Assignment:
CASE STUDY
How are Eastern Europeans perceived by the West?
Since the collapse of communism in 1989 in Eastern European countries (such as Bosnia, Bulgaria, Romania,
Serbia, Russia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, etc.), there have been heated debates in the public spheres about issues such as how Eastern Europeans are perceived by the West. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the Western European regions became more economically and politically powerful, whereas much of The Influence of Culture on Perception Eastern Europe was subordinated to the rule of the imperial powers and relegated to inferior social positions.
As is often the case, the dominant population developed explanations in the form of stereotypesto explain and justify the power imbalance and the subjugation of Eastern Europeans. Eastern Europe tends to be associated with being backward, lazy, poor, or inferior. Findings from one survey revealed that respondents from Western Europe associated their Eastern neighbours with attributes like greyness, coldness, alcohol, poverty, unhappiness, melancholy, sadness, crime, corruption, and chaos (Hall, 1991).
On the other hand, Eastern European countries see Western Europeans as heartless, efficiency-driven, and soulless. In Slovenia, a popular saying illustrates their assumptions about the West: ‘In heaven, the police are British, the cooks are French, the engineers are German, the administrators are Swiss, and the lovers are Italian'.
However, ‘in hell, the police are German, the cooks are British, the engineers are Italian, the administrators are French, and the lovers are Swiss.' This popular saying also reveals our commonly held stereotypes: Britons are perceived as logical and systematic; French people are seen as having a delicious cuisine; the Germans are often portrayed as efficient and hardworking; the Swiss are seen as well organized; and the Italians are believed to be warm and emotional.
Maria Todorova (1997), a Bulgarian scholar, argues that Western Europeans have historically created the image of Eastern Europe and the regions of the Balkans, including countries such as Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, Montenegro, and so forth, as the land of violence, primitiveness, bloodshed, and lawlessness. She believes that such negative stereotypes of Eastern Europeans, specifically, of people from the Balkans, are influenced by the media, popular culture, and especially literature. Those cultural products contribute to creating an image of the Balkans as mystical but dangerous and traditional. Most mainstream cultural texts tend to rely on stereotypes and clichés in their representations of ‘us' (the civilized West) and ‘them' (the uncivilized East). For example, the famous novel Dracula, written by an English/Irish writer Bram Stoker in 1897, displays British perceptions and stereotypes of eastern Europeans, depicting them as uncivilized and
barbaric - a potential threat to the civilized British culture.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, 28 countries have emerged out of the eight former communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Different research projects in the last couple of years indeed show that Eastern Europeans are still predominantly perceived by their Western counterparts through stereotypes, such as laziness, backwardness, and violence. Despite the expansion of the European Union towards eastern regions, including countries like Poland, Slovenia, Bulgaria, and Romania, Western European perceptions of the new member states to the east tend to be monolithic and unchanged (Volcic, 2008).
Nevertheless, the newly emerged countries have been engaging in a range of public campaigns during the past 18 years in order to change the negative perceptions or stereotypes that the West have about them into positive ones. They want the West to perceive them as countries with democracy, political stability, and a strong market economy. Many Eastern European countries now attempt to project themselves as cultural, artistic, affordable, modern, sunny, and welcoming places. For example, public campaigns employ attractive slogans: in Serbia, Serbia is the Guardian of Time; in Macedonia, Come to Macedonia and Your Heart Will Remain Here; in Slovenia, On the Sunny Side of the Alps; in Croatia, Mediterranean as It Once Was; in Montenegro, The Pearl of the Mediterranean; in Bosnia, The Old Europe.
Governments also utilizes mass media channels to change negative stereotypes about Eastern European countries. In 2004, the Romanian government backed what was the country's first long-term campaign to change the image of Romania in the West. A comprehensive project, called Romania: Simply Surprising, was developed to present Romania as a modern, multicultural, democratic country. TV channels were utilized to advertise the four major Romanian ‘assets': Bucharest, Transylvania, the churches of Bukovina, and Maramures, as well as the Black Sea coast. Similarly, in Bulgaria, the mass media played a role in influencing perceptions of Eastern Europe. For example, in 2007, a 45-second commercial with the slogan Open Doors to Open Hearts appeared on CNN as part of the ‘changing perception' campaign to promote Bulgaria as an attractive tourism destination. It is hoped that public campaigns and media products can change negative perceptions and reduce negative stereotypes about Eastern Europe. Introducing Intercultural Communication
References
Hall, Derek (ed) (1991) Tourism and Economic Development in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. London: Belhaven.
Todorova, Maria (1997) Imagining the Balkans. New York: Oxford University Press. Voicic, Zala (2008) ‘Former Yugoslavia on the World Wide web
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