Abstract This article undertakes a critical discourse analysis of Swedish quality newspaper editorials and their evolving framing of immigration since the 2015 peak of the recent European “refugee crisis”. Positioned within the ongoing discursive shifts in the Swedish public sphere and the growth of discursive uncivility in its mainstream areas, the analysis highlights how xenophobic and racist discourses once propagated by the far and radical right gradually penetrate into the studied broadsheet newspapers. We argue that the examined editorials carry the tendency to normalise once radical perceptions of immigration. This takes place by incorporating various discursive strategies embedded in wider argumentative frames – or topoi – of demographic consequences, Islam and Islamisation, threat, and integration. All of these enable constructing claims against immigration now apparently prevalent in the examined strands of the Swedish “quality” press.
{"title":"A populist turn?: News editorials and the recent discursive shift on immigration in Sweden","authors":"Mattias Ekman, M. Krzyżanowski","doi":"10.2478/nor-2021-0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2021-0007","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article undertakes a critical discourse analysis of Swedish quality newspaper editorials and their evolving framing of immigration since the 2015 peak of the recent European “refugee crisis”. Positioned within the ongoing discursive shifts in the Swedish public sphere and the growth of discursive uncivility in its mainstream areas, the analysis highlights how xenophobic and racist discourses once propagated by the far and radical right gradually penetrate into the studied broadsheet newspapers. We argue that the examined editorials carry the tendency to normalise once radical perceptions of immigration. This takes place by incorporating various discursive strategies embedded in wider argumentative frames – or topoi – of demographic consequences, Islam and Islamisation, threat, and integration. All of these enable constructing claims against immigration now apparently prevalent in the examined strands of the Swedish “quality” press.","PeriodicalId":45517,"journal":{"name":"Nordicom Review","volume":"42 1","pages":"67 - 87"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2021-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48128740","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract In the era of rising populist sentiment, deep social and political polarisations, and a growing crisis of online harms, numerous scholars share concern about the impact of such uncivil populist forces on the health of liberal democracy. This article argues that we should first normatively distinguish between incivility and intolerance. We contend that the core problem of uncivil society is intolerance, not incivility. We then empirically analyse incivility and intolerance during the 2018 Irish abortion referendum and its discussions on Twitter by conducting a content analysis and qualitative textual analysis of 3,000 tweets posted between April and June 2018. The results show that despite selecting a highly emotive and polarised issue, incivility and intolerance do not dominate the Twittersphere. Furthermore, gender and political position of users were found to be associated with use of incivility and intolerance, which increased as the referendum approached.
{"title":"Unpacking uncivil society: Incivility and intolerance in the 2018 Irish abortion referendum discussions on Twitter","authors":"D. Oh, Suzanne Elayan, M. Sykora, J. Downey","doi":"10.2478/nor-2021-0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2021-0009","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In the era of rising populist sentiment, deep social and political polarisations, and a growing crisis of online harms, numerous scholars share concern about the impact of such uncivil populist forces on the health of liberal democracy. This article argues that we should first normatively distinguish between incivility and intolerance. We contend that the core problem of uncivil society is intolerance, not incivility. We then empirically analyse incivility and intolerance during the 2018 Irish abortion referendum and its discussions on Twitter by conducting a content analysis and qualitative textual analysis of 3,000 tweets posted between April and June 2018. The results show that despite selecting a highly emotive and polarised issue, incivility and intolerance do not dominate the Twittersphere. Furthermore, gender and political position of users were found to be associated with use of incivility and intolerance, which increased as the referendum approached.","PeriodicalId":45517,"journal":{"name":"Nordicom Review","volume":"42 1","pages":"103 - 118"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2021-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44342586","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This study explores how an extreme far-right alternative media site uses content from professional media to convey uncivil news with an antisemitic message. Analytically, it rests on a critical discourse analysis of 231 news items, originating from established national and international news sources, published on Frihetskamp from 2011–2018. In the study, we explore how news items are recontextualised to portray both overt and covert antisemitic discourses, and we identify four antisemitic representations that are reinforced through the selection and adjustment of news: Jews as powerful, as intolerant and anti-liberal, as exploiters of victimhood, and as inferior. These conspiratorial and exclusionary ideas, also known from historical Nazi propaganda, are thus reproduced by linking them to contemporary societal and political contexts and the current news agenda. We argue that this kind of recontextualised, uncivil news can be difficult to detect in a digital public sphere.
{"title":"Recontextualising the news: How antisemitic discourses are constructed in extreme far-right alternative media","authors":"Birgitte P. Haanshuus, K. A. Ihlebæk","doi":"10.2478/nor-2021-0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2021-0005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This study explores how an extreme far-right alternative media site uses content from professional media to convey uncivil news with an antisemitic message. Analytically, it rests on a critical discourse analysis of 231 news items, originating from established national and international news sources, published on Frihetskamp from 2011–2018. In the study, we explore how news items are recontextualised to portray both overt and covert antisemitic discourses, and we identify four antisemitic representations that are reinforced through the selection and adjustment of news: Jews as powerful, as intolerant and anti-liberal, as exploiters of victimhood, and as inferior. These conspiratorial and exclusionary ideas, also known from historical Nazi propaganda, are thus reproduced by linking them to contemporary societal and political contexts and the current news agenda. We argue that this kind of recontextualised, uncivil news can be difficult to detect in a digital public sphere.","PeriodicalId":45517,"journal":{"name":"Nordicom Review","volume":"42 1","pages":"37 - 50"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2021-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47276225","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract News consumption has changed dramatically in the digital age, becoming increasingly complicated and fragmented. In this study, I analyse news consumption patterns in Iceland, drawing on data from a survey conducted in 2017, and compare it with news consumption in other Nordic countries. It is the first such study in Iceland in the digital age. The findings demonstrate that news are widely consumed by the general public, as in general in the Nordic region. Online sites are Icelanders’ most popular main source of news, followed by television and then social media. Legacy media are still most people's primary source of news, even if they are accessed on new platforms. Like in other Nordic countries, a small minority interacts with news online.
{"title":"News consumption patterns in Iceland","authors":"Valgerður Jóhannsdóttir","doi":"10.2478/nor-2021-0019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2021-0019","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract News consumption has changed dramatically in the digital age, becoming increasingly complicated and fragmented. In this study, I analyse news consumption patterns in Iceland, drawing on data from a survey conducted in 2017, and compare it with news consumption in other Nordic countries. It is the first such study in Iceland in the digital age. The findings demonstrate that news are widely consumed by the general public, as in general in the Nordic region. Online sites are Icelanders’ most popular main source of news, followed by television and then social media. Legacy media are still most people's primary source of news, even if they are accessed on new platforms. Like in other Nordic countries, a small minority interacts with news online.","PeriodicalId":45517,"journal":{"name":"Nordicom Review","volume":"42 1","pages":"87 - 101"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2021-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46451401","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This article describes the historical development of media policy in Greenland, and the shifts in the underlying normative and causal ideas that legitimise media policy. I argue that media policy reflects changes in Greenland's political system. Specifically, under colonial rule, Greenlandic media was state run and media was seen as an instrument to educate the population. Gradually, with the introduction of home rule, a paradigm shift took place, whereby media was seen as a vital instrument to strengthen Greenlandic language and identity. At the same time, normative ideas of media independence appeared which called for institutionalisation of the arm's length principle. Due to the influence and institutional spill-over from Denmark, I argue, Greenlandic media policy fit rather well into the “Nordic media model” although media policy in Greenland is mostly formulated without long-term or broad political agreements.
{"title":"Media policy in Greenland","authors":"Signe Ravn-Højgaard","doi":"10.2478/nor-2021-0016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2021-0016","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article describes the historical development of media policy in Greenland, and the shifts in the underlying normative and causal ideas that legitimise media policy. I argue that media policy reflects changes in Greenland's political system. Specifically, under colonial rule, Greenlandic media was state run and media was seen as an instrument to educate the population. Gradually, with the introduction of home rule, a paradigm shift took place, whereby media was seen as a vital instrument to strengthen Greenlandic language and identity. At the same time, normative ideas of media independence appeared which called for institutionalisation of the arm's length principle. Due to the influence and institutional spill-over from Denmark, I argue, Greenlandic media policy fit rather well into the “Nordic media model” although media policy in Greenland is mostly formulated without long-term or broad political agreements.","PeriodicalId":45517,"journal":{"name":"Nordicom Review","volume":"42 1","pages":"36 - 52"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2021-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48727703","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract In this article, we propose a history of Sámi journalism and news media as a step in the direction of analysing the existing media system in Sápmi. Numerous Sámi activists and organisations have contributed to the establishment and running of Sámi media – in interaction, cooperation, and conflict with external actors such as missionaries, investors, and state institutions. This has resulted in a rich and vivid Sámi media environment and infrastructure, with many of the characteristics of a media system. However, fundamental processes governing the Sámi media system are subjected to regulations, procedures, and institutions external to Sámi society. This article calls for greater Sámi self-determination over key elements of the media system.
{"title":"A Sámi media system?","authors":"Torkel Rasmussen, I. Sara, Roy Krøvel","doi":"10.2478/nor-2021-0015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2021-0015","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In this article, we propose a history of Sámi journalism and news media as a step in the direction of analysing the existing media system in Sápmi. Numerous Sámi activists and organisations have contributed to the establishment and running of Sámi media – in interaction, cooperation, and conflict with external actors such as missionaries, investors, and state institutions. This has resulted in a rich and vivid Sámi media environment and infrastructure, with many of the characteristics of a media system. However, fundamental processes governing the Sámi media system are subjected to regulations, procedures, and institutions external to Sámi society. This article calls for greater Sámi self-determination over key elements of the media system.","PeriodicalId":45517,"journal":{"name":"Nordicom Review","volume":"42 1","pages":"22 - 35"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2021-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44975295","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract My main objective in this article is to examine the importance of political parallelism in Iceland through establishing the extent to which political parallelism is perceived to char-acterise political communication in Iceland by politicians and voters. Political parallelism is one of the defining elements of Hallin and Mancini's typology of media systems. Based on candidate surveys from five elections and a voter survey, indexes of perceived political parallelism are configured for politicians and voters. The analysis suggests a high degree of perceived political parallelism and that the perceptions are reflected in partisan ideological views of individual media outlets. The same – or at least similar – perceptions about political parallelism in the media system seem to penetrate the system irrespective of age and at the national, local, and individual level of politics. However, voters and candidates of social democratic and liberal internationally oriented parties perceive a significantly lower degree of parallelism than others.
{"title":"Political parallelism in Iceland: Perceived media-politics relations","authors":"Birgir Guðmundsson","doi":"10.2478/nor-2021-0017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2021-0017","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract My main objective in this article is to examine the importance of political parallelism in Iceland through establishing the extent to which political parallelism is perceived to char-acterise political communication in Iceland by politicians and voters. Political parallelism is one of the defining elements of Hallin and Mancini's typology of media systems. Based on candidate surveys from five elections and a voter survey, indexes of perceived political parallelism are configured for politicians and voters. The analysis suggests a high degree of perceived political parallelism and that the perceptions are reflected in partisan ideological views of individual media outlets. The same – or at least similar – perceptions about political parallelism in the media system seem to penetrate the system irrespective of age and at the national, local, and individual level of politics. However, voters and candidates of social democratic and liberal internationally oriented parties perceive a significantly lower degree of parallelism than others.","PeriodicalId":45517,"journal":{"name":"Nordicom Review","volume":"42 1","pages":"53 - 69"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2021-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41323751","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Media systems in “the other” Nordic countries and autonomous regions: Studies of news media and journalism in the Faroe Islands, Greenland, Iceland, Sápmi, and Åland","authors":"Ida Willig, L. Nord","doi":"10.2478/nor-2021-0013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2021-0013","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45517,"journal":{"name":"Nordicom Review","volume":"42 1","pages":"1 - 7"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2021-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45261329","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This article is based on a case study of the media narratives of the neo-Nazi organisation Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM) and situates this particular actor within the broader landscape of violent extremism in Sweden today. Drawing on a qualitative content analysis informed by narrative inquiry, I examine various cultural expressions of neo-Nazi ideology in NRM's extensive repertoire of online media. Theoretically, I turn to cultural perspectives on violent extremism to bring to centre stage the role of popular culture and entertainment in the construction of a meaningful narrative of community and belonging built around neo-Nazism in Sweden today. The analysis explores the convergence between different genres, styles, and content into new cultural expressions of national socialism which bleed into mainstream Internet culture and political discourse in new ways. In the online universe of NRM, the extreme blends with the mainstream, the mundane and ordinary with the spectacular and provocative, and the serious with the silly. In this manner, the analysis lays bare the strategies through which NRM seeks to soften, trivialise, and normalise neo-Nazi discourse using the power and appeal of culture and entertainment.
{"title":"“I just want to be the friendly face of national socialism”: The turn to civility in the cultural expressions of neo-Nazism in Sweden","authors":"Tina Askanius","doi":"10.2478/nor-2021-0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2021-0004","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article is based on a case study of the media narratives of the neo-Nazi organisation Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM) and situates this particular actor within the broader landscape of violent extremism in Sweden today. Drawing on a qualitative content analysis informed by narrative inquiry, I examine various cultural expressions of neo-Nazi ideology in NRM's extensive repertoire of online media. Theoretically, I turn to cultural perspectives on violent extremism to bring to centre stage the role of popular culture and entertainment in the construction of a meaningful narrative of community and belonging built around neo-Nazism in Sweden today. The analysis explores the convergence between different genres, styles, and content into new cultural expressions of national socialism which bleed into mainstream Internet culture and political discourse in new ways. In the online universe of NRM, the extreme blends with the mainstream, the mundane and ordinary with the spectacular and provocative, and the serious with the silly. In this manner, the analysis lays bare the strategies through which NRM seeks to soften, trivialise, and normalise neo-Nazi discourse using the power and appeal of culture and entertainment.","PeriodicalId":45517,"journal":{"name":"Nordicom Review","volume":"42 1","pages":"17 - 35"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2021-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42655173","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}