MEDIA CONSTRUCTION OF THE PRESIDENT: ELECTION CAMPAING ON TV N1 AND RTS PUBLIC SERVICE
Keywords:
Aleksandar Vučić, presidential elections, enlightenment, absolutism, media, television, public sphere, constructionismAbstract
This paper attempts to explain the election success of Aleksandar Vučić, based on the theories of Jurgen Habermas and Reinhart Koselleck. Habermas' public as a sphere of public people is confronted against the authorities in order to debate over the rules in spheres of commodity exchange and social labor, that is - the market. Koselleck's theory shows that Habermas' confrontation of publicity and authority is actually the conflict of principles of enlightenment and absolutism. In order to stabilize the disorganized civil society, a ruler can suspend all conflictual content and break his opponents. Post-socialist, transitional Balkan societies correspond to Hobbesian distinction of natural and political state. The organized state is a solution to civil conflict. Citizens recognize the candidates through their ability to guarantee stability during the neoliberal transition and prevent possible war outcome. The construction of the leader is therefore expected from the media organizations that follow their viewers, like RTS. On the other hand, TV N1 deconstructed the absolutist principle, according to Habermasian model, which didn't go well with the voters. The oppositional candidates didn't accept the role of the president as a leader but merely as a function of the rule of law, and this alternative didn't satisfy the electorate. The ideas of the rule of law, national pride and democratic leadership weren't successfully integrated, while Vučić was able to play the role of the ruler of the organized state.
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