CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2019
| Author | Szegőfi, Ákos |
|---|---|
| Title | From Jack the Ripper to Jamal the Rapist: Disinformation, Blood Libel and the Imagery of the Immigrant Criminal |
| Summary | This thesis sets out to conceptualize the current moment of disinformation (called post-truth era by some researchers) arguing that there were several similar moments in Western history. The specific moment the thesis choose for comparison was the late 19th century, when – according to the assumptions of the thesis – the emerging mass media might have posed a similar challenge to human cognition as the emergence of social media does in contemporary times. The thesis works with Cultural Attraction Theory as its main framework and utilizes a case study methodology with discourse analysis. The particular disinformation that it focused on was a 19th century “blood libel”-case concerning immigrant populations and compared it to post-2015 disinforming narratives about refugee-seekers. The major findings consist of showing how similar ecological settings constitute to similar narratives due to the specificities of human cognition, while introduced Cultural Attraction Theory to the study of blood libels and disinformation in general. |
| Supervisor | Kovács, András |
| Department | Nationalism Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2019/szegofi_akos.pdf |
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