Terri Mannarini - Media and Social Representations of Otherness: Psycho-Social-Cultural Implications

The book series develops and consolidates the innovative approach to policy-making and politics based on the recognition of the central role played by cultural dynamics, intended as on-going processes of sense making channelled by symbolic resources the cultural environment makes available and through which people make sense to the experience, therefore feel, think, act.

It pursues both a theoretical and practical purpose: the development of the conceptual approach to policy and politics based on the view of human being ashomo semioticus,as a subject engaged constantly with the need to make meaningful ordinary daily experiences, as well as participation in society.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15961

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This volume adopts a psycho-cultural perspective to examine the implications at the societal and institutional level of the social representations of otherness, based on an empirical exploration of media narratives in a group of European countries. In detail, the research focuses on the analysis of press discourses produced over a 15-year period (20002015) on three contemporary figures of otherness that challenge the identity of European societies, question the attitudes towards diversity, and pose significant issues to policy makers: immigrants, Muslims, and LGBT people.

The data presented stem from one of the lines of research developed within the three-year (20152018) Re.Cri.Re. project (Between the representation of the crisis and the crisis of the representation www.recrire.eu ). Re.Cri.Re., which received a grant from the European Commission within the Horizon2020 framework on research and innovation, was developed in an interdisciplinary network involving scholars with different backgrounds, including sociology and communication, cultural, social, clinical, educational psychology, policy studies, urban studies, and economics. When it was proposed, the project mainly aimed at understanding the impact of the 2008 socio-economic crisis on European societies. Specifically, we were interested to know whether an event that had serious consequences for many people, especially in some European countries, also affected the concept that citizens had of themselvesin brief, their identityand of their life environment. We were convinced, and we still are, that an insight into the sense-making mind would produce some appreciable knowledge not only for the academic community, but also for policy makers, and would in the end provide them with guidelines intended to design more attuned and effective policies.