Coronavirus: The headquarters, media, and discourse of militarization in Croatian society

Abstract

This paper aims to analyse and interpret a specific public-media discourse that was formed in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic in Croatia. We traced utterances related to the covid-crises that carried war-and-military features, as a specific discourse. Selected utterances of members of The National Civil Protection Headquarters were the focal point, defined as specific communicative events that emerged within mediated communication, situated between media content production and consumption. In a wider perspective, this was related to sociocultural practices of language use, more specifically to power relations and ideology. Therefore, the theoretical frameworks of biopolitics and critical discourse analysis will be used in the analysis of defined phenomena. The articulation of war-and-military discourse in public communication had three socio-political functions: discipline; public support to the Government and its decisions; and homogenization of the nation.