The influence of print and online media on spreading the transphobia in Serbia

Abstract

The increased visibility of transgender people in the past decade has been accompanied by an increase in the level of institutional and general social transphobia in Serbia. The mass media, through which the population of Serbia is mostly informed about transgender people and transgender issues in general, have a significant role in spreading and encouraging transphobia. Texts in print and online media are usually the only source of information about transgender people that reaches the citizens of Serbia. Most of these texts contain offensive, outdated and inadequate terminology. The texts report in a sensationalist manner and do not address transphobia as a serious social problem that transgender people face on a daily basis. In this article, I will deal with the representation of transgender people in Serbian print and online media, as well as the impact of media reporting on the spread of transphobia in Serbia. All texts dealing with the transgender issues and transgender people were collected by searching the digital archive of media texts for 2021 with the help of key words and tags. The collected material is analyzed using the media content analysis method and the critical discourse analysis method. The aim of this research is to determine how print and online media represent transgender people in Serbia and to what extent they influence the creation of prejudices, stereotypes and negative attitudes about transgender people.