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Serbia in the Mirror: Parodying Political and Media Discourses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Tanja Petrović
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Abstract

This article analyzes the Serbian fake news site Njuz.net, exploring the dynamics of its production, consumption, and appropriation in Serbian postsocialist, pre-EU-accession society. The increasing presence and importance of parodic media genres and the embrace of satire as a viable way to interpret and deal with social and political reality are explained in terms of both Serbia's historical trajectory and its media landscape as well as the global neo-liberal condition. Njuz.net's parody sheds critical light on various political, public, and social subjects simultaneously. Its satire communicates with multiple audiences and enables identification and detachment on several levels, a fact that makes the effects of this parody difficult to judge. The dilemmas that its writers face regarding their social activism are, I argue, a symptom of wider social anxieties and structural adversities caused by the difficulty of clearly identifying and detaching from “the enemy.” Because of how labor, consumption, and everyday practices are organized, we all inevitably contribute to the maintenance of that enemy's well-being. Seen in this light, parody is not only a form of social criticism but also a self-reflective practice.

Type
Rethinking “Europe” Versus “The Balkans” in Media Discourses
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 74 , Issue 2 , Summer 2015 , pp. 288 - 310
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 2015 

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References

I would like to thank Deana Jovanović, Dejan Jović, Vjeran Pavlaković, Nenad Zakošek, Ildiko Erdei, Maja Petrović Šteger, Kathryn Woolard, Mark D. Steinberg, and the two anonymous reviewers for Slavic Review for their thoughtful comments on earlier drafts of this article. An earlier version was presented at the conference “Love and Revolution IV” at the University of the Western Cape in October 2012. Corinne Kratz, John Soske, Patricia Hayes, Ciraj Rasool, Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi, G. Arunima, and other participants helped me strengthen the transnationally relevant issues discussed in the text. I am also grateful to the Njuz.net team, and in particular to Viktor Markovic, Nenad Milosavljević, and Miroslav Vujović, who opened the doors of Njuz's editorial office to me, shared their thoughts and dilemmas with me frankly, and provided valuable feedback on various points made in this text.

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10. Njuz.net author and editor Viktor Marković, interview, Belgrade, September 20, 2012.

11. In Croatia, there is http://news-bar.hr, with 80,043 followers on Facebook (for comparison, Njuz.net has been “liked” by 146,239 people, as of October 31, 2014); in Bosnia and Herzegovina, http://balkantajms.com provides “second-hand news” (it has 10,482 “likes” on Facebook, as of October 31, 2014); the Croatian website http://www.lupiga.com also provides fake and humorous news under the common label “Konfabulator“; the Macedonian news site http://www.okno.mk has a “para-news” section; in Montenegro, http://www.rastanj.me is advertised as “the first Montenegrin satirical news site”; and Nelnovinite, at http://www.nenovinite.com, is a Bulgarian fake news Web page.

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14. Within this enterprise, most researchers’ attention has been paid to Jon Stewart's Daily Show. See Angelique Haugerud, Dillon Mahoney, and Meghan Ference, “Watching The Daily Show in Kenya,” Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 19, no. 2 (2012): 168-90.

15. Michael L. Ross and Lorraine York, “‘First, They're Foreigners’: The Daily Show with John Stewart and the Limits of Dissident Laughter,” Canadian Review of American Studies 37, no. 3 (2007): 351-70; Haugerud, Mahoney, and Ference, “Watching The Daily Show in Kenya.“

16. This lack of interest in postsocialist parody and irony fits the general model of studying postsocialism described by Gerald Creed, whereby events in eastern Europe are always measured against “an already and always ideal image” coming from the west. Gerald W. Creed, Masquerade and Postsocialism: Ritual and Cultural Dispossession in Bulgaria (Bloomington, 2011), 5-6. See, however, Klumbyte, Neringa, “On Power and Laughter: Carnivalesque Politics and Moral Citizenship in Lithuania,” American Ethnologist 41, no. 3 (August 2014): 473-90CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17. Haugerud, Mahoney, and Ference, “Watching The Daily Show in Kenya,” 169.

18. Ildiko Erdei, “Basara Rulz!,” Življenje na dotik, May 31, 2012, at http://zivljenjenadotik.esova.si/ang/novice/4281 (last accessed February 1, 2015).

19. Yurchak, Everything Was Forever; Costica Bradatan, “To Die Laughing,” East European Politics and Societies 25, no. 4 (November 2011): 737-58.

20. Duncombe, Dream, 24. Moreover, as Ulrich Beck warns us with his concept of reflective modernization, the modernity of postindustrial society involves “living with constant risk that challenges the traditional capacities of even the most advantaged people to act effectively to improve conditions in the first and the second worlds.” Ulrich Beck, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (London, 1992), quoted in James W. Fernandez and Mary Taylor Huber, “The Anthropology of Irony,” in James W. Fernandez and Mary Taylor Huber, eds., Irony in Action: Anthropology, Practice and the Moral Imagination (Chicago, 2001), 18. See also George E. Marcus, “The Predicament of Irony and the Paranoid Style in Fin-de-Siecle Rationality,” in Fernandez and Huber, eds., Irony in Action, 209-23.

21. “Dragan Marković Palma: Patriotizam ne pokrece traktor,” Politika Online, March 11, 2008, at http://www.politika.rs/vesti/najnovije-vesti/DRAGAN-MARKOVIC-PALMAPATRIOTIZAM-NE-POKRECE-TRAKTOR-i35853.1t.html (last accessed March 16, 2015).

22. Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, 24.

23. Busch, Brigitta and Krzyżanowski, Michal, “Inside/Outside the European Union: Enlargement, Migration Policy and the Search for Europe's Identity,” in Anderson, James and Armstrong, Warwick, eds., Geopolitics of the European Union Enlargement: The Fortress Empire (London, 2007), 107-24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24. Norman Fairclough, “'Transition’ in Central and Eastern Europe,” British and American Studies 11 (2005): 9-34. See also Majstorović, Danijela, “Construction of Europeanization in the High Representative's Discourse in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Discourse & Society 18 (September 2007): 627-51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25. Danijela Milinković, “Srbija na pravom putu,” Novosti, January 26,2009, at http://www.novosti.rs/vesti/naslovna/politika/aktuelno.289.html:230917-Srbija-na-pravom-putu (last accessed February 5, 2015).

26. See, e.g., “Srbija dobila datum: Pregovori počinju za Srpsku novu godinu!,” Kurir, June 28, 2013, at http://www.nezavisne.com/novosti/ex-yu/Srbija-dobila-datum-Pregovoripocinju-na-Srpsku-novu-godinu-198267.html (last accessed February 5,2015); and “Srbija dobila datum za početak pregovora sa EU,” RTL Television, June 28, 2013, at http://www.rtl.hr/vijesti/novosti/809003/srbija-dobila-datum-za-pocetak-pregovora-s-eu/ (last accessed February 5,2015).

27. “Tadić: Odluka značajna, ali nismo još uvek dobili datum,” Blic, June 29, 2013, at http://www.naslovi.net/2013-06-29/blic/tadic-odluka-znacajna-ali-nismo-jos-uvek-dobilidatum/6203424 (last accessed February 5, 2015).

28. At http://dss.rs/vidovdan-je-nas-datum/ (no longer available).

29. “Kacin: O datumu ne znam ništa. Srbija je dobila zeleno svetlo, iako svi govore o datumu,” Blic, July 4, 2013, at http://www.blic.rs/Vesti/Politika/391715/Kacin-O-datumu-ne-znam-nista-Srbija-je-dobila-zeleno-svetlo-iako-svi-govore-o-datumu (last accessed February 5, 2015); “Kacin: Srbija dobila datum? Nisam čuo,” Fond strateške kulture, July 5, 2013, at http://srb.fondsk.ru/news/2013/07/05/kacin-srbiia-dobila-datum-nisam-cuo.html (last accessed February 5, 2015).

30. For detailed analyses of dominant political discourses related to EU accession in post-Yugoslav societies, see Velikonja, Mitja, Evroza: Kritika novega evrocentrizma / Eurosis: A Critique of the New Eurocentrism (Ljubljana, 2005)Google Scholar; Petrović, A Long Way Home; Majstorović, “Construction of Europeanization in the High Representative's Discourse“; and Andreja Vezovnik, “Diskurzivna konstrukcija slovenske nacionalne identitete: Analiza časopisnih politicnih komentarjev v obdobju vstopanja Slovenije v Evropsko unijo,” Annates 17, no. 2 (2007): 469-83.

31. Fernandez and Huber, “The Anthropology of Irony,” 4,18.

32. Fischer, Michael, “Ethnicity and the Post-Modern Arts of Memory,” in Clifford, James and Marcus, George E., eds., Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (Berkeley, 1986), 224 Google Scholar, quoted in Linda Hutcheon, Irony's Edge: The Theory and Politics of Irony (London, 1995), 25.

33. Among the alternative and critical media outlets in Serbia, Beton (at http://www.elektrobeton.net), Peščanik (at http://www.pescanik.net), and e-novine (at http://www.e-novine.com) are the most prominent. Mainstream corporate media also give some space to critical and satirical interpretations of the Serbian political reality; the most popular among the latter is the comic by Marko Somborac regularly published in the daily Blic. Satirical media has a long history in postsocialist Serbia. The satirical newspaper Naša krmača, published from 1996 to 2004, achieved cult status, and the satirical magazine Ere was established in the late 1990s.

34. Istok Pavlovíć, “Srbija bi mogla da uđe u Evropsku uniju,” Njuz, January 18,2011, at http://www.njuz.net/srbija-bi-mogla-da-ude-u-evropsku-uniju/ (last accessed February 8, 2015).

35. Ivan Ćosić, “EU i SAD raspisale konkurs za novi uslov Srbiji za prijem u EU, nakon što Srbija prizna Kosovo,” Njuz, June 28,2011, at http://www.njuz.net/eu-i-sad-raspisujukonkurs-za-idejno-resenje-novog-uslovljavanja-srbije-za-prijem-u-eu-nakon-sto-priznakosovo/ (last accessed February 8, 2015).

36. Nenad Milosavljević, “Srbija dobila preporuku da postane kandidat za kandidata za članstvo u EU,” Njuz, October 12, 2011, at http://www.njuz.net/srbija-dobila-preporuku-dapostane-kandidat-za-kandidata-za-clnastvo-u-eu/ (last accessed February 8, 2015).

37. Bane Grković, “Nestala stolica koja je čekala Srbiju u EU,” Njuz, September 25, 2012, at http://www.njuz.net/nestala-stolica-koja-je-cekala-srbiju-u-eu/ (last accessed February 8,2015); “Lajčak: Čeka vas prazna stolica u EU,” http://b92.net, September 21,2012, at http://www.b92.net/info/vesti/index.php?yyyy=2012&mm=098tdd=218mav_id=644869 (last accessed February 8,2015).

38. See, for example, Viktor Marković, “Đilas zahteva prevremene izbore ali nije frka, ne mora sad odmah” (Đilas [leader of the Democratic Party and mayor of Belgrade] demands early elections, but there is no rush, no need to organize it right away), Njuz, July 23, 2013, at http://www.njuz.net/dilas-zahteva-prevremene-izbore-ali-nije-frka-ne-morasad-odmah/ (last accessed February 8, 2015). The phrase “nije frka” is a common urban colloquialism that is not part of standard political discourse.

39. In November 2012, Njuz.net's page had been “liked” by more than 86,000 people on Facebook; the number of those who follow Njuz.net's posts on Facebook rose to 125,000 by October 2013 and to almost 150,000 by March 2015.

40. Costica Bradatan provides a philosophical framework for understanding the world as farce and discusses its manifestation in literature; he relates it to the prominent function “theatralization played in all spheres of life in any given Communist regime: politics, economy, propaganda, even private life.” Bradatan, “To Die Laughing,” 740.

41. Erdei, “Basara Ruiz!”

42. Viktor Marković, “Građani misle da je fora sa ‘novom vladom’ otisla malo predaleko,” Njuz, July 29,2012, at http://www.njuz.net/gradani-misle-da-je-fora-sa-novom-vladomotisla-malo-predaleko/ (last accessed February 8,2015).

43. On the imagining of normal life (normalan život) in the postsocialist societies of the former Yugoslavia, see Greenberg, “On the Road to Normal”; and Stef Jansen, Elissa Helms, Jessica Greenberg, and Andrew Gilbert, “Reconsidering Postsocialism from the Margins of Europe: Hope, Time and Normalcy in Post-Yugoslav Societies,” Anthropology News 49, no. 8 (November 2008): 10-11. On perceptions of normalcy in socialist everyday life, see Koleva, Daniela, ed., Negotiating Normality: Everyday Lives in Socialist Institutions (New Brunswick, 2012)Google Scholar.

44. Since March 2013, Njuz.net has been available in a print version as well: the Serbian daily Danas publishes a Njuz.net supplement on Saturdays.

45. Haugerud, Mahoney, and Ference, “Watching The Daily Show in Kenya,” 168. Emphasis in the original.

46. Bradatan, “To Die Laughing,” 749.

47. The imagery of politics as a show and political leaders as puppets is strongly present, e.g., in contemporary Italy. See Molé, Noelle J., “Trusted Puppets, Tarnished Politicians: Humor and Cynicism in Berlusconi's Italy,” American Ethnologist 40, no. 2 (May 2013): 288-99CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48. Greenberg, “On the Road to Normal,” 89.

49. Petrović Šteger, Maja, “Parasecurity and Paratime in Serbia: Neocortical Defence and National Consciousness,” in Pedersen, Martin A. and Holbraad, Morten, eds., Times of Security: Ethnographies of Fear, Protest and the Future (London, 2013), 151 Google Scholar.

50. Ibid.

51. Fernandez and Huber, “The Anthropology of Irony,” 4. See also Torres, Gabriel, The Force of Irony: Power in the Everyday Life of Mexican Tomato Workers (Oxford, 1997)Google Scholar.

52. Marković, interview.

53. “ Njuz.net: Ovo nam nije trebalo,” Politika, January 2,2012.

54. In a similar vein, Mikhail Bakhtin highlights ambiguity as the principal characteristic of the carnivalesque: with the temporary violation of norms, it actually affirms and confirms established social hegemonies. Mikhail Bakhtin, Tvorchestvo Fransua Rable i narodnaia kul'tura srednevekov'ia i renessansa (Moscow, 1965).

55. Fernandez and Huber, “The Anthropology of Irony,” 16.

56. Oushakine, Serguei, “Introduction: Jokes of Repression,” East European Politics and Societies 25, no. 4 (November 2011): 655 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57. Klumbytė, Neringa, “Political Intimacy: Power, Laughter and Coexistence in Late Soviet Lithuania,” East European Politics and Societies 25, no. 4 (November 2011): 659 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Investigating humor and cynicism in Syria, Lisa Wedeen points to “the habituation obedience— the combination of cynical lack of belief and compliant behavior,” which may be found in both authoritarian regimes and western liberal democracies. Wedeen, Ambiguities of Domination, 154, quoted in Mole, “Trusted Puppets, Tarnished Politicians,” 291.

58. Boyle, “Play With Authority!,” 209.

59. Boyd, Andrew, “Irony, Meme Warfare, and the Extreme Costume Ball,” in Hayduk, Ronald and Shepard, Benjamin, eds., From ACT UP to the WTO: Urban Protest and Community Building in the Era of Globalization (London, 2002), 245-53Google Scholar; Bogad, Larry, “Tactical Carnival: Social Movements, Demonstrations, and Dialogical Performance,” in Cohen-Cruz, Jan and Schutzman, Mady, eds., A Boal Companion: Dialogues on Theatre and Cultural Politics (London, 2006), 47 Google Scholar; Nina Felshin, introduction to Nina Felshin, ed., But Is It Art? The Spirit of Art as Activism (Seattle, 1995), 16.

60. Hutcheon, Irony's Edge, 11. See also Fish, Stanley, “Short People Got No Reason to Live: Reading Irony,” Daedalus 112, no. 1 (1983): 176 Google Scholar.

61. Bogad, L.M., Electoral Guerrilla Theatre: Radical Ridicule and Social Movements (London, 2005), 37 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the kind of ambiguities irony implies in the context of contemporary African art, see Israel, Paolo, “Irony, Ambiguity and the Art of Recycling: Reflections on Contemporary Rural African Art and ‘Africa Remix,’” Third Text 20, no. 5 (2006): 594 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

62. Nenad Milosavljević, interview, Belgrade, July 12,2013.

63. Nenad Milosavljević, “Srbin ubio ajkulu ubicu u Šarm el Šeiku,” Njuz, December 10, 2010, at http://www.njuz.net/srbin-ubio-ajkulu-ubicu-u-sarm-el-seiku/ (last accessed February 8, 2015).

64. Nurturing a more critical and reflective stance toward the content, production, and circulation of news in Serbia is one of Njuz.net's most important missions. Under the auspices of the NGO http://Njuz.org, Njuz.net's team is engaged in media education (see the website http://www.posmatrac.rs [last accessed February 8, 2015]). The project monitors media content and points out unprofessional practices and low-quality reporting. The team says it was motivated to start this project because its members were aware of “the current situation in the media sphere in Serbia and the neighbouring countries, and the status of journalists who, ‘torn between the dictates of the market and the ethics of their profession, lose the battle for right information.’” Dejan Georgievski, “NGO Launches Website to Monitor Unprofessional Media Reporting,” OneWorldsee, June 11,2013, at http://www.oneworldsee.org/content/ngo-launches-website-monitor-unprofessional-media-reporting (last accessed February 8,2015).

65. For a discussion of such Serbian (self-)perceptions, see Dušan I. Bjelić and Luanda Cole, “Sexualizing the Serb,” in Dušan I. Bjelić and Obrad Savić, eds., Balkan as Metaphor: Between Globalization and Fragmentation (Cambridge, Mass., 2002), 279-310; Marko Živković, Serbian Dreambook: National Imaginary in the Time of Milošević (Bloomington, 2011); and Tomislav Longinović, Vampire Nation: Violence as Cultural Imaginary (Durham, 2011).

66. Boyle, “Play With Authority!,” 206.

67. “ Njuz.net: Ovo nam nije trebalo,” Politika, January 2,2012.

68. Marković, interview.

69. Viktor Marković, “U Srbiji obeležen dan fraze ‘A šta su oni nama radili,’” Njuz, July 11,2012, at http://www.njuz.net/u-srbiji-obelezen-dan-fraze-a-sta-su-oni-nama-radili/ (last accessed February 8, 2015).

70. Parody as prophecy is already well known to citizens of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia. Between 1984 and 1991, Radio Sarajevo and TV Sarajevo broadcast a cult comedy called Top lista nadrealista (The surrealists’ hit parade), written by Sarajevo's New Primitives. The show comprised mostly parodic sketches of the political situation in the late Yugoslav period. Many of the sketches proved to be prophetic, as they depicted situations like Sarajevo being divided into different republics and a single family split into two clans and warring over control of different rooms in an apartment, with a UN peacekeeping force's “significant” presence adding fuel to the conflict.

71. Nenad Milosavljević, “Dvostruko ubistvo u Zemunu početak reklamne kampanje za festival ‘Volim devedesete,” Njuz, September 9, 2011, at http://www.njuz.net/dvostrukoubistvo-u-zemunu-pocetak-reklamne-karnpanje-za-festival-volim-devedesete/ (last accessed February 8,2015).

72. See, for example, “Kazne za ubistvo insekta 100 evra, za krupnije životinje 300” (Fines for murder of an insect 100 euros, for bigger animals 300 euros), Blic, August 23,2011, at http://www.blic.rs/Vesti/Drustvo/272980/Kazne-za-ubistvo-insekta-100-evra-za-krupnijezivotinje-3000/komentari/3390249/komentar-odgovor (last accessed February 8, 2015); “Srpski skijaš Cedonir Chadda savetuje: Svi bi trebalo da posete Himalaje i Pakistan” (Serbian skier Cedonir Chadda's advice: Everyone should visit Pakistan and the Himalayas), Blic, June 29, 2013, at http://www.blic.rs/Vesti/Politika/396102/Srpski-skijas-Cedonir-Chaddasavetuje-Svi-bi-trebalo-da-posete-Himalaje-i-Pakistan (last accessed February 8, 2015); and “Čak Di čestitao Lazaru Ristovskom za ‘Radnički rep’” (Chuck D congratulates Lazar Ristovski on “Workers’ Rap”), Blic, April 11, 2013, at http://www.blic.rs/Zabava/Vesti/247277/Cak-Di-cestitao-Lazaru-Ristovskom-za-Radnicki-rep (last accessed March 17,2015).

73. E.g., “Nije Njuz: Sudovi u Nišu prekinuli suđenja—KPZ odbio da prevozi zatvorenike zbog goriva!” (Not Njuz: Courts in Niš abandoned trials and the corrective institution ceased to transport prisoners because of gasoline shortage), Telegraf, July 18,2013, at http://www.telegraf.rs/vesti/786064-nije-njuz-sudovi-u-nisu-prekinuli-sudjenja-kpz-odbio-daprevozi-zatvorenike-zbog-goriva (last accessed February 8, 2015); “Nije Njuz.net: Dačić i Tači kandidati za Nobelovu nagradu za mir” (Not Njuz.net: Dačić and Thaçi candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize), Na dlanu info, April 7, 2013, at http://www.nadlanu.com/pocetna/info/srbija/Nije-Njuznet-Dacic-i-Taci-kandidati-za-Nobelovu-nagradu-za-mir.a-175645.291.html (last accessed February 8,2015); and “Nije Njuz: Hrvat uhvaćen bez dozvole 996 puta” (Not Njuz: Croat caught driving without license 996 times), Telegraf, April 24,2013 at http://www.telegraf.rs/vesti/666874-nije-njuz-hrvat-uhvacen-bez-dozvole-996-puta (last accessed February 8,2015).

74. I thank one of the anonymous reviewers for raising this point.

75. Milosavljević, interview.

76. As Marko Dražić remarked, “Većina naslova u medijima je u nastavku bila—ha, ha, ha, Srbi zeznuli ceo svet, što je ponovo potvrdilo ono što smo mi u torn tekstu kritikovali [Most of the news headlines (after we published this shark story) were—ha, ha, ha, Serbs fooled the whole world, which confirmed once again the very point we criticized in this news].” Quoted in Iva Martinović, “Fenomen srpskog portala Njuz.net: Realnost kao satira,” Radio Slobodna Evropa, August 11, 2012, at http://www.slobodnaevropa.org/content/njuz-net-realnost-kao-satira/24672916.html (last accessed March 10,2015).

77. Marković, interview. For discussion of how political leaders make use of humor in late liberal western democracies, see Mole, “Trusted Puppets, Tarnished Politicians,” on the case of Silvio Berlusconi in Italy; and Smith, Chris and Voth, Ben, “The Role of Humor in Political Argument: How ‘Strategery’ and ‘Lockboxes’ Changed a Political Campaign,” Argumentation and Advocacy 39, no. 2 (Fall 2002): 110-29CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on George W. Bush in the United States.

78. For this reason, Njuz.net's writers emphasize that it is much more difficult and less effective to produce texts for the global edition. Marković, interview.

79. Marković, interview.

80. Milosavljević, interview.

81. Greenberg, “On the Road to Normal,” 88.

82. Yarwood, Dean L., When Congress Makes a Joke: Congressional Humor Then and Now (Lanham, 2004), 14 Google Scholar. See also Boyer, “Simply the Best”; Angelique Haugerud, “Jon Stewart Returns to The Daily Show—Why Satire Matters,” Huff Post Media, September 5, 2013, at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/american-anthropological-association/jon-stewartreturns-to-th_b_3844730.html (last accessed November 25, 2014); and Klumbyte, “On Power and Laughter.”