Presidential speeches and the online politics of belonging: Affective-discursive positions toward refugees in Finland and Estonia

Abstract

The so-called 'refugee crisis' has added urgency to the social dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in European societies. This study explores how emotions figure in this politics of belonging by studying their discursive mobilization in Finnish and Estonian public debates on asylum seekers. Focusing on presidential speeches addressing the refugee issue, on one hand, and their reception by online commenters on popular tabloid news sites, on the other, the comparative analysis highlights both similarities and differences in how emotional expressions are employed in these two countries with very different experiences in taking refugees. Despite employing common discursive elements in their speeches, the diverging national contexts prompted the two presidents to emphasise contrasting emotional positions: the insecure Finn, threatened by abusive asylum seekers, and the compassionate Estonian, capable of identifying with the plight of refugees. In contrast, the reactions to speeches by Finnish and Estonian citizens on tabloid news sites demonstrated highly converging emotional positions. Online comments in both countries revealed deep anger and distrust of political elites among tabloid news audiences, articulating a complex relationship with the nation as a divided and exclusive political community.

Nobody cares for men anymore: Affective-discursive practices around men’s victimisation across online and offline contexts

“…This article combines an interest in affects with a discursive analysis by utilising the conceptualisation of affective-discursive practice developed by Margaret Wetherell (2012). Previously, this conceptualisation has been applied to the study of racist and nationalist meaning-making (Hokka and Nelimarkka, 2019; Nikunen, 2018; Ojala et al, 2019; Wetherell et al, 2015), but for the most, not to the analysis of the manosphere, or more specifically to the meaning-making around men’s victimisation. Overall, even though affects such as anger or a sense of aggrieved entitlement have been frequently noted as playing a central role in the current manifestations of anti-feminist men’s rights advocacy (Ging, 2017; Kimmel, 2013), studies illuminating in detail how affect functions in such advocacy, and specifically how affect and discourse co-operate in it, are scarce.…”

The role of networked publics in immigration debates

“…This overlapping of negative attitudes on immigration with anti-elitism can also be witnessed in online discussions about immigration, where antiimmigrant views are often linked to grievances about unemployment and the erosion of the welfare state (Gibson et al 2018). Political and media attention to the plight of refugees is juxtaposed with the absence of similar alarm about crumbling social services and domestic inequalities (Ojala, Kaasik-Krogerus and Pantti 2019). Such claims provoke a sense of being a second-class citizen and paves the way for denouncing elites as those who have abandoned their own people.…”

“…To be sure, we can speak of 'the' public debate on immigration only on a highly abstract level as online debates on immigration are not conducted similarly across digital networks. Studies of online debates during the so-called refugee crisis in Europe indicate that popular discussion forums and users' comment sections of online newspapers were often dominated by antiimmigrant views, whereas the blogosphere and platforms like Twitter and Facebook-highly fragmented spaces in themselves-tended to include a more even ratio of liberal-humanitarian and anti-immigrant discourses (Siapera et al 2018;Ojala, Kaasik-Krogerus and Pantti 2019;Pöyhtäri et al 2019). This suggests that the contribution of the Internet to the multiplication of spaces of debate and to the fragmentation of the public sphere (Dahlgren 2005;Fenton 2016) can also be evidenced in the immigration debate.…”