Identity, Empathy and Argument: Immigrants in Culture and Entertainment Journalism in the Scandinavian Press

Abstract

Cultural and entertainment journalism deals with aesthetic experiences, advice on cultural consumption, as well as reflection and debate on ethical and moral humanistic issues. Does this sub-field of journalism systematically represent immigrants and integration differently than the other news and commentary articles? Comparing immigration discourse in a representative sample of six Scandinavian newspapers between 1970 and 2016 using content analysis we find that cultural journalism, while clearly reverbing with the dominant national issues at the time, did provide alternative perspectives. It not only brought up themes like racism, multiculturalism, national identity and religion more often, but was also more positive, more gender-balanced and more often gave a voice to immigrants than other news did. A closer qualitative reading further suggests a typology of ten main story-types, varying relatively little over time and across national borders. Cultural journalism in this case illustrates how the cultural public sphere can positively contribute to the debate of complicated issues in the public sphere by offering resources for identification, empathy and arguments for specific points of view.

Professional and Personal Identity, Precarity and Discrimination in Global Arts Journalism

“…In relation to personal identity, comments expressed by interviewees related to sexuality, ethnicity and gender, included here because of arts journalism's perceived relevance to questions of social and cultural identity (Riegert and Hovden, 2019). It is of concern that, despite the small sample size, some arts journalists still feel marginalised or tokenised due to their sexuality, gender or cultural background, and these experiences are clearly locally contingent to the freedoms of particular cultural and media systems.…”

“…We also argue that the fact this intersects with particular identity categories disadvantaged by such precarity is worthy of elucidation (Thurman et al, 2015). Given that creative practitioners frequently seek to communicate personal emotion and expression, questions of personal identity are mentioned more often in arts stories than in other kind of story (Riegert and Hovden, 2019). This, we argue, necessitates the specific consideration of personal identity within this sub-field, especially beyond existing scholarship.…”

The politics and poetics of migrant narratives

“…Liudmila Voronova (2019) describes how migrant journalists in Ukraine actively seek to include migrant and other ‘fragmented communities into a media nation’ (p. 1) and Niamh Kirk (2019) articulates how Irish diaspora journalists ‘reinforce and challenge traditional conceptions of Irish culture’ (p. 2). Furthermore, journalism is not homogeneous: besides reporting on news, politics and debates, which commonly stereotype migrants; cultural and entertainment journalism, as shown in a study of the Swedish context ‘provides alternative perspectives on immigration and integration’ (Riegert and Hovden, 2019: 171). News reports also trigger debate on social media circuits.…”

Who Is Marketised in Colour-Blind Sweden? Racial and Ethnic Representation in Swedish Commercials 2008–2017

“…In cultural studies, analyses of the representation of Whiteness and non-Whiteness in Swedish films, literature and news media are fairly prevalent (Brune 1998(Brune , 2002(Brune , 2004b(Brune , 2004a These studies argue that the representation of POC, using the term 'immigrants' in Swedish newspapers and other media outlets, shows certain stereotypes (especially of males and females from MENA regions). However, there are also many stories about experiences of 'success' achieved undeterred by the discriminatory and racist harassment (Riegert and Hovden 2019;Khosravi 2009).…”

“…Ddumba becomes a token-a bridge to the Swedish majority society-and Kassis (a refugee) is shown as a potential success story-someone who, despite all the turmoil he has gone through, will be fine in Sweden. This commercial effectively portrays Swedish society as 'righteous, generous, humanitarian' and in pursuit of equity and cultural pluralism (Riegert and Hovden 2019;Hultén 2006).…”