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This study looks into the hybridity of a particular political discourse format by exploring different sets of characteristics of the press release genre published by the Office of the High Representative (OHR) in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1996 and 2005. In an integrated approach preceded by a substantial contextualization of the problem, the genre is analyzed in terms of its activity, social relations (colonizer and the colonized) and communication technology. Particular political communication strategies the genre is meant to accomplish, such as legitimization, coercion and representation, are also analyzed in terms of their linguistic realizations such as lexical and semantic content, metaphors, metapragmatic features, perlocution and construction of social hierarchy/distance towards recipients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the Bosnian war 1992-5, the Office of the High Representative (OHR) was assigned as the most powerful international body in the country regarding implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement and the subsequent accession of Bosnia and Herzegovina into the European Union. This study focuses on the semiotic elements of discourses of Europe and Europeanization constructed by the OHR in Bosnia and Herzegovina only to reveal more problematic relations of the OHR's dominance in a sovereign country. By analyzing regularly published press releases aimed at the Bosnian public in the process of transition and Europeanization, it looks at the ways in which this organization represented, legitimized and coerced Europeanization in Bosnia and Herzegovina. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]