The conceptualization of winners and losers of transition in popular culture

• Main Author: Vesna Trifunović
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Belgrade 2016-02-01
• Series: Etnoantropološki Problemi
• Online Access: http://eap-iea.org/index.php/eap/article/view/245
• ISSN: 0353-1589; 2334-8801

This paper is about the reconstruction of social presentations (picture, vision) of losers and winners of transition based on the products of the popular culture such as the domestic TV series. The given picture was considered in the context of the 1990s, when those TV series were filmed and aired (broadcast), which means that they are typical, primarily, for the period of the so-called first transition. The analysis meant the abstracting one of the dominant themes in both TV series which refers to a certain family of ordinary people, faced with the everyday problems of the time their time, and those problems being mainly existential ones. The identification of the messages about losers and winners of transition, which was being sent through these TV series, was later continued by establishing a formula based on which the mentioned theme (subject) was structured, and in the end completed by putting in connection the perceived oppostitions via semiotic square. The conceptualization of losers and winners of transition, which is the result of this paper, in no way implies that this vision of theirs is the only and the dominant one in this society. On the other hand, it certainly exists (existed) in the given moment and context and as such it came to surface through domestic TV series as the product of popular culture, through which often widespread and popular attitudes of a society are expressed.