VISUAL REPRESENTATION OF MAIN ACTORS POVERTY IN SERBIA: SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS OF TELEVISION IMAGE AND PHOTOGRAPHY IN MEDIA TEXTS

Abstract

This paper analyzes the media's visual representation of various poverty groups within Serbia.The visual representation is not simply a reflection of reality, but rather an instrument that plays an important role in prescribing different meaning  to media events and their appearances in public.The aim of this research is to determine how the visual code transmits messages about poverty and socially excluded groups, in the analyzed television news, newspaper and online photographs. Based on the sample of  410 articles on poverty, collected between the 14th and  28th of  October 2010 and 2011, this paper critically analyses the medias representation of poverty within Serbian society through methods of content analysis, critical discourse studies, and the use of semiotic approahes to images.

Analysis of the structure of discourse shows that the visual representation of the poor in Serbian society is highly simplified, stereotyped and is seperated from the wider societal context of poverty. It is rather reduced to bits and  pieces of media images, which do not properly indicate the seriousnes of the problem of poverty making it difficult for mass audiences to identify with.