Comics for Pioneers: Representations of Modernization and Class Identities in Socialist Romania
Comics for Pioneers: Representations of Modernization and Class Identities in Socialist Romania

Summary/Abstract: Only few studies approach the relationship between official propaganda materials and edutainment in the mass media dedicated to children and youth in socialist Romania. My research is meant to fill this gap. Therefore, the aim is to show how representations of development and space, of class and political identities are constructed in Romanian society through comics in Cutezãtorii (The Daring Ones) youth magazine. Textual and visual discourse analyses were employed to show how the propaganda machine of the Romanian Communist Party shaped these representations of territorial identity and the Romanian political culture, while enabling the construction of youth identities. The discursive strategy of power consisted of placing stories at building sites, and of continuously narrating the characters’ key features, such as love for work, love for the country, heroism, and honesty, all towards the construction of the modernized socialist Romania.

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