Understanding a liminal condition: Comparing emerging representations of the “vegetative state”

Our research explored the social representations of “vegetative state” across different cultural (India, Italy, and UK) milieus (left-leaning, right-leaning, religious/tabloid newspapers). The aim was to discover how public discourse engages liminality between life death. Qualitative quantitative text analyses were conducted on news headlines full-texts from British (n = 300), Indian Italian 300) newspapers published January 1990 June 2019. study shows three results: (a) vegetative state is a potentially global issue that remains discussed with local timing characteristics; (b) it commonly represented in eight frames resonance milieus; (c) flows are organised dimensions (quality, political, ideological). Results shed light discursively managed by interplay resources positionings. In particular, this suggests hitherto unrecognised function objectification process: personification as position-taking. This article protected copyright. All rights reserved