Ahmad, Mahvish, and Karen Waltorp. ‘Kontroversen Om Exitcirklen: Racialiseringen Af Muslimske Kvinder i Den Danske Mediedebat’. (2019) [PDF]

Ahmad, Mahvish, and Karen Waltorp. ‘Kontroversen Om Exitcirklen: Racialiseringen Af Muslimske Kvinder i Den Danske Mediedebat’. Jordens Folk, Dansk Etnografisk Forening, 2019, pp. 65–77.

Er man kendt i de danske medier som muslimsk kvinde, er der en tendens til, at man enten bliver fejret som frigjort eller opfattet som undertrykt. Vi argumenterer for, at en sådan simplistisk repræsentation i modsætningspar udelukker mere nuancerede (selv)fortællinger og kan ses som et symptom på racialiseringen af muslimer i den danske offentlighed. Vi undersøger en kontrovers om statsstøtte, hvor to samfundsdebattører, hyldet som feminister, blev anklaget for at være skabs-islamister. 

http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/103051/

PDF: https://www.academia.edu/39715541/Kontroversen_om_Exitcirklen_Racialisering_af_muslimske_kvinder_i_den_danske_mediedebat

Farkas, Johan, and Christina Neumayer. ‘“Stop Fake Hate Profiles on Facebook”: Challenges for Crowdsourced Activism on Social Media’. (2017) [PDF]

Farkas, Johan, and Christina Neumayer. ‘“Stop Fake Hate Profiles on Facebook”: Challenges for Crowdsourced Activism on Social Media’. First Monday, Sept. 2017.

This research examines how activists mobilise against fake hate profiles on Facebook. Based on six months of participant observation, this paper demonstrates how Danish Facebook users organised to combat fictitious Muslim profiles that spurred hatred against ethnic minorities. Crowdsourced action by Facebook users is insufficient as a form of sustainable resistance against fake hate profiles. A viable solution would require social media companies, such as Facebook, to take responsibility in the struggle against fake content used for political manipulation. 

doi:10.5210/fm.v22i9.8042.

https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/8042.

PDF: https://pure.itu.dk/portal/files/82174317/Manuscript_Revised_Farkas_and_Neumayer.pdf.

Farkas, Johan, and Christina Neumayer. Mimicking News: How the Credibility of an Established Tabloid Is Used When Disseminating Racism. (2020) [PDF]

Farkas, Johan, and Christina Neumayer. Mimicking News: How the Credibility of an Established Tabloid Is Used When Disseminating Racism. Vol. 41, Jan. 2020, pp. 1–22,

This article explores the mimicking of tabloid news as a form of covert racism, relying on the credibility of an established tabloid newspaper. The qualitative case study focuses on a digital platform for letters to the editor, operated without editorial curation pre-publication from 2010 to 2018 by one of Denmark’s largest newspapers, Ekstra Bladet . A discourse analysis of the 50 most shared letters to the editor on Facebook shows that nativist, far-right actors used the platform to disseminate fear-mongering discourses and xenophobic conspiracy theories, disguised as professional news and referred to as articles. These processes took place at the borderline of true and false as well as racist and civil discourse. At this borderline, a lack of supervision and moderation coupled with the openness and visual design of the platform facilitated new forms of covert racism between journalism and user-generated content.

doi:10.2478/nor-2020-0001.

PDF: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338692613_Mimicking_News_How_the_credibility_of_an_established_tabloid_is_used_when_disseminating_racism.

Hussain, Naimah. ‘Bourdieu in Greenland: Elaborating the Field Dependencies of Post-Colonial Journalism’. (2017) [PDF]

Hussain, Naimah. ‘Bourdieu in Greenland: Elaborating the Field Dependencies of Post-Colonial Journalism’. Present Scenarios of Media Production and Engagement, Eds. Simone Tosoni, Nico Carpentier, Maria Francesca Murru, Richard Kilborn, Leif Kramp, Risto Kunelius, Anthony McNicholas, Tobias Olsson, and Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt, edition lumière, 2017,

The scarcely populated island of Greenland offers a unique opportunity both to study the complex dependencies and tensions of contemporary “global” or “transnational” journalism and to test and develop the explanation power of one key theoretical framework, field theory. With only one (national and public) broadcaster and two weekly newspapers, the journalistic field in Greenland is small, exposed and vulnerable. It is embedded in the broader political, economic and professional field dynamics of Denmark, the former colonial power. For instance, the legislation and the organizational structure of the media are inherited and a flow of Danish visiting journalists and editors keep up the norms and the value system of the field. At the same time, Greenlandic journalism operates in a nation of its own with distinct characteristics: small size, politics of the bilingualism, tight local networks with a small elite and close ties between reporters and possible sources shape the field practically, professionally and socially (in a specific, local way). These tensions between the “global-colonial” and “local” capitals and capacities are negotiated and managed in the everyday practices of newsrooms. There is almost no previous research on Greenlandic media in general and journalism practice in particular. Mapping this small but contested field allows us to highlight some of the key analytical strengths of Bourdieu’s field theory and its ability to capture the dynamic actor relationships in such a complex, structured space. At the same time, however, the “post-colonial” realities of Greenlandic journalism can help us to pose some questions about the limits – or the need for further development – of Bourdieu’s initial sketch about the journalistic field. This chapter tests the analytical concepts of capital and habitus by putting them to empirical work through an ethnographic study of practices and structures of news making in Greenland.

https://forskning.ruc.dk/da/publications/bourdieu-in-greenland-elaborating-the-field-dependencies-of-post-. https://forskning.ruc.dk/da/publications/bourdieu-in-greenland-elaborating-the-field-dependencies-of-post-.

PDF: http://www.researchingcommunication.eu/SuSobook2016.pdf

Hervik, Peter. ‘Fortællingen om de danske værter og deres generende gæster’. (2016) [PDF]

Hervik, Peter. ‘Fortællingen om de danske værter og deres generende gæster’. Narrativ Forskning, Eds. Glavind Bo Inger, Ann-Dorte Christensen, and Trine Thomsen, 2016. Hans Reitzels Forlag, 275–292.

De fleste danskere har meget begrænset kontakt med indvandrere, flygtninge og efterkommere. De baserer i stedet deres holdninger på de kategorier, argumenter, billeder, følelser og indtryk fra narrativer, som cirkulerer i nyhedsmedierne og bliver luftet i samtaler på arbejdspladsen, i supermarkedet og til familiesammenkomster. Efterhånden bliver talen og fortællingerne om indvandrerne mere og mere indlejret som en særlig grundfortælling, hvor de nye borgere bliver sat ind i et gæst-vært scenarie fremfor i et fælles-menneskeligt og inkluderende “vi”. I artiklen præsenteres denne grundfortællings bestanddele og der argumenteres for, hvordan den forstærker og fastholder relationen mellem indfødte danskere og danskere med indvandrerbaggrund i et forhold af uforenelighed. Dette er et forhold, der udgør en fremtrædende fortælling hos danskerne allerede inden de møder mennesker med anden etnisk og kulturel baggrund.

PDF: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308892284_Fortaellingen_om_de_danske_vaerter_og_deres_generende_gaester.

Hervik, Peter. The Annoying Difference: The Emergence of Danish Neonationalism, Neoracism, and Populism in the Post-1989 World. (2011)

Hervik, Peter. The Annoying Difference: The Emergence of Danish Neonationalism, Neoracism, and Populism in the Post-1989 World. New York, NY: Berghahn Books, 2011.

The Muhammad cartoon crisis of 2005−2006 in Denmark caught the world by surprise as the growing hostilities toward Muslims had not been widely noticed. Through the methodologies of media anthropology, cultural studies, and communication studies, this book brings together more than thirteen years of research on three significant historical media events in order to show the drastic changes and emerging fissures in Danish society and to expose the politicization of Danish news journalism, which has consequences for the political representation and everyday lives of ethnic minorities in Denmark.

https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/hervikannoying

Hervik, Peter. The Danish Muhammad Cartoon Conflict. (2012) [PDF]

Hervik, Peter. The Danish Muhammad Cartoon Conflict. Malmö University, Malmö Institute for Studies of Migration, Diversity and Welfare (MIM), 2012.

The “Muhammad crisis,” the “Muhammad Cartoon Crisis,” or “The  Jyllands-Posten Crisis” are three different headings used for the global,  violent reactions that broke out in early 2006. The cartoon crisis was  triggered by the publication of 12 cartoons in the largest Danish daily  newspaper Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten on 30 September 2005 and  the Danish governments refusal to meet with 11 concerned ambassadors.  However, Jyllands-Posten’s record on covering Islam; the  ever growing restrictive identity politics and migration policies and  the popular association of Islam with terrorism made it predictable  that something drastic would eventually happen, although neither the  form of the counter-reaction or the stubborn anti-Islamic forces were  unknown. This collection of chapters seeks to fill out some of the most  glaring holes in the media coverage and academic treatment of the  Muhammad cartoon story. It will do so by situating the conflict more  firmly in its proper socio-historical context by drawing on the author’s  basic research on the Danish news media’s coverage of ethnic and  religious minorities since the mid 1990s. The author uses thick contextualization  to analyze this very current theme in IMER studies, which  has consequences for most immigrants of non-Western countries to the  Nordic countries.

PDF: http://muep.mau.se/handle/2043/14094

Hjarvard, Stig. ‘Mediatization and the Changing Authority of Religion’ (2016) [PDF]

Hjarvard, Stig. ‘Mediatization and the Changing Authority of Religion’. Media, Culture & Society, vol. 38, no. 1, Jan. 2016, pp. 8–17.

Introduction

Religion has become more publicly visible over the past decades in several parts of the world, including the predominantly secular Nordic countries, and has acquired a continuous presence on various political and cultural agendas. The increased visibility is not least due to the presence of religion in the media, including news media, entertainment media, and social network media. For some scholars of religion, the growing public visibility has been used to claim a resurgence of religious belief in general and to denounce the idea of secularization in particular. Peter Berger (1999), himself once a proponent of secularization theory, has stated that the world is ‘as furiously religious as it ever was, and in some places more so than ever. This means that a whole body of literature by historians and social scientists loosely labeled “secularization theory” is essentially mistaken’ (p. 2).

In this article, I will pursue a more cautious line of reasoning and address the role of media in the growing visibility of religion. In short, I will argue that the visibility of religion is in part a reflection of a general mediatization of religion through which religious beliefs, agency, and symbols are becoming influenced by the workings of various media. There are, of course, many other and in some respects more important reasons for the increased presence of religion in modern societies, such as global migration, politicization of religious organizations, and the international war on terror. But the presence of religion in the media is not just a mirror of a religious reality ‘outside’ the media. It is also an outcome of a complex set of processes in which the importance of religion and particular religious beliefs and actions are contested as well as reasserted, both in and by the media, at the same time as religion undergoes transformation through the very process of being mediated through various media. I will focus my attention on the question of to what extent and in what ways religious authority may undergo transformation in view of the general process of mediatization. The argument will rest primarily on research conducted in the Nordic countries (Hjarvard and Lövheim, 2012), in which the Protestant Lutheran church has historically occupied a dominant position and in which a wider range of religions have become visible in more recent times, not least Islam. Since my discussion of a changing religious authority is closely linked to the theoretical framework of mediatization, I will briefly introduce the main tenets of mediatization theory and the general characteristics of the mediatization of religion. This outline of the mediatization of religion will also serve as a reference for contributions by Knut Lundby, Mia Lövheim, and Günter Thomas in this issue of Media, Culture & Society.

doi:10.1177/0163443715615412.

PDF: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0163443715615412.

Hjarvard, Stig, and Mattias Pape Rosenfeldt. ‘Planning Public Debate: Beyond Entrenched Controversies About Islam’. (2018) [PDF]

Hjarvard, Stig, and Mattias Pape Rosenfeldt. ‘Planning Public Debate: Beyond Entrenched Controversies About Islam’. Contesting Religion, Ed. Knut Lundby, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2018, 117–134. Crossref,

The contentious public debates about Islam in Scandinavia may to some extent be characterized as an entrenched conflict, upheld by stereotypical framings and fixed rhetorical positions. This case study examines public service media’s ability to facilitate public debates that move beyond such ingrained positions. Through interviews with key professionals behind the TV documentary Rebellion from the Ghetto, we examine the strategies for generating public debate about cultural and religious problems. We furthermore analyse online and offline debates, with particular focus on the inclusion of minority voices and how framings of religion enter and influence the discussion. By consciously downplaying the role of ‘religion’ and framing conflicts in terms of personal experiences and universal themes, the documentary managed to set the scene for a debate in which young Muslims’ various experiences were given authority, thereby allowing the debate to transcend the usual ‘us–them’, ‘majority–minority’ framing of these issues.

doi:10.1515/9783110502060-012.

PDF: http://www.degruyter.com/view/books/9783110502060/9783110502060-012/9783110502060-012.xml.

Hovden, Jan Fredrik, and Hilmar Mjelde. ‘Increasingly Controversial, Cultural, and Political: The Immigration Debate in Scandinavian Newspapers 1970–2016’. (2019)

Hovden, Jan Fredrik, and Hilmar Mjelde. ‘Increasingly Controversial, Cultural, and Political: The Immigration Debate in Scandinavian Newspapers 1970–2016’. Javnost – The Public, vol. 26, no. 2, Apr. 2019, pp. 138–157.

Earlier accounts of the immigration debate in Scandinavia have suggested that despite the countries’ many similarities, Swedish newspapers are dominated by immigration friendly views, that Danish papers are very open to strongly negative views on immigration, and that Norwegian press occupies a middle position. However, this argument has until now not been tested through a large systematic, comparative, and historical study of newspaper coverage of immigration in these countries. As a part of the SCANPUB project [https:// scanpub.w.uib.no/], a content analysis of a representative sample of articles for two news- papers for each country for the period 1970–2016 (one constructed month pr. year, N = 4329) was done. Focusing on broad Scandinavian trends and major national differences, the results support the general claims about national differences in Scandinavian immigration debate, and also suggest some major developments, in particular the rise of immigration as an issue for debate and for national politicians.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13183222.2019.1589285

Hussain, Mustafa. ‘Islam, Media and Minorities in Denmark’. (2000) [PDF]

Hussain, Mustafa. ‘Islam, Media and Minorities in Denmark’. Current Sociology, vol. 48, no. 4, SAGE Publications Ltd, Oct. 2000, pp. 95–116.

This article examines the contribution of Denmark’s news media to the formation of intolerant opinions about ethnic minorities. Based on an empirical investigation using discourse analysis and a narrative approach to the contents of the daily news flow on ethnic affairs in the dominant news media, the article argues that the media have played an important role in the (re)production of a prejudiced discourse on ethnic minorities. In this discursive process, Muslim minorities have been the primary victims. In the absence of social interaction between the majority population and minority groups, the cognitive frame of reference through which members of the ethnic majority premise their arguments is largely based on mental models of ethnic events that are constituted by media-mediated themes and topics on minority issues in the daily news flow of the national media.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0011392100048004008

PDF: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0011392100048004008

Hussain, Mustafa, Ferruh Yılmaz, and Tim O’Connor. Medierne, minoriteterne og majoriteten: en undersøgelse af nyhedsmedier og den folkelige diskurs i Danmark. (1997) [PDF]

Hussain, Mustafa, Ferruh Yilmaz, and Tim O’Connor. Medierne, minoriteterne og majoriteten: en undersøgelse af nyhedsmedier og den folkelige diskurs i Danmark. København: Nævnet for etnisk ligestilling, 1997.

Undersøgelse af hvordan etniske mindretal behandles og dækkes af TV, radio, dagblade og ugepressen.

PDF: http://www.tulane.edu/~fyilmaz/book.pdf. http://www.tulane.edu/~fyilmaz/book.pdf.

Jørndrup, Hanne. ‘Dem vi taler om’: Etniske minoriteter i danske nyhedsmedier. (2017) [PDF]

Jørndrup, Hanne. ‘Dem vi taler om’: Etniske minoriteter i danske nyhedsmedier. Edited by Roskilde Universitet Center for Nyhedsforskning, JP/Politikenshus, and Ansvarlig Presse, København: Ansvarlig Presse, 2017.

ETNISKE MINORITETER I NYHEDSBILLEDET3Indvandrere og efterkommere er genstand for stor opmærksomhed og debat i det danske sam-fund. Medier, politikere og befolkning har over de seneste årtier haft en kontinuerlig interesse for spørgsmål om, hvor mange og hvilke indvandrere Danmark modtager, samt hvordan og hvorvidt disse er integreret i det danske samfund. I relation hertil diskuteres også spørgsmål om religion, traditioner, kvindesyn, værdier m.m. Skiftende regeringer har indført forskellige lovgivningstiltag for at regulere indvandreres adgang til Danmark, ligesom generelle integrationsspørgsmål over de seneste mange år har været et helt centralt emne ved folketingsvalg og i den politiske debat. Alt dette får borgerne først og fremmest indtryk af gennem nyhedsmedierne.

Spørgsmål om indvandrere og efterkommere er altså markant tilstede på mediernes dagsorden og har været det i flere årtier.

Det er dog ikke ensbetydende med, at indvandrere og efterkommere selv får tilsvarende plads og taletid i medierne. Denne rapport undersøger, hvorvidt nyhedsmedierne kun taler om indvan-drere og efterkommere, eller om de også taler med dem. I 2012 udkom den første undersøgelse af mediernes dækning af indvandrere og efterkommere under titlen “Nydanskerne i nyhedsmedierne”. Undersøgelsen var lavet ud fra et ønske om at skabe et kvalificeret grundlag for debatter om indvandrere og efterkommeres tilstedeværelse og optræden i danske nyhedsmedier.Denne rapport er en opfølgning på rapporten fra 2012 og bygger på de samme grundlæggende spørgsmål for at lave en kortlægning af nyhedsbilledet: Hvor meget fylder indvandrere og efterkommer i det danske nyhedsbillede? Hvilke nyhedshistorier optræder de i? Hvilken rolle spiller de i nyhedsdækningen?

Rapporten er beskrivende og kvantitativ og bygger på kodningen af 2966 nyhedskilder i 1190 nyhedshistorier fra ni danske medier fra udvalgte dage i de første 14 uger af 2016. De kvantitative opgørelser over nyhedskilder, stofområder og kildetyper vil blive diskuteret i forhold til, dels tal fra Danmarks Statistiks rapport “Indvandrere i Danmark 2016” og dels generelle karakteristika ved danske mediers praksis.

PDF: https://pluralisterne.dk/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/AP_Dem-vi-taler-om_2017.pdf

Jul Jacobsen, Sara, Tina Gudrun Jensen, Kathrine Vitus, and Kristina Weibel. Analysis of Danish Media Setting and Framing of Muslims, Islam and Racism. (2013) [PDF]

Jul Jacobsen, Sara, Tina Gudrun Jensen, Kathrine Vitus, and Kristina Weibel. Analysis of Danish Media Setting and Framing of Muslims, Islam and Racism. København: The Danish National Centre for Social Research, 2013.

This paper presents the results of two case studies exploring the role which the Danish newspaper Media play in the reproduction of racial and ethnic inequalities. One case study analyses representations of Muslims and Islam in Danish newspapers, the other the presence and absence of discussions about racism and discrimination of ethnic minorities in Denmark. The analyses are based on, respectively, a two-month and a two-week monitoring of four Danish newspapers between mid-October and mid-December 2011. A relatively large share of the news stories dealing with Muslims and Islam was negatively framed and restricted to certain topics such as extremism, terror and sharia, whereas positive actions and critical topics like racism and discrimination against Muslims were more or less nonexistent in the Media coverage. Constructed through an antagonistic and hierarchical relationship between ‘Danes’ and ‘Muslims’, Muslim culture and Islam tended to be represented as a threat to Danish society and so-called Danish values. The reporting was rather one-sided and exclusive of minority voices, and when Muslims were given voice, the same few publicly visible and vocal actors appeared. At the same time, the lives and opinions of the less visible majority of Muslims more or less vanished in the Media coverage. In this way, the newspapers constructed a distorted and negative picture of Muslims and their religion, and thereby contributed to a general climate of intolerance and discrimination against Muslim minorities.

PDF: https://pure.vive.dk/ws/files/224036/WP_10_2013.pdf.

Lentin, Alana, and Gavan Titley. The Crises of Multiculturalism: Racism in a Neoliberal Age (2011)

Lentin, Alana, and Gavan Titley. The Crises of Multiculturalism: Racism in a Neoliberal Age. London ; New York: Zed Books, 2011.

Across the West, something called multiculturalism is in crisis. Regarded as the failed experiment of liberal elites, commentators and politicians compete to denounce its corrosive legacies; parallel communities threatening social cohesion, enemies within cultivated by irresponsible cultural relativism, mediaeval practices subverting national ‘ways of life’ and universal values. This important new book challenges this familiar narrative of the rise and fall of multiculturalism by challenging the existence of a coherent era of ‘multiculturalism’ in the first place. The authors argue that what we are witnessing is not so much a rejection of multiculturalism as a rejection of lived multiculture. In documenting mainstream racism and the anxieties that inform it, Lentin and Titley argue that the crisis is a projection of neoliberal societies’ disjunctures. Combining theory with a reading of contemporary events, it examines the transnational, mediated nature of crisis itself, and argues challenging this notion provides activists with a chance to transcend resurgent racism.

The Crises of Multiculturalism

Løngreen, Hanne. ‘Hvor vandene skilles – repræsentation af etniske minoriteter i danske medier’. (2001) [PDF]

Løngreen, Hanne. ‘Hvor vandene skilles – repræsentation af etniske minoriteter i danske medier’. MedieKultur: Journal of media and communication research, vol. 17, no. 32, 32, Sept. 2001, p. 14 pages-14 pages.

Er det humanistiske videnskabsparadigme blevet kastet ud med badevandet  i tværfaglighedens navn? Artiklen indtager en bevidst humanistisk position i  forhold til forskningen inden for medier og etnicitet og demonstrerer, hvorledes denne position kan inddrages i analysen af repræsentationen af etniske  minoriteter i danske medier.

doi:10.7146/mediekultur.v17i32.1167.

PDF: https://tidsskrift.dk/mediekultur/article/view/1167

Lundby, Knut. Contesting Religion, The Media Dynamics of Cultural Conflicts in Scandinavia. (2018) [PDF]

Lundby, Knut. Contesting Religion, The Media Dynamics of Cultural Conflicts in Scandinavia. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2018.

As Scandinavian societies experience increased ethno-religious diversity, their Christian-Lutheran heritage and strong traditions of welfare and solidarity are being challenged and contested. This book explores conflicts related to religion as they play out in public broadcasting, social media, local civic settings, and schools. It examines how the mediatization of these controversies influences people’s engagement with contested issues about religion, and redraws the boundaries between inclusion and exclusion.

doi:10.1515/9783110502060.

PDF: https://www.degruyter.com/viewbooktoc/product/478981.

Lundby, Knut, Stig Hjarvard, Mia Lövheim, and Haakon H. Jernsletten. ‘Religion between Politics and Media: Conflicting Attitudes towards Islam in Scandinavia’. (2018) [PDF]

Lundby, Knut, Stig Hjarvard, Mia Lövheim, and Haakon H. Jernsletten. ‘Religion between Politics and Media: Conflicting Attitudes towards Islam in Scandinavia’. Journal of Religion in Europe, vol. 10, no. 4, Nov. 2017, pp. 437–456.

Based on a comparative project on media and religion across Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, this article analyzes relationships between religiosity and political attitudes in Scandinavia and how these connect with attitudes regarding the representation of Islam in various media. Data comes from population-wide surveys conducted in the three countries in April 2015. Most Scandinavians relate ‘religion’ with conflict, and half of the population perceives Islam as a threat to their national culture. Scandinavians thus perceive religion in terms of political tensions and predominantly feel that news media should serve a critical function towards Islam and religious conflicts. Finally, the results of the empirical analysis are discussed in view of the intertwined processes of politicization of Islam and mediatization of religion.

doi:10.1163/18748929-01004005.

PDF: http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/18748929-01004005.

Meer, Nasar, and Per Mouritsen. ‘Political Cultures Compared: The Muhammad Cartoons in the Danish and British Press’. (2009)

Meer, Nasar, and Per Mouritsen. ‘Political Cultures Compared: The Muhammad Cartoons in the Danish and British Press’. Ethnicities, vol. 9, no. 3, 2009, pp. 334–360. JSTOR,

One outcome of the Muhammad cartoons controversy has been an opportunity for comparative critical examination of public discourse on conceptions of citizenship and belonging vis-à-vis Muslim minorities in different national contexts. In this article, we focus upon the press reaction in two north-western European countries that on first appearance offer radically different cases. While Britain is a formerly imperial power where ‘legitimate’ public articulations of the collective ‘we’ must take stock of the sensibilities in this diverse inheritance, Denmark’s emergence as a modern constitutional state is premised on a cultural, linguistic and ethnic homogeneity. It would only be fair to anticipate, therefore, that any comparison of press discourse on matters of religious minority toleration and respect for difference would herald very different outcomes to these traditions. Yet this article shows that, on closer inspection, Jyllands-Posten’s more ‘radical’ approach marked a departure from other Danish newspapers in a manner that left it relatively isolated, and that the self-restraint shown by the British press in not reprinting the cartoons was far from universally supported, and subject to significant internal criticism. Indeed, the press discourse in both countries cast the reaction to the cartoons controversy by Muslims themselves as a sign of failed integration, and each moreover stressed a need for civility and respect — even where there was disagreement over the kinds of ‘dialogue’ that should take place. Nevertheless, significant divergences and cleavages remained, and the explanation for these differences rests not only on Britain’s more ‘multicultural’ traditions, but also the experiences of the Rushdie affair and the subsequent debate that had already taken place in Britain. What is striking is the ways in which the Danish discourse appears to be plotting a course that is not that radically different from one taken in the British case, specifically the extent to which a recognition of religious minority sensibilities needs to be offset with a civic incorporation that is cast in interdependent terms in a way that is inclusive of — and not alienating to — Muslims.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/23889952.

Mylonas, Yiannis, and Matina Noutsou. ‘The “Greferendum” and the Eurozone Crisis in the Danish Daily Press’. (2018) [PDF]

Mylonas, Yiannis, and Matina Noutsou. ‘The “Greferendum” and the Eurozone Crisis in the Danish Daily Press’. Race & Class, vol. 59, no. 3, Jan. 2018, pp. 51–66. SAGE Journals.

This article presents a critical analysis of the Danish press coverage of the referendum called by the Left-led coalition government of Greece in July 2015, concerning the future of austerity policies. It focuses on the conservative daily press of Denmark, one of the ‘core’ EU countries, writing on developments in the periphery. Three main themes emerge in the study’s discourse analysis of Berlingske Tidende’s and Jyllands Posten’s coverage: ‘post-democratic realism’, ‘the upper-class gaze’, and ‘Orientalism and cultural racism’. The authors not only reveal the one-sided, elitist coverage by the rightwing papers at Europe’s centre but also point out how the principles of neoliberalism itself and the acceptance of austerity are being constantly reinforced by the media in a country like Denmark, which had previously been marked out for its more progressive welfare capitalism. Denmark’s turn to the Right (and to racism) alongside its biased coverage of the ‘Greferendum’ are examined here in the context of the way in which neoliberalism and its politico-social effects are now presented as both common sense and the only way forward.

doi:10.1177/0306396817714123.

PDF: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0306396817714123

Nielsen, Asta Smedegaard. ‘De vil os stadig til livs’: betydningskonstruktioner i tv-nyhedsformidling om terrortruslen mod Danmark. (2014) [PDF]

Nielsen, Asta Smedegaard. ‘De vil os stadig til livs’: betydningskonstruktioner i tv-nyhedsformidling om terrortruslen mod Danmark. PhD afhandling. Det Humanistiske Fakultet, Københavns Universitet, 2014.

Med udgangspunkt i et perspektiv på terrortruslen mod Danmark som et diskursivt og oplevet fænomen udforskes de betydningskonstruktioner, der skabes i public service-medierne DR1 og TV2’s tv-nyhedsformidling om truslen, med særligt fokus på konstruktioner af racial, national og etnisk enshed og forskel. I afhandlingen analyseres nyhedsudsendelser og interviews med journalister. Heri identificeres blandt andet en racialisering af terror som et potentiale hos især unge mænd, der ’ser muslimske eller mellemøstlige ud’. Gennem en kontrastering af terrortruslen med den norske 22. juli-terror i 2011, viser afhandlingen desuden, at dette billede af terrorpotentialet ikke ændres af, at et terrorangreb i Danmarks nærområde viser sig at bryde med forventningerne til, hvorfra terrortruslen kommer og med hvilket motiv. Således er det en af afhandlingens væsentlige konklusioner, at forestillingen om truslen fra terror i højere grad er med til at forme vores forståelse af verden, end terroren i sig selv er. Dette indebærer en forflyttelse, hvor en forestillet forudgående muslimsk religiøsitet snarere end terroren i sig selv kommer til at optræde som det, der gøres til genstand for opmærksomhed i bestræbelserne til at forstå og bekæmpe terrortruslen. Afhandlingen lægger vægt på betydningen af ’race’ i disse betydningskonstruktioner, idet analyserne peger på, at Breiviks hvidhed havde væsentlig betydning for den individualisering, der skete af ham og hans terror.

PDF: https://vbn.aau.dk/files/261643924/Ph.d._2014_Smedegaard.pdf. https://vbn.aau.dk/files/261643924/Ph.d._2014_Smedegaard.pdf.

Nielsen, Asta Smedegaard, and Lene Myong. ‘White Danish Love as Affective Intervention: Studying Media Representations of Family Reunification Involving Children’. (2019) [PDF]

Nielsen, Asta Smedegaard, and Lene Myong. ‘White Danish Love as Affective Intervention: Studying Media Representations of Family Reunification Involving Children’. Nordic Journal of Migration Research, vol. 9, no. 4, De Gruyter Open, Dec. 2019, pp. 497–514.

Through a close reading of media reporting from 2017 to 2018 on the case of the Chinese girl Liu Yiming, who was first denied then granted residency in Denmark due to public pressure, this article analyses how regulation of family reunification involving children is negotiated in the Danish public imaginary in the context of strong anti-immigration sentiments. This imaginary projects the white Danish public as eager to love Yiming and as affectively invested in reversing the injustice done to her and her family. The article suggests, however, that the outpouring of white love, which functions as an affective intervention imbued with the promises of reversing Yiming’s deportation, is deeply embedded in exceptionalist notions of the ‘integrated’ migrant and that it works to restore an idealised image of a Danish nation defined by ‘human decency’ as a core value. Thus, the analysis raises critical questions to the politics of white love and its promise of securing social change for the ‘integrated’ migrant through collective acts of white feeling.

doi:10.2478/njmr-2019-0038.

PDF: https://vbn.aau.dk/files/331982664/313_622_1_SM.pdf

van Klingeren, Marijn, Hajo G. Boomgaarden, Rens Vliegenthart, and Claes H. de Vreese. ‘Real World Is Not Enough: The Media as an Additional Source of Negative Attitudes Toward Immigration, Comparing Denmark and the Netherlands’. (2015) [PDF]

van Klingeren, Marijn, Hajo G. Boomgaarden, Rens Vliegenthart, and Claes H. de Vreese. ‘Real World Is Not Enough: The Media as an Additional Source of Negative Attitudes Toward Immigration, Comparing Denmark and the Netherlands’. European Sociological Review, vol. 31, no. 3, June 2015, pp. 268–283.

Most people are unable to accurately estimate the number of immigrants in their country. Nonetheless, it has been argued that the size of the immigrant population would affect people’s immigration attitudes. Part of the effect of immigration on attitudes occurs not so much because of real immigration figures, but rather because of media reporting about immigration. In this study, negative attitudes towards immigration are explained by investigating the impact of the salience and the tone of immigration topics in the news media vis-a` -vis the impact of immigration statistics. The cases of Denmark and the Netherlands are analysed for a period from 2003 to 2010, using a multilevel design. Overall, real-world immigration numbers have little impact. The tone of news coverage has an effect in the Netherlands: a positive tone reduces negativity towards immigration, while a negative tone does not increase negativity. We cautiously conclude that the longevity of the issue’s salience has a moderating effect.

doi:10.1093/esr/jcu089.

PDF: https://academic.oup.com/esr/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/esr/jcu089.

Yazgan, Pınar, and Deniz Eroğlu Utku. ‘News Discourse and Ideology: Critical Analysis of Copenhagen Gang Wars’ Online News’. (2017) [PDF]

Yazgan, Pınar, and Deniz Eroğlu Utku. ‘News Discourse and Ideology: Critical Analysis of Copenhagen Gang Wars’ Online News’. Migration Letters, vol. 14, no. 1, Jan. 2017, pp. 145–160.

Gang warfare is one of the social problems that attract attention in Denmark and it occupies an important place in the media discourse. However, the discriminatory and exclusionary effects of this discourse have been largely overlooked in many of the previous studies focusing on this problem. Taking this into account, this study examines the discriminatory aspects of the online news discourse covering these gang wars. In this way, it uncovers the forms of anti-immigrant bias in the news discourse in Denmark by examining articles from two online news articles by the newspaper Politiken and the news quoted from the same newspaper. Specifically, this study aims to demonstrate that the discriminatory and exclusionist discourse on the gang wars in Denmark may cause ethnic discrimination by producing negative social capital. The chosen sample of news articles has been analysed by devoting special attention to the concepts of ‘racism’, ‘exclusion’, ‘marginalisation’ and ‘negative social capital’ which are based on the critical discourse analysis of Teun A. van Dijk, who does not perceive news media as passive reporters but instead draws attention to their role in (re)constructing news events and dominant ideology.

https://ideas.repec.org/a/mig/journl/v14y2017i1p145-160.html

PDF: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312173836_News_discourse_and_ideology_Critical_analysis_of_Copenhagen_gang_wars%27_online_news

Yılmaz, Ferruh. ‘Konstruktionen Af de Etniske Minoriteter: Eliten, Medierne Og ’etnificeringen’ Af Den Danske Debat’. (1999) [PDF]

Yilmaz, Ferruh. ‘Konstruktionen Af de Etniske Minoriteter: Eliten, Medierne Og ’etnificeringen’ Af Den Danske Debat’. Politica, vol. 31, no. 2, 1999,

Medierne har spillet en vigtig rolle i ‘etnificeringen’ af den danske debat om etniske minoriteter. Skellet imellem ‘os’ og ‘dem’ er blevet den bærende søjle i diskursen, der konstruerer minoriteterne som en etnificieret gruppe med en essential substans. Den traditionelle kritik af mediernes behandling af etniske minoriteter fokuserer på de positive eller negative holdninger medieprodukter menes at indeholde. Men konsekvensen er, at skelle imellem ‘os’ og ‘dem’ opretholdes og reproduceres. I stedet bør selve den diskursive konstruktion problematiseres.

https://tidsskrift.dk/politica/article/view/68280

PDF: https://tidsskrift.dk/politica/article/view/68280/99069