Research topic

Making Domestic Violence. The discursive emergence of domestic violence in the Hungarian media, 2002-2013

Supervisors: Professor Lilie Chouliaraki and Dr Sadie Wearing

Gyorgyi explores the relevance of the news media as a facilitator of social change in regard to domestic violence in Hungary between 2002 and 2013. Specifically, she investigates how domestic violence against women, once entirely ”invisible” and ”unheard of” under state socialism, and only sporadically noted in the 1990s, by the 2000s has gathered significant public visibility in the country. She understands domestic violence as discourse; the media as both a social institution and symbolic space that have power to influence our perception of the social world; and focuses on the agency of media texts to emotionally, morally, or politically engage publics to public issues and the suffering of others. She usesFaircloughian Critical Discourse Analysis, applied to a historically comparative case study design, which consists of three cases from mainstream Hungarian broadcast news media – selected on the basis of their data richness and relevance.

Academic and professional background

Gyorgyi has a Humanities background with university degrees obtained in Hungary where for many years she worked in various literature-related jobs, including positions as cultural journalist, book critic, World Literature series editor, and also university lecturer at several universities, including the top national research university, ELTE. In recent years she has also worked as a cultural expert to the European Union. Her current research interests mainly root in her extensive background in post-socialist, especially Hungarian contexts, her multiyear experience as a cultural media worker, and the volunteer work she undertook as a helpline operator for victims of domestic violence at an NGO in Budapest in 2012-13.

Publications

For previous publications (mostly related to Hungarian literature and gender) see Gyorgyi's personal website.