Medijsko obrazovanje i informisanje o pandemiji korona virusa

Abstract

This paper represents a critical analysis of the COVID-19 discourse in Serbian daily newspapers Blic and Politika. The aim of the research is to study two thematically related articles so as to observe ideological, political and social circumstances that influenced their writing. The articles were analyzed qualitatively at the level of micro- and macrostructure (Van Dijk 1988). It is concluded that, using different strategies, both articles may contribute to the spread of panic caused by COVID-19. However, the second article contains the elements which romantically glorify the skillfulness of Serbian experts. This might result in comforting people during these turbulent times. To conclude, newspaper articles are particularly suitable for spreading ideologies, especially when taking into consideration the importance of the media in the formation of public opinion. Therefore, newspaper articles need to be deconstructed from the linguistic point of view, and then critically analysed in relation to wider social practices. The results refer exclusively to the analyzed corpus, thus further research is needed in order to consider the observed tendencies a rule.