Visualising the politics of appearance in times of democratisation: An analysis of the 2010 Belgrade Pride Parade television coverage

Abstract

The 2010 Belgrade Pride Parade represents a critical moment in the story of Serbia's democratisation process and highlights the threat that right-wing extremism poses to democratic rights and personal freedoms. Through a focus on patterns of visibility and visuality in the coverage of different protagonists in the streets of Belgrade, we explore the ways in which distinct communities perform their affinities, their right to be seen in public spaces, and rejection of 'the other'. We conduct a visual framing analysis across four news programmes (RTS, Prva TV, TVB92 and Pink TV) emphasising the stylistic-semiotic choices which work to construct the contested spaces of the city. In shifting attention to how the news images work to create the spaces of political 'appearance' and the potentials for political agency through mediated visibility, the article explores the uneasy ambivalence of the democratisation process for authorities and the resulting marginalisation of the LGBT community in news coverage.

Visual framing of the protest Against the dictatorship

“…Akademska istraživanja u Srbiji bavila su se protestima pre svega iz ugla psihologije, sociologije i politikologije (Babović et al, 1997;Čupić, 1998;Ku-zmanović, 2003;Popadić, 2003;Vladisavljević, 2011;2014a), dok je relativno malo istraživanja koja su protestima pristupala iz komunikološke perspektive (Dragić et al, 2003;Babović et al, 2017;Krstić, Parry & Aiello, 2017). S obzirom na značaj unutrašnjeg i spoljašnjeg komuniciranje demonstranata za realizaciju ciljeva protesta, proučavanje medijatizovane i neposredne komunikacije, oko i unutar protesta, neopravdano je zanemareno.…”

“…U poslednje vreme, sa porastom značaja vizuelnog izražavanja u javnoj sferi, sve više istraživanja razmatra samo vizuelne okvire ili interakciju tekstualnih i vizuelnih okvira u konstrukciji značenja. Posebno značajna je primena u analizi konflikata (Blaagaard, Mortensen & Neumayer, 2017;Jungblut & Zakareviciute, 2019;Makhortykh & Sydorova, 2017;Ojala, Pantti, & Kangas, 2017;Parry, 2010;Schwalbe, 2006Schwalbe, , 2013, dok je u proučavanju kolektivnih akcija i protesta vizuelno uokviravanje i dalje relativno retko (Batziou, 2015;Corrigall-Brown & Wilkes, 2012;Douai, 2014;Krstić, Parry & Aiello, 2017). Većina novijih studija usmerena je na društvene medije (Bruns & Hanusch, 2017;Neumayer & Rossi, 2018), dok su mejnstrim mediji, posebno okviri snimaka u televizijskim vestima manje zastupljeni (Krstić, Parry & Aiello, 2017).…”

“…LGBT zajednice i drugih učesnika mirne Parade ponosa na nove protagoniste -nasilne huligane i policajce "heroje" (Krstić, Parry & Aiello, 2017 veoma skučen ili čak potpuno izostavljen. Za razliku od njih, nasilnici, iako i vizuelno i uopšte negativno predstavljeni u TV programima, "sigurno odnose pobedu u politici ulice" (Krstić, Parry & Aiello, 2017: 16).…”

“…Još jedan način diskreditovanja protesta jeste fokus na nasilje, konflikt i izgrede učesnika. Rezultati našeg istraživanja potvrđuju prethodna, koja pokazuju da je ovaj okvir jedan od najpostojanijih u svim kontekstima (Coleman, 2010;Tomanić Trivundža, 2015a;Krstić, Parry & Aiello, 2017, 2017. Iako tokom protesta Protiv diktature nije bilo većih incidenata, okvir nasilja je bio zastupljen i implicitno (Batziou, 2015) i eksplicitno.…”

Visual Biopolitics: Outlining a Research (Sub)field

“…68 However, visuals define "the sayable and the visible," 69 and also the unsayable and the invisible. The struggle for visibility might become a major generator of biopolitical forms of mobilization, 70 particularly when it comes to protests against-and resistance to-injustices and/or inequalities. 71 In this respect, emotions might be considered part of visual biopolitics.…”