Whose 'Cousin from the countryside'?: Ideological reading of a media text

In this paper, I analyze ideological patterns of TV show 'My cousin from the countryside', which aired on Serbian national television at the end of 2008 achi-eving great success and enormous ratings. Produced by, broadcasted and marketed on national television - in Althusserian sense, an ideological state apparatus par excellence - this media text, its creation and reception, make an excellent 'case-study' of ideological streamings and confrontations in contemporary Serbia's media sphere. Defined mainly through conflicts of two opposing (and often confusingly intervowen) paradigms - that of militant nationalism and that of eurointegrations the public sphere opens a space for ideological battles of opposing sides which struggle to gain privileged positions in cultural conceptions of contemporary sociopolitical situation. Transitional circumstances define main points of those conflicts; as seen in the analysis, ethnonational narratives strive to make definite judgements on such relevant topics as Serbia's relation to its recent militant past (with emphasis on responsibility for war crimes), and its relationship with the West/Europe. This show represents such a narrative, grounded in ethno-nationalistic 'identity project'. Creating an image of transitional Serbia in accordance to cultural visions and symbolic of nationalistic imagery, it aims to paint a picture of Serbian identity as seen through nationalist ideological lens. Significant response from the audience shows that this kind of cultural representation succeeds in this intention - appealing to the spreaded views of Serbian nation and state as victims of unjust persecution of the hostile outside (Western) world, it offers its audience a misleading, yet comforting, symbolic resolution of painful issues connected to recent history and its consequences.