PUBLIC DISCOURSE AND CIVIL POWERLESSNESS

This paper presents the findings of a mass media discourse analysis ai med at revealing the frequent phrases that might cause a growing dista nce between politics and everyday life, accompanied by the feeling of civil powerlessness, recorded by public opinion surveys. The hypothesi s is that the power of the phrases, used by both journalists and polit icians, results from their binds to traditionally ''proven'' expectati ons of the Slovak population; They are expectations of elites' arbitra riness in interpreting the law, of decisive relevance informal network s have in social life, as well as of the public officials' obvious mak ing profit by their public posts.