Looking through Lost Illusions at Austrian European identity and communication theory of identity

Abstract

The study explores Austrian European identity through a communication theory of identity (CTI) by using the film Lost Illusions as a stimulus (2021). Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted in the Austrian capital Vienna to elicit female viewers’ perceptions of European identity to contribute to the development of the communal frame of CTI. The topicality of the film triggered some themes around a shared European past, norms, values, materialism and journalism ethics. Within this collective European identity based on ‘unity in diversity’, viewers’ ingroup closer to the left wing was constructed, influenced, validated and their national outgroup as an imaginary right wing was denied in the group membership.