Panic or integration: Discourses of population and ageing in South-Eastern European media

Tematikus különszám

Abstract

Through a systematic discourse analysis and quantitative coding, we explore how population, ageing, and crisis discourses appear, interact with one other, and co-occur in South-Eastern European media. Our central research problem is why and how ageing has remained only weakly integrated into the main population discourses despite the profound demographic changes brought about by population ageing, declining fertility, and migration. To address this question, we conduct in this volume a comparative analysis of four countries with somewhat similar and also somewhat different discursive traditions, socio-political histories, and population development on a material level. All four countries have experienced substantial population ageing and sustained fertility decline, yet their public discourses have been shaped by different combinations of conservative, ethnic-Narodnik, socialist modernisation, developmental, and other demographic transitions. This comparative design enables us to examine both common regional patterns and country-specific variations in the relationship between population and ageing discourses.