Final Report

Arturas Tereskinas

2001 International Policy Fellow

Open Society Institute

ACTIVITY REPORT:

I.During the first part of my OSI fellowship (February 2001-July 2001) I focused on:

§the analysis on governmental decrees and laws concerning ethnic and sexual minorities and their rights in Lithuania. Here I cooperated with the Department of National Minorities and Émigrés for the Government of the Republic of Lithuania and the Committee on Human Rights of the Lithuanian Parliament, which supplied me with the necessary information. I also examined the main media laws recently enacted in Lithuania.

§the discourse analysis of the main Lithuanian dailies documenting the status of representations of ethnic and sexual minorities. I measured whether the depiction of minority groups tends to be positive, negative or neutral in order to determine how inclusive the Lithuanian press is of ethnic and sexual diversity. Press content was analyzed to identify recurrent stereotypes and representations of ethnic and sexual groups.

2. I drafted two academically-oriented research papers. 

3. I conducted interviews with Dr. Remigijus Motuzas, Director of the Department of National Minorities and Émigrés for the Government of the Republic of Lithuania. On of the goals of my cooperation with the Department was to establish closer ties with the representatives of national and ethnic groups in order to discuss their expectations and concerns about the Lithuanian mass media. 

4. During the first half of my OSI fellowship, I also organized a conference “Publicity and Publicness: Mass Culture, Politics and Identity” which took place on March 2, 2001, at Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania. In this conference, journalists and media scholars discussed the issues of the public sphere, citizenship, and subcultural identities. Proceedings of the conference will be published at the end of this year.

5. In April 2001, my colleagues and I established and registered our NGO, the Center for Public Policy Strategies (CPPS). Our Center will work on the issues of ethnic minorities, the EU and globalization, and the information society. One of the goals of our Center is to promote better understanding of ethnic and cultural differences and to implement civic initiatives that support tolerance in society.

RELATED ACTIVITIES

2.On May 4, I presented a paper entitled “Nomadologies: On Migration, Fantasy and Identity” at the Open Society Fund of Lithuania. My paper focused on the emergence of new ethnic and personal identities in Lithuania in the face of globalization processes.

3.On April 3, at the presentation of my book Bodily Signs: Sexuality and Identity in Lithuanian Cultureat the Open Society Fund of Lithuania I gave a talk entitled “Sexual Citizenship.” It focused on the political struggles over sexuality and its regulation in Lithuania. 

II. During the second part of my OSI fellowship (August 2001-March 2002) I focused on:

• the discourse analysis of the Lithuanian television documenting the status of representations of ethnic and sexual minorities. I drafted an article in which I examined a variety of images of marginalized groups, such as ethnic minorities, lesbians and gay people, on the Lithuanian television. The above research allowed me 1) to trace the major trends in telemedia practices which affect the portrayals of minority groups; 2) to assess whether the presence of ethnic and sexual minorities are of a major or minor significance when compared with majority role holders; and 3) to examine the problems of minority perspectives in the context of the study of mass media content and effects. 

• drafting of a policy paper that provides recommendations for adequate representations of minority groups in Lithuanian mass media and identifies the ways of enhancing the participation of ethnic minorities in the public sphere. 

• dissemination of the results of my media research. I organized and participated in a number of conferences and seminars on minority issues:

1.  “Nomadologies: Mass Media, Minorities and Citizenship in the Contemporary World.” Paper delivered at an international conference Beginnings and Ends of Emigration: Life without Borders in the Contemporary World, November 22-23, 2001, Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania. 

2. “Negotiating Inclusions: Representations of Minority Groups in the Lithuanian Mass Media.” Paper delivered at an international conference The Role of Civic Education in Strengthening Social Integration (supported by UNESCO). Lithuanian Law University, Vilnius, Lithuania, December 3-4, 2001.

3. Discussant in a round-table “Do Mass Media Help or Hinder Social Integration?” An international conference The Role of Civic Education in Strengthening Social Integration (supported by UNESCO). Lithuanian Law University, Vilnius, Lithuania, December 3-4, 2001.

4. “The Problems of Roma Minority in the Lithuanian Mass Media.” Paper delivered at an international seminar The Problems of Roma People and Their Social Integration (supported by UNESCO). Vilnius, January 10-11, 2002. 

5. As a member of the Center for Public Policy Strategies (CPPS), I organized and participated in a seminar Ethnic Groups in a Democratic Society: Public Discourse, the Marginalized and Conspicuous in Contemporary Lithuania.” Open Society Fund of Lithuania, Vilnius, January 25, 2002. During the seminar, I presented a paper “Ethnic Groups in the Lithuanian Mass Media: Images and Issues.”

6. “In the World of Global Mass Media: Between Migratory Scripts, Minority Politics and New Forms of Civic Identity.” Paper presented at a conference Challenges of Globalization: Politics, Mass Media and Civil Society in Lithuania, Vilnius, Lithuania, February 21, 2002.      

PUBLICATION REPORT

1.“On the Margins: Representations of Sexual Minorities in the Lithuanian Press (2000-01),” Sociologija/Sociology (Spring 2002). 

2.“Naujos pilietiškumo politikos link: etninės mažumos Lietuvos spaudoje (2000-01)” (Towards a New Politics of Citizenship: Ethnic Minorities in the Lithuanian Press) available at www.vdu.lt (Center for Sociopolitical Analysis). 

3.“Towards a New Politics of Citizenship: Representations of Ethnic and Sexual Minorities in the Lithuanian Mass Media (2000-01),” in Miklos Sukosd and Peter Bajomi Lazar, eds., Reinventing Media: Media Policy in East Central Europe, forthcoming (Budapest, 2002).

4.“Viešumo įkainiai paraštėse: seksualinių mažumų vaizdavimas Lietuvos spaudoje (2000-01 metai)” (The Price of Visibility on the Margins: Sexual Minorities and Lithuanian Mass Media) in Artūras Tereškinas, ed.,Intymios erdvės, vieši gyvenimai: viešuma, fantazija, pilietiškumas šiuolaikinėje Lietuvoje (Intimate Places, Public Lives: Publicity, Fantasy and Citizenship in Contemporary Lithuania), forthcoming, Vilnius: Baltos Lankos, 2002.

5.During my fellowship period I also published a bookBodily Signs: Sexuality and Identity in Lithuanian Culture (Vilnius: 2001) (in Lithuanian). Although my book is not directly related to my current project, it focuses on sexual and gender identities and public sphere in Lithuania. My book has been widely reviewed in discussed in both academic and popular media. Major newspapers published interviews with me. The publication and success of my book facilitated my access to a wide range of the media outlets that will be useful in publicizing the findings of my OSI research.

6.“Negotiating Inclusions: Representations of Minority Groups in the Lithuanian Mass Media.” Proceedings of the conference The Role of Civic Education in Strengthening Social Integration, forthcoming, Vilnius, 2002.

7.“The Problems of Roma Minority in the Lithuanian Mass Media.” Proceedings of the seminar The Problems of Roma People and Their Social Integration, forthcoming, Vilnius, 2002.

8.I submitted an article on sexuality "Threatening Bodies/ Bodiless Nation: Erotics of National Disembodiment in Postcommunist Lithuania," to A Comparative History of the Literary Cultures of East Central Europe, forthcoming, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Press, 2002. 

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