Naslov
Fighting the Virus, ‘Hunting the Witches’ – Moralizing within the Public Discourses during the Corona Pandemic in Croatia

Autori
Žažar, Krešimir

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, sažetak, znanstveni

Skup
LUHMANN CONFERENCE 2020 – “Moral communication. Observed with social systems theory”

Mjesto i datum
Dubrovnik, Hrvatska, 15.09.2020. - 18.09.2020

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
moral communication ; discourse analysis

Sažetak
Barely disputable, coronavirus pandemic is one the most significant events at the global scale in the last few years that implies enormous effects for all social subsystems, i.e. all domains of social life. Alongside medical aspects of pandemic circumstances and consequent responses of a health care system, it is also tremendous valuable to observe how ‘coronavirus’ affected economy, political system, legal system, science, art, sport, and an entire social system and its environment. Additionally, this pandemic situation generated a vibrant moral communication with respect to behaviour of individuals in situation of a globally announced severe health risks including life threatening. The central aim of the paper is to examine particular features of moral communication around ‘corona pandemic’ in Croatia. At the theoretical level, the starting point is Luhmann’s (1996) specific conceiving of moral communication as the distinction between esteem and diseestem that produces binary codes (like good-bad) around which moral dispute is taking place. Denoted analytical approach is, primarily in terms of an empirical research method, supplemented with discourse analysis. Concretely, the analysis of ‘moral discourses’ encompasses discourses of diverse contents (like ‘social actors’ and media) of communication: 1) ‘National Civil Protection Authority of Republic of Croatia’ (the central entity dealing with the pandemic issue), 2) mainstream (print and digital) media, 3) political actors, 4) Catholic church (the considerably influential actor in Croatian public space), and 5) social networks. Besides, the analysis addressed the moral evaluation regarding observations of communication referring to medical staff, members of civil protection service, employees in the supply chains or truck drivers on one side, and hospitalized patients, potentially contagious persons in imposed self-isolation or people in coerced quarantine on the other side. While the former groups were tremendously admired, the latter were often deeply morally disqualified and even stigmatized. The examined moral communication generated different moral codes such as ‘bio-terroristic/heroic’, ‘egoistic/emphatic’ ‘non-responsible/responsible’, etc. Moreover, it is relevant and remarkably interesting to take into account the temporal dimension of changes of semantics and moral discourses over different stages of the pandemic circumstances. Namely, during the peak of pandemic situation moral coding at the discursive level tended to be radicalized as disrespect towards infected people (particularly those Croatian citizens who returned from skiing vacation or generally tourist visits from abroad) and persons that infringed the obligatory self-isolation regime in certain aspects resembles on a medieval witch-hunt. Prior and afterwards the pandemic climax, applied discursive markers were somewhat restrained. Despite the conducted empirical analysis was not exhaustive, and sample units of inspected newspapers and web-portals articles, official notices and public announcements, as well as insights into discussions in digital social media networks could be considerably extensive, still it produced interesting and indicative preliminary findings that ought to be deepened in the upcoming more comprehensive studies. In the final section, the findings of the paper are discussed in terms how detected moral coding reflects on a level of complexity of the social system.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Sociologija

POVEZANOST RADA