The World of Work in the Hungarian Television – The Portrayal of Occupations in Hungarian Fiction Series

Abstract

Television plays an important role in socialization (Greenberg, 1982; Signorielli, 1993; Wright el al., 1995; Cohen and Weimann, 2000; Hoffner et al., 2008; Gehrau, Brüggemann, Handrup, 2016), and it has a great impact later on too. Viewers gain knowledge from television about new, unfamiliar or unusual things, and they learn from there about the greater social reality to which they do not have direct access. Many television programmes represent occupations through working characters, therefore media has an inevitable role in shaping the public opinion on work-related notions. Work plays a central role in human life. In the Western culture active life is the standard, meaning that the people’s lives are framed by doing paid work. Work affects life in many ways: transforms the environment and shapes people’s identity (Watson, 2008). Occupations determine individuals in the social settings. On social events, for example, people who meet for the first time often ask the question from each-other “What do you do?”. The answer to this question helps people to define who they are in the social context. Participation in certain occupations are culturally bound and socially valued (Phelan and Kinsella, 2009; Unruh, 2004) and occupational titles functions as social categories as well, therefore, they are also a part of social identity.