Transnational Labour Migration and the Melodrama of Mobility. Constructing the Public Problem of the Children “Left Behind” in Romanian Media
The purpose of this article is to develop melodrama, as a set of stylistic and thematic attributes, into an analytic tool which can be incorporated into the study of public problems and their construction. The major claim of this article is that, “the melodrama of mobility” structures, as a series of visibility patterns, the media discourse on issues of public interest, more specifically the issue of the so-called “orphans of migration” and the phenomenon of maternal migration. With its insistence on the ideal of the monogamous family, the camouflaged critique of materialism and public institutions and the superiority of love over social and economic pressures, the melodrama dramatizes labour migration and mobility in terms of a threatened (national) domesticity. By approaching suffering as a form of psychological trauma, melodrama manages to transmit powerful personal stories which create identification through pathos, but risks at the same time to transform labour migration into a private solution to a private problem, devoid of any institutional support.
Year of publication: |
2014
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Authors: | STOIAN, Saiona |
Published in: |
Revista Romana de Jurnalism si Comunicare - Romanian Journal of Journalism and Communication. - University of Bucharest, Faculty of Journalism and Communication Studies – Universitatea din Bucuresti, Facultatea de Jurnalism si Stiintele Comunicarii, ISSN 1842-256X. - 2014, 1-2, p. 23-32
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Publisher: |
University of Bucharest, Faculty of Journalism and Communication Studies – Universitatea din Bucuresti, Facultatea de Jurnalism si Stiintele Comunicarii |
Subject: | Transnational labour migration | orphans of migration | public problem |
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