The Paradox of Ceca and the Turbo-Folk Audience

摘要

After the Yugoslav wars and the fall of Milosevic regime in 2000, Ceca, despite her ties to Serbian nationalism, became one of the most popular Balkan turbo-folk singers. While analyzing Ceca, the authors try to account for this paradoxical popularity while contributing to an understanding of the relationship between popular culture and politics in the former Yugoslavia. On the basis of in-depth interviews with young female students in the two most “Western” republics of former Yugoslavia, Slovenia and Croatia, the authors address a simple question: Why does Ceca continue to be so popular in these two countries? The research reveals that Ceca and turbo-folk discourses flourish because they promote and promise a new type of personal empowerment in an era of rapid institutional and value changes in post-socialist Slovenia and Croatia. However, we argue that while Ceca's music is marketed using the promise of personal empowerment, the discourses it promotes are potentially disempowering for the very audiences it targets.View full textDownload full textRelated var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15405701003676121