In this article, we show how everyday difference is conceptualised in Finland through our analysis of media products for children (<em>HBL Junior</em>, <em>HS Lasten Uutiset</em>, and <em>Yle Mix</em>). We consider media as a part of the “lived curriculum”<em> </em>through which media professionals intentionally or unintentionally reproduce particular discourses of difference and sameness that become part of children’s everyday learning and understanding of multicultural society. Our aim in doing so is to consider what marks these discourses produced specifically for children, and what versions of difference they replicate and advance. We find that children’s media advances discourses of “comfortable conviviality” through the paradigms of colour-blind friendship, the universal experience of childhood, and through a firm belief in social cohesion as the master signifier of Finnish society. Through the lens of inclusiveness, we discuss the implications of these discourses on journalism and media literacy.
The author reflects on her own journey through academia and the moments in which change has and has not happened throughout her time as a doctoral student to understand what foundations are needed for transformational change in society and the implications of these implications on academia. Though this process of reflection, the author argues that the bedrock of societal transformation is change that begins within and through experience. These experiences allow for the individual to embody the radical ideas needed within their bodies and selves. The chapter ends with the argument that only when such transformation is internalized and becomes part of one's own identity can there be change in society more broadly.
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