Using superordinate intersectionality as a theoretical framework, this article explores notions of men and masculinities within right wing populism. It is attentive to how the right-wing populist media in Finland and Sweden construct white Nordic masculinities through discursive interactions across several axes of difference: gender (masculinities); sexuality (heterosexuality); social class (elites); and race (whitenesses). Employing Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as methodological approach, we show how the discursive constructions of white Nordic masculinities are context contingent, rendering them subject to constant reinterpretation and repositioning, at times privileging some axes of social structuring over others. By drawing out the subtle similarities and discrete differences embedded in the discursive constructions of right-wing populist media, our approach gives a more fine-grained understanding of the nuance to men and masculinities in the study of right wing populism. By focusing on the European Nordic semi-periphery, our comparative analysis makes an original contribution, not only to the masculinities literature in general, but also to the growing scholarship concerned with the `crisis of masculinity' in the wider context of neoliberal globalizing tendencies.
While the most popular forms of organized competitive digital gaming, also known as eSports, have begun finding their place within and in relation to both mainstream entertainment culture and the field of traditional sports, their history is one of struggling to be accepted as “true sports.” Partly because of this history, great effort has been put into the sportification of eSports by presenting competitions in familiar ways adapted from traditional sports. In this article, we examine the process of sportification of eSports in the context of tournament broadcasts. We analyze the Overwatch World Cup 2016 tournament, comparing its final broadcast to the 2014 FIFA World Cup’s final broadcast, looking for similarities and differences in the areas of broadcast structure, commentary and expertise, game presentation, game highlights and acknowledgments, teams and players, and audience.
Finland and Sweden share the ideal of a Nordic welfare state, with gender equality as a central tenet. In both countries, right-wing populist parties have gained prominence in mainstream politics. Despite similar political agendas at the moment, these parties have different political histories, and different modes of expressing their anti-immigration pleas. In this comparative study, we examine how the distinction between ‘us’ and the ‘other’ is performed intersectionally in terms of gender, social class, ethnicity and ‘race’, and sexuality. For this purpose, we examine empirical material collected from the party newspapers of the Finns Party and the Sweden Democrats, because their content most closely reflects the ideological tenets of these parties. The chosen timeline stretches from 2007 until 2014 and entails the qualitative close reading of 16 issues of each newspaper. We evidence the dynamic between the intersectional analysis that fleshes out the reproduction of categories of difference, and the comparative analysis with its interest in temporal change and the resulting convergence between the two parties’ ideologies. We conclude that, although the Finns Party previously had a more pronounced anti-elitist rhetoric and resorted to class-based antagonism as a means to garner electoral support, it subsequently moved closer to the anti-immigration agenda around issues of protecting national identity and the welfare state that has characterised the political platform of the Sweden Democrats over the past decade. This temporal awareness allowed us to document the Sweden Democrats’ ideological consistency over the examined timeframe, emphasising the party’s quest to rebuild the (Swedish) ‘people’s home’ and to exclude the racialised Muslim ‘other’.
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Esports phenomena have grown rapidly in recent years, and so has research on the topic. Some of the research has also addressed esports fandom (see e.g. Taylor 2012). Nevertheless, studies comparing and contrasting how players and fans engage with the game and the esports based on that game are scarce. This study compares and contrasts how players and fans engage with playable game characters and esports players. The paper draws on previous research in fan studies, sports fandom and esports to examine the relationships of players and fans of the videogame Overwatch (Blizzard Entertainment 2016) with the fictional heroes of the game as well as with their favorite professional players in the newly started Overwatch League. We analyse how these relationships are articulated by fans and players, and pay attention to emerging similarities and differences.The findings show that personality is deemed important for engagement with both, game characters and esports players. In addition, gender and sexual orientation emerged as important factors. By contrast, nationality was deemed important for engagement with esports players, but not with player characters. Further research should concentrate on the connections between esports and identity politics, as well as player characters and identity construction.
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