The Human Face of the European Union: A Critical Study

Recent studies on the informative material made available to the general public by theEuropean Union (Caliendo 2007, forthcoming in coll. with Piga; Magistro 2007a, 2007b,forthcoming) have shown that the community institutions and bodies notably draw from a variety of different genres and discursive practices to appeal to their audience. More specifically, the European Union (EU) benefits from orders of discourse that are generally found in communication in the commodity sector. The spread of consumer culture has affected the way public entities present and manage themselves, leading to a more commercial approach in terms of the objects they deal with (i.e. public products), the beneficiaries of these objects (i.e. customers), and the way public entities represent these objects and address such beneficiaries (i.e. the adoption of a promotional style). Hence, the public sector has lately been experiencing a process of commodification of social life, carrying elements of marketisation of public and institutional discourse (Fairclough and Wodak 1997).