RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
A1 Pardo Abril, Neyla Graciela
T1 Cooperation, forced displacement, and citicenship. Media representation
JF Romanica Olomucensia
YR 2014
VO 26
IS 2
SP 229
OP 247
DO 10.5507/ro.2014.023
UL https://romanica.upol.cz/artkey/rom-201402-0008.php
AB In this paper, it is assumed that media actors promote and inhibit social practices because of their ability to produce and reproduce social representations. The action of the media is not only the possibility of social control, it also helps to stabilize representations that have an impact on the ideas that social actors have on community processes. This study seeks to explain how the media create representations on dispossession of land and property, which lead to forced displacement. Representations on cooperation are also discussed, as they encourage a dysfunctional kind of citizenship for collective empowerment, which, sheltered by a handout mentality, inhibits the development of the potentialities of the actors that are represented. This study identifies the type of political subjectivity fostered by the media and the way such socio-cultural way of representing reality involves the development of social and political life in Colombia. For this purpose, an article in Semana magazine (Semana.com) was explored. It is related to the political situation of the implementation of Act 1448, entitled: "Un año en el Salado" ('A year at El Salado'), published on December 4th, 2010. The article analysis follows the methodology proposed and developed by Pardo Abril. It is assumed that discourse, as semiotic and multimodal action, draws meanings from correlations of power between different actors in a socio-historical moment. Therefore, media discourse expresses collective positions and may reinforce or otherwise transform social relations. The discursive resources are analyzed, together with the strategies involved in the representation of the acts of repairing damage and restitution of land. It is shown that cooperation is intended as an act of offering a benefit, which serves the purpose of justifying a state of affairs socio-historically promoted and supported by governments and socioeconomic elites.