Tanja Petrović (Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Ljubljana)
In this lecture, Tanja Petrović analyzes parodic texts from the Serbian fake news portal Njuz.net, shedding light on the dynamics of their production, consumption, and appropriations of parody in the post-socialist, pre-EU-accession society of Serbia. The increasing presence and importance of parodic media genres and the embracement of parody as a viable way to interpret and deal with social and political reality are explained in terms of both Serbia’s historical trajectory and its media landscape, as well as of the global neoliberal condition. Njuz.net’s parody is capable of shedding critical light simultaneously on various subjects of political, public, and social life. These parodic texts communicate with multiple audiences and enable identifications and detachments on several levels – a fact that makes the effects of parody difficult to judge. Dilemmas that Njuz.net’s authors face concerning their social activism are, Petrović argues, a symptom of wider social anxieties and structural adversities caused by the fact that “the enemy” is difficult to identify and to detach clearly from in the modern societies. Because of the ways labor, consumption, and everyday practices are organized, we all inevitably contribute to the maintenance and well-being of that enemy. Seen in this light, parody is not only a form of social criticism, but also a self-reflective practice.