ECREA16-Abstract

Friday, November 11

1 6 : 0 0 – 1 7 : 3 0

PN 209

The European Refugee Crises Through the Lens of “the Others”

C. Strand

Uppsala University, Department of Informatics and Media, Uppsala, Sweden

In the midst of polarizing media discourses on the refugee crises in Europe, the following study analyses how the European refuges crises is reiterated

in a non-European media, by analyzing the largest Ugandan newspaper The Daily Monitor including readers’ comments throughout 2015. According to

UNHCR, Uganda a developing country is the ninth largest recipient of refugees in the world and has in waves has taken in large groups of refugees from

foremost Sudan and later South Sudan, Burundi and DRC.This study attempts from the vantage point of a developing country and non-European perceptive

understand the crises narratives dominating European policy and media coverage.The analysis of media texts and reader comments indicates an acceptance

that the unexpected high number of refugees trying to enter the European Union challenge some core European Union principles on freedom of movement

inside Schengen, as well as ideals and subscription to UN Human Rights standards. Besides identifying the clusters making up the coverage of the refugee

crises, the analysis uncovers the textual building blocks of a much more insidious theme of non-Europeans as unwanted. This overarching theme could be

tied into colonial discourses where the Others are understood as less valued humans, a problem-to-find-solutions-to, and whose knocking on the door

of Europe is entirely unwanted. Although the Ugandan press reiterates the European Union’s agonizing situation of clashing of on one hand ideals and

self-image of being a bastion of Human Rights and on the other hand, everyday politics of carrying the financial burden of refugees in the midst of xeno‑

phobia trends across Europe, readers’comments simultaneously appears to welcome the dethroning of Europe from its half a century long self-proclaimed

Human Rights supremacy.

PN 210

Discourses of Identity, Discourses of the Other

V. Doudaki

Uppsala University, Department of Informatics and Media, Uppsala, Sweden

Sweden has a long history of immigration and has been one of the most tolerant western countries towards immigrants. According to a recent Euroba‑

rometer survey (October 2015), Sweden is EU’s most pro-immigrant nation. However, the anti-immigration extreme-right (political) discourse is gaining

strength, with the nationalist Sweden Democrats receiving nearly 13 percent of the vote in the last general election. At the same time, news on immi‑

grants and refugees committing violent crimes, and on Swedish groups assaulting and terrorizing immigrants and refugees, have recurrently appeared

in the Swedish media during the past months, alarming and polarising the Swedish public opinion. There are indications that the Swedish society follows

the international trend where both heterogeneity and multiculturalism, as well as extremism and nationalism, are on the rise. These phenomena echo

the tensions and contradictions generated by the ideals of the nation state and the clear national identity in multi-ethnic, multi-community societies

(Wodak, 2015). These tensions also force the public discussion into defending one’s identity, contrasting it to the identity of the Other (Carpentier, 2015;

Tsagarousianou, 1997), or, as identities are not fixed but dynamic, rearticulating one’s identity to validate its existence. The role of media in the construction

and preservation of collective identities and the safeguarding of the nation state idea, through the presentation of images of the self and the other, has been

discussed and debated by numerous scholars (Wodak et al., 2009; Anderson, 2006;Tsagarousianou, 1997). In addition, the media’s key position inmediating

the discursive struggles in which social and political actors fight over the determinants and definitions of main societal issues has attracted major scholarly

interest (Hall et al. 1978; Doudaki, 2015). Within this context, this study attempts to examine, through discourse analysis, how the events and the public

discussion on immigration and the refugee crisis are presented in and mediated by a popular online outlet, the Swedish edition of ‘The Local’ (www.

thelocal.se). Special attention will be paid to how these representations reflect the discourses of the self, being compared to, juxtaposed to or opposed to

(the discourses of) the other. References Anderson, B. 2006 (1983). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London,

NewYork:Verso.

Carpentier, N. 2015.‘Introduction: Strengthening CulturalWar Studies’, in N. Carpentier (ed.), Culture,Trauma, and Conflict: Cultural Studies

Perspectives on War. 2

ed. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 1–20. Doudaki, V. 2015. Legitimation Mechanisms in the Bailout Discourse.

Javnost-The Public, 22(1): 1–17. Hall, S., Critcher, T., Jefferson, T., Clarke, J. and Roberts, B.. 1978. Policing the Crisis: mugging, the state, and law and order.

London: Methuen. Tsagarousianou, R. 1997. Mass Communication and Nationalism: the politics of belonging and exclusion in contemporary Greece. Res

Publica, 34: 271–92. Wodak, R. 2015. The politics of fear: what right-wing populist discourses mean. London: Sage. Wodak, R., de Cillia, R., Reisigl, M. and

Liebhart, K. 2009. The Discursive Construction of National Identity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

PN 211

Blaming the Media. Cultures of Criticism and Accountability in Discussions over Refugees, Immigration and Integration

G. Svensson

Uppsala University, Department of Informatics and Media, Uppsala, Sweden

During the last decade harsh criticism aimed against traditional media in Sweden has emerged, evolving around issues of migration and integration. It is

claimed that traditional Swedish media have downplayed or censored the problems of migration and integration for many years. Media and journalism

are considered to distance themselves from citizens, carrying views that are not shared by the harsh critics and labelled as politically correct. Journalism,

journalists and media in general are sometimes also seen as actors in a conspiracy of the elites against the people. Critique on media and journalism in re‑

lation to this matter is often expressed in social media sites, such as Flashback, but also in more widely used social media, such as Facebook or Twitter. It can

also be seen in comments on mainstream news media articles and in news sites with populist and nationalist tendencies. In this paper, a selected number

of discussion threads and posts from late 2015 and early 2016, published in the social media discussion site Flashback, are analysed, studying how the idea

of political correctness of the mainstream media in Sweden is connected to issues of migration, integration and refugees and how this complex discourse