘good people’ and ‘evil elites,’ which regularly combines with other ideological components (e.g., nationalism, Euroscepticism, xenophobia). Our analysis focuses on the Italian cartoonist Ghisberto, known for his provocative and frequently controversial work. We examine a sample of Ghisberto’s vignettes using multimodal analysis tools and Greimas’s notion of isotopy. The aim is to investigate how right-wing populist satire constructs its different targets (the EU, left-wingers, migrants, NGOs, women, etc.) and how populist ideology exploits cartoons’ communicative resources and power.

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