© 2017 Nina Blom Andersen, Isabel Bech, Tine Ustad Figenschou, Birgitte Kjos Fonn, Anders Gjesvik, Ingvild Tennøe Haugen, Harald Hornmoen, Nathalie Hyde-Clarke, Yngve Benestad Hågvar, Maria Konow Lund, Hugh O’Donnell, Eva Karin Olsson, Silje Pileberg, Anne Hege Simonsen, Steen Steensen.
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A few years ago, a group of scholars at the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at the Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences (HiOA) in Norway began to take an interest in the fact that there had been a considerable increase in the tendency to put a face on journalism – individualising and personalising stories. Colleagues who had been teaching journalism for some years had virtually seen this change unfold before their own eyes.
This growing focus on the exposure of individuals in journalism has been spurred by a wide range of factors, from tabloidisation to the use of social media. Despite its omnipresence in the media, relatively little research has been conducted on the phenomenon. Our group, a research group at the Faculty of Social Sciences at HiOA, published our first edited collection,
Since 2015, our research group (Individual Exposure in Journalism, “Index”) has broadened its scope to include researchers from the UK, South Africa and other Scandinavian countries. In this edited collection, we develop our project further through a set of studies in which we analyse some of the different forms that individual exposure and subjectivity take in today’s journalism. Most of the studies are based on data from Nordic media and societies, but we believe that that our analyses and findings are valuable in a broader context. Through this collection of case studies, we aim to show that individual exposure and subjectivity now permeate most journalistic genres and topics, both in “quality” and “tabloid” journalism. We also hope to contribute to a debate about present and possible future currents in journalism.
We want to thank our publisher, Cappelen Damm Akademisk, for their cooperation, Cappelen Damm Akademisk’s referees for valuable and useful reviews, and HiOA for the financial support that made this book possible.
June 2017. The major British tabloid
Individual exposure, a focus on individuals, and subjectivity seem to be everywhere in the media, and these are the topics of this edited collection.
Despite an increasing tendency during the last few decades of personalising news stories or “putting a face on journalism”, there has been very little scholarly attention given to this development. Noteable exceptions, and contributions that discussed the phenomenon at an early stage were Fairclough (
When we discuss the focus on individuals in journalism, we include a wide array of things. It may involve the use of non-elite sources and/or a focus on the assumed interests of the audience – things that have characterised modern journalism for decades, but which digitalisation has brought to the forefront in most outlets and genres (e.g. Wahl-Jorgensen
To the extent that this “individualisation” has been discussed, it has often been regarded as a problem for journalism. It has been seen as more or less synonymous with tabloidisation, and as an expression of the “’dumbing-down’, ‘trivialisation’ and ‘sensationalism’ of the press” (Coward,
Apart from this introduction, this edited collection consists of 14 chapters that address different aspects of individual exposure and subjectivity in the media. We aim to discuss how individual exposure and/or subjectivity now affect most journalistic topics and genres: from politics through sports journalism to science journalism; from health journalism to journalism about terrorism. It affects news and features, photos and front pages, and is of course the backbone of an increasing dialogue with the audience, in which case it also affects the role of the journalist.
One aim of this book is therefore to show some of this variation. Another is to contribute to a debate about the present state and also perhaps where journalism is heading. Where, and how, do we find individual focus and exposure? And why do different kinds of journalism – with a focus on individuals in common – trigger such different reactions?
This collection is divided into five parts, including chapters that discuss both the philosophy and the history of individual focus and exposure in journalistic media (parts I and V). Parts II through IV, consisting of altogether 12 chapters, each addresses a theme that resonates with the current political and social environment. Since individual focus today permeates all journalistic genres, with online and social media enhancing this tendency, and furthermore, as genres themselves are in rapid development, an edited collection like this cannot cover all aspects of the phenomenon. However we hope that our contributions will advance the understanding of some of the complexity of this increasing focus on individuals in journalism.
After this introduction, Steen Steensen discusses how different philosophical ideas at different times have dealt with the relationship between the individual and the collective, and how this can be related to developments in the public sphere and journalism (
His argument, and the argument of many writers in a more subjective tradition, is that the subjectivity of the reporters and their sources are more or less two sides of the same coin – by being participants, journalists can create a “truer” journalism. Subsequently, subjectivity can be seen as a way of building a bridge between the particular and the universal.
The second section of the book examines how the roles of politicians and people in other powerful positions are being exposed to increased personalisation, interest and scrutinising.
In
This question of how prominent figures are represented and understood continues in
In
Returning to the use of graphics and imagery to convey political messages, Hugh O’Donnell presents the front pages of the pro-Scottish independence, pro-EU and pro-social democrat newspaper
Having examined how politicians and other public figures are represented, the collection now draws attention to the role of the media and the journalists themselves. This section is a collection of studies of changing narratives and functions. It includes challenges in reporting health journalism, to changing routines in news production, to the Questions & Answers services in online media – all of which demonstrate larger trends and forces at play.
In
Most of the contributions in this anthology concern Western journalism. Nathalie Hyde-Clarkes chapter (
Some elite persons have retained their status as heroes even after the onset of individual exposure in journalism. These are, for example, sports heroes – but when they fall from grace, the fall is dramatic. Ingvild Tennøe Haugen’s chapter (
In
The last contribution of this part is an essay that reflects on both individual exposure in journalism
What happens in and to journalism when terrorism strikes? Terrorism is a kind of crime that as a rule is regarded as an attack on the whole nation. This also has implications for media coverage – the victims will most often be regarded as representatives of “us”, and journalists themselves may feel strongly affected.
Nina Blom Andersen (
Although the ideal of objectivity and detachment in news reporting is constantly being questioned, there still seems to be a strong belief in it among journalists. The unexpected and unprecedented terror attack in Norway in 2011 also created unexpected challenges for journalists. Is it possible to remain untouched and continue doing one’s job in a situation where 77 people were killed, some of them only children, where there were dead people in the streets and along the shore, and even where some of the editorial offices were affected? This is the topic of
The next chapter discusses the conspicuously impersonal images of ID-like photos that often accompany news reporting on terror attacks. On the one hand, society probably needs to see the evil-doer in order to see that such catastrophes have a cause. On the other hand, the murderer is the ultimate “other”, the terrorist is the worst of them all, and we still do not want to see their “real” self. The Norwegian media, for example, refused to interview the lone-wolf terrorist, Anders Behring Breivik, after the terror attack in June 2011, and the public reacted strongly to the publishing of a photo from his personal Facebook profile. Anne Hege Simonsen (
The book started with a chapter in which philosophy was used as a prism to understand varying views on subjectivity. The book’s coda,
It is possible that critics are right to claim that many aspects of individual exposure and subjectivity in journalism
Today’s individual exposure and subjectivity in journalism are the result of the combined forces of democratisation, commercialisation and also the professionalisation of the press. Sometimes they work together, sometimes they pull in different directions.
It is our hope that through this project we can inspire other scholars to do further studies in this significant, yet under-researched field.
For several years, I worked as a feature writer for Norwegian newspapers. I did so at a time when Norwegian journalism had long been professionalized and officially detached from any outsiders’ interests. Norwegian journalists, like journalists in most other democratic countries, have, since the decline of the partisan press, adhered primarily to ideals of objectivity and independence. They have practiced those ideals in very much the same way as the description by Tuchman (
Yet, in my feature writing I strived for something more. I wanted to write with a personal voice. I wanted to tell stories. I tried to use colorful language in order to portray people, places and events in creative ways. I looked for emotional responses from the people I interviewed so that their specific experiences and reactions would show them as humans, not merely as fact-providers and opinion makers. In other words: I strived for subjectivity.
Subjectivity has always been important to journalism, but is often portrayed as something unwanted, something that opposes the idea of the journalist as a neutral, detached reporter of facts. One of the few scholars who has written about subjectivity in journalism, van Zoonen (
During the last few decades, many of the assumed dichotomies in journalism, like hard/soft, tabloid/broadsheet, entertainment/information and fact/opinion, have become blurred and journalism today is a complex field of practice in which subjectivity and objectivity, emotion and rationality co-exist in various ways (Peters,
It is therefore about time that we ask how an ideal of subjectivity in journalism can best be understood and defined. This chapter aims at doing exactly that. It asks what subjectivity means and traces the understanding of subjectivity and its relation to objectivity through the history of both journalism in Western democracies and epistemological philosophy.
It seems clear that the value of subjectivity in journalism rests on the premise that one person’s subjective experiences, be it the journalist’s or a source’s, can have meaning for others. In other words, an ideal of subjectivity in journalism seems to imply a belief in some kind of universalism in which journalism can build a bridge between the particular (subjective experiences) and the universal and common. The existence of such a bridge and what it might look like has been heavily discussed in epistemological philosophy. I will argue that the best way to defend the existence of such a bridge, and thereby the best way to defend and practice an ideal of subjectivity in journalism, is to base the ideal on an understanding of subjectivity hinted at by Wahl-Jorgensen (
The chapter starts out by discussing what subjectivity is and how it is articulated in journalism through either
What exactly is subjectivity? The word is so commonplace in everyday speech that we all have a (subjective!) opinion on what it means. We associate it with the individual and identity. When something is “subjective” it is marked by the consciousness of an individual. Thus the word presupposes, in a way, that there is something that is
However, subjectivity and individual identity are not one and the same. Hall (
The notion of the subjective, not to mention
This sowed the seeds of what is often referred to as the epistemological shift in philosophy, in other words, a shift towards what knowledge actually is and how we can know what we know. The subject and its relationship to the world is central to Descartes’ epistemology and, because of this, we might well refer to him as the founder of
However, there is an obvious problem with Descartes’ rational presentation of the importance of the “I”, which Kant and others were concerned about. Descartes’ “I think therefore I am” presupposes that the I can see itself, something which is a practical impossibility. Kant maintains that the self cannot be experienced because the self will always be a presupposition for all experience. As Garrett Thompson puts it: “The search for the ‘I’ is pointless, because any seeking must be done by the ‘I’, and so what is sought after is already presupposed” (cited in Hall,
Instead, Kant and several of his contemporaries in the 18th century Age of Enlightenment were concerned with the interaction between the subjective and the objective, or the universal. Kant’s
In other words, Kant’s categorical imperative is similar to the Biblical command – as well as to corresponding rules in other religions – which is often referred to as the “Golden Rule”: that one should not treat others in ways one would not like to be treated oneself. While, in a religious context, this rule is seen as an order from God, for Kant it is a moral law that springs from the person alone, despite it being innate and universal. This means that in every single human being, according to Kant, there is a bridge between the subjectively recognizable and something common or universal, according to which a person acts.
A bridge of this kind between the subjectively experienced and the common or universal forms the premise for subjectivity as an ideal in journalism. By presenting the experiences of individual people, journalism seeks to create a sense of
The notion of identification of this kind across subjects is based on generalizability, that one person’s experiences can also have validity as experiences for other people, and that this reality is thus of equal value regardless of who experiences it. This ontological stance is prevalent in much of journalism.
On the whole, the ideal of subjectivity is articulated in two ways in journalism. First, there is a long tradition in most journalistic cultures of cultivating the journalist’s own subjectivity in opinion journalism, in other words genres such as commentary, review and gossip/causerie. However, subjectivity is also cultivated in areas other than opinion journalism, particularly in the genre of reportage where, ideally, the journalist describes her own experiences and impressions with a sufficiently high degree of sympathetic insight to be of value to the reader as well as, perhaps, reflecting on what she is experiencing (Carey,
We can call this aspect of the ideal of subjectivity
Byline subjectivity can take several different forms, as demonstrated, for example, by Habers and Borersma (2014) in their comparison of the Middle East journalism of noted British journalist Robert Fisk and Dutch journalist Arnon Grunberg. In recent years, byline subjectivity has also played an important role in new forms of journalism, particularly American television journalism where “involvement by the journalist becomes actively embraced” (Peters,
Second, the ideal of subjectivity is cultivated in a broader sense in journalism. The subjective experience of the individual is a central ingredient in much of today’s journalism, especially in Western democracies where individualization has been key to the tabloidization and popularization of journalism. A story concerning cuts in psychiatric care can, for instance, be exemplified by describing an individual’s subjective experience of mental health issues. A report on increasing petrol prices is incomplete without a motorist at a petrol pump complaining about the situation while refueling and watching his money disappear. Such subjective exemplifications of sources often referred to as “consequence experts” (Allern,
Together, these two forms of subjectivity constitute a fairly dominant ideal in journalism in Western democracies today. But they have different origins. As I will discuss in the next section, byline subjectivity was a dominant ideal in journalism in Western democracies in the pre-objectivity era, while source subjectivity is a more modern invention. Furthermore, subjectivity as an ideal in journalism has adopted different meanings at different times. While byline subjectivity, and also to a degree source subjectivity, can be said originally to constitute an ideal of
However, moral subjectivity is not the only notion of subjectivity we find in journalism. Later on in this chapter I will argue that the partisan press employs a kind of subjectivity we may call
Although the notion of the subjective first made an impact during the Renaissance, it largely exists – at least in the epistemological sense of the word – in what many regard as journalism’s archetype, namely the reportage genre. Several reportage theorists cite Herodotus, born c. 490 BC, as the author of the first examples of reportage (Bech-Karlsen,
Bech-Karlsen shows how an ideal of “open” subjectivity of this kind has left its mark on aspects of reportage journalism right up until modern times. It undoubtedly enjoyed its heyday in the latter half of the 19th century, particularly in Europe, but also in the USA. Schudson describes American journalism in the late 19th century as follows:
Far from cohering around a telegraphic center, the language of dashing correspondents from Cuba just before and during the Spanish-American War were personal, colorful, and romantic. The human interest reporting of reporters enchanted with urban life was sentimental. Coverage of politics was often self-consciously sarcastic and humorous. This was not prose stripped bare. (Schudson,
Byline subjectivity of this kind was a dominant ideal of early journalism in Western democracies, especially in the reportage genre. This ideal meant that the individual journalist’s presentation of reality was permitted to appear as subjectively filtered, resulting in a blurring of lines between representations of subjective reality and fiction, and a mixture of facts and comment. But it also meant that journalism was considered a practice suited to shed light on and convince audiences of wrong-doings, and that the journalists had a moral obligation not only to embrace such a practice, but to do so with their subjectivity as a guiding moral compass.
The epistemological rationale for subjectivity in this early journalism was in tune with Kant’s moral philosophy and belief in universalism. The journalist needed to position himself as a subject with whom the audience could identify and relate to. This identification was not primarily inter-subjective; it was rooted in what was presumed to be a common understanding of morality. Reportage journalists of the time in Europe were heavily influenced by the social realism movement in the arts, inspired by artists (who doubled as reportage journalists) like Emile Zola, Honore de Balzac and others, but also by early modernist writers with a greater emphasis on subjective representations of reality, such as Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Walt Whitman (in the USA), August Strindberg and Knut Hamsun, many of whom also wrote reportages in newspapers.
Furthermore, many reportage journalists of the time in Europe and the USA saw it as a moral obligation to reveal their subjectivity in the name of transparency. Hartsock points to the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist/author/essayist Hamlin Garland, who in a journalistic essay in 1894 argued that when facing facts, a writer should reveal his individual relation to those facts in order to be “true to yourself, true to your locality and true to your time” (cited in Hartsock,
According to Schudson (
Lippmann wrote
In many European countries, the partisan press survived until around 1980. Clearly, journalism in the partisan press era was not concerned with being objective. Neither was it influenced by the subjective views of the individual journalist. It was somewhere in between the two, as it was the newspaper’s political line that was important and determined the ways in which a news item was angled and presented.
We find a philosophical basis for such an intermediate position in Hegel, and later Marx, and their understanding of subjectivity and the individual. In his
Of course, the partisan press by no means came about as a Marxist idea. The point is merely that the idea of politicized group subjectivity, which Marx so strongly articulated, happened to establish a parallel to the epistemology of the partisan press. Political subjectivity in the partisan press implies a different kind of universalism and bridge between the particular and the general than that found in Kantian philosophy. It is implicitly understood in this kind of political subjectivity that there exists not one, but many bridges between the individual and the general, depending on which (political) group the individual belongs to. The universalism of subjectivity as an ideal in the partisan press is in other words a meso-universalism, compared to the macro-universalism of Kantian subjectivity – and what we might label a micro-universalism of existential and fragmented subjectivity, to be discussed later.
This meso-universalistic position is perhaps even more relevant today than during the partisan press area. The current media crisis in many Western democracies is, at least partly, linked to a metajournalistic discourse on the ability of journalism to convey a macro-universalistic view of events in the world. Especially in the USA, the term “mainstream media”, meaning traditional news institutions adhering to macro-universalitsic ideals of objectivity and independence, has become discursively connected with liberal bias (Carlson,
One day in 1962 American journalist and later author, Tom Wolfe, read his professional colleague Gay Talese’s portrait of boxer Joe Louis in
Wolfe emphasized in particular the subjective gaze of the personal viewpoint and what he called “saturation reporting”, which meant that the journalist had to spend a great deal of time with the people he wrote about in order to really get inside their lives. The aim of the new journalists was to get involved, to be participants, in order to create a “truer” journalism. As a consequence, subjectivity was also a central ideal for the new journalists, both byline subjectivity in the sense that the journalism was strongly influenced by the subject who wrote it, and source subjectivity in the sense that many of the new journalists were concerned with the subjective perspective as well as the thoughts and feelings of their sources. The new journalists often reproduced their source’s thoughts and feelings in given situations in the form of interior monologues, as if the journalist had access to what was going on inside people’s heads.
In many respects, new journalism emerged as a protest against the ideal of objectivity and positivist epistemology that dominated American journalism at the time. But this did not mean that Wolfe and his peers believed that the journalism they produced could be inaccurate or less “truthful”. On the contrary, Wolfe went so far as to argue that new journalism was both more accurate and more truthful than conventional journalism, precisely because it was based on painstaking research and personal involvement with the sources.
However, not all new journalists were equally concerned with making their subjectivity visible in the texts they wrote – at least not byline subjectivity. Eason (
In common with Descartes’ subjective philosophy, the basic premise of existentialism is that all thinking should be founded on individual experience. And, just as new journalism was a form of protest against systematized journalistic objectivity, so existentialism can be seen as a protest against the system orientation that Marx and Hegel, in particular, but also Kant, represented. Although Søren Kirkegaard is often referred to as the first existentialist philosopher, it was only after World War II and the works, first and foremost, of Jean-Paul Sartre that existentialism made a real breakthrough. Central for Sartre, as with the later modern new journalists, was the idea that it is impossible to grasp an objective reality outside of the subject. “Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself. That is the first principle of existentialism,” wrote Sartre (2002, p. 29).
This does not mean that existentialism promotes selfishness. Sartre and other existentialists placed great emphasis on understanding the consequences of our choices and their effect on other people, and their thinking was therefore characterized by a fundamentally humanistic attitude. However, Sartre did not believe in Kant’s categorical imperative as the basis for such humanism. There are far too many nuances in the world for us to be able to reduce them to a single moral principle that can be of equal validity everywhere, argued Sartre. As he wrote: “There is no other universe except the human universe, the universe of human subjectivity” (Sartre, 2002, p. 45).
This form of subjectivism also serves as a suitable description for the modern new journalists. Indeed, it may seem that there has never been a stronger correlation between journalistic practices and modern thinking in terms of the perception of subjectivity. The modern new journalists can simply be interpreted as the journalistic practitioners of existentialism.
Even though new journalism, especially the modern variant, might be considered a parenthesis in the modern history of journalism, it has clearly been influential in how feature journalism in general and literary/narrative journalism in particular have developed, and in how both journalism and society have become individualized (Coward,
However, most journalistic practices, at least in Western democracies, still relate to an epistemology that implies that the belief in an objective reality exists. Moreover the distance between journalism and thinking about subjectivity became even greater when post-structuralism joined in and started to problematize the extent to which the subjective also was “real”.
If the distance between philosophy and journalism was short in the 1960s, when the modern new journalists in the USA and existentialist thinking in France were hand in glove, it was possibly at its greatest in West European democracies in the 1970s and 80s, when the partisan press had fallen, or was about to fall, and the American ideal of objectivity had gained, or was in the process of gaining, a strong, cross-national foothold. New journalism, with its rebellion against the ideal of objectivity, had gained little ground, and byline subjectivity had been cleared away from journalism except in opinion journalism. Neither was source subjectivity much in evidence. The tabloidization of journalism, with its focus on the personal and preoccupation with consequence experts and “cases”, had not yet made a real breakthrough in more than a handful of countries.
At the same time, Western philosophy, especially in Europe, was characterized by a great distance from objectivity and universalism. Key figures in the post-structuralist movement, such as Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Roland Barthes were concerned with the idea that the “self” as portrayed by earlier thinkers, was based on a fictional construct. Instead, they claimed that the self, and thus subjectivity, was a construction of different ways of understanding and the conflicts between them. Key identity markers, such as gender, race, sexual orientation and profession, are culturally and socially constructed, and are not qualities that “actually” exist in the subject, claimed the post-structuralists. Indeed, it is the struggle between these various constructed identity markers that constitute a person’s constantly changing subjectivity. For example, Foucault defined subjectivity as: “The way in which the subject experiences himself in a game of truth where he relates to himself” (cited in Skinner,
A consequence of post-structuralist thinking is that the distinction between fact and fiction appears to be fairly meaningless. A “fact” will always be a construction which cannot be separated from all the ways of thinking, knowledge and beliefs (or discourses) that are implicit in language. And as long as the post-structuralists believe that there is no reality beyond language, journalism will remain as fictitious as a novel. It is, therefore, impossible to reconcile journalism correspondence theory, i.e., that journalism always refers to a reality beyond journalism, with post-structural thinking – at least a journalism that does not take into account the fact that reality appears different from subject to subject.
However, what can be said to be an important contribution from post-structural thinking to a valid epistemological position for journalism’s ideal of subjectivity, is the awareness of the fragmented subject – in other words, that subjectivity is always composed of the many different roles adopted by every individual. An individual, therefore, has not just one but many mutable subjectivities. We may today see an ideal of subjectivity inspired by social media practices arising in journalism that addresses this post-structuralist idea of subjectivity as fluid and fragmented.
Social media provide arenas where the distinction between public and private spheres, and the different roles one can adopt in the various spheres, is partly in a state of disintegration. In one and the same medium, such as Twitter, a journalist can send private messages and disseminate news to a public without changing the media-specific context. Journalists are constantly switching in this way between such private and professional use of social media (Hedman & Djerf-Pierre,
This almost constant movement between the private and the professional makes it difficult to separate the different roles from each other. Aspects of the private slide over into the professional sphere and, perhaps, something slips back from the professional into the private. The result is the “profersional” journalist who uses the personal and, thus, the subjective, in his or her professional working life (Steensen,
There are two ways in particular in which the “profersional” journalist presents him or herself. First, journalists present their personal opinions to a greater extent in social media than in the newspapers, magazines, television and radio stations for which they work. Second, journalists share more aspects of their private lives in social media (Steensen,
One possible reason for this is that the “profersional” journalist appears to be more human when she demonstrates a broader spectrum of roles and identities. Sayer (
In his book The danger is that, because, as social scientists, we mostly want to observe and explain what people do rather than cooperate with them in some practice, we will project that spectator’s relationship onto them, and fail to appreciate the import of the practices for them, so that they appear as unfeeling actors of parts, bearers of roles, occupants of subject positions, mere causal agents. (Sayer,
Following this argument, journalists should, therefore, involve themselves in people’s lives and not simply regard them as sources, if their aim is to understand and convey what is important to people. If journalists merely adopt the role of spectator, it becomes difficult for them to see the sources as anything other than isolated roles or positions. This is in obvious contrast with the one-dimensional ideal of subjectivity that case journalism often represents, where source subjectivity is reduced to only one (constructed) role for an individual. When sources appear as cases in news stories, they risk being reduced to one thing, which conflicts with their own sense of subjectivity. Eide (
Sayer believes it is inappropriate to make a distinction between the objective, distanced and rational on the one hand, and the subjective, emotional and value-oriented on the other. He believes that it is only by regarding the subjective as part of the objective, emotions and values as part of the rational, that we can understand people: “It seems that becoming a social scientist involves learning to adopt this distanced relation to social life, perhaps so as to be more objective, as if we could become more objective by ignoring part of the object.” (Sayer,
Sayer’s argument lends legitimacy both to source subjectivity and byline subjectivity as journalistic ideals. The subjective is a part of the journalist as object, just as much as it is a part of the source as object. Taking this into consideration involves acknowledging emotions, norms and values both in oneself as journalist and in the source. If we follow Sayer’s argument, it is a misconception to believe that this makes the journalist less objective. On the contrary, it makes the journalist
I have in this chapter discussed different notions of subjectivity throughout the history of ideas and journalistic practices in Western democracies, and shown how they at times collide and at other times harmonize. In
Moral subjectivity | Political subjectivity | Existential subjectivity | Fragmented subjectivity | |
---|---|---|---|---|
In philosophy | Kantian universalism | Marx and Hegel’s notions of group subjectivity | Existentialism | Post-structuralism |
In journalism | realist reportage; case-driven journalism; tabloid journalism | The partisan press; advocacy journalism | modernist reportage; new journalism | social media journalism, case-driven journalism |
Of course, the borders between the different notions of subjectivity are not as clear cut as
For most journalism in Western European democracies today, the most common of the four notions of subjectivity in
The cultural universalism in such journalism is taken for granted and rarely problematized as part of journalistic practice. It finds its philosophical legitimacy in the universalism of Kant, which was also culturally bound and centered on moral order. However, it might be a problem for contemporary journalism that it to such an extent relies on notions of subjectivity that imply a high degree of universalism, while contemporary philosophy – and media practices related to social media – tend to do the opposite.
The challenge for journalism in Western democracies today is to find ways to make its dominant practices more in tune with contemporary thinking on subjectivity. This would imply – in Hall’s words – to recognize that subjectivity “once considered potentially knowable and conceptually one-dimensional, has been rendered various, fractured, and indefinite in recent theorizations, largely because of a new recognition of the complexity of our social roles and the multiplicity of our interactions” (2004, p. 118).
Popular journalistic practices like case-driven journalism and realist reportage, in which subjectivity is present but hidden and not reflected upon, and the general and still very much alive notion of the detached and neutral reporter, embody very different ways of thinking about subjectivity and the relationship between representation and what is being represented in journalism. While multi-subjective representations of the world are gaining popularity with the public in social media, journalism has not yet embraced the same idea. I have in this chapter suggested ways to do so inspired by Sayer’s (
Journalists, editors and journalistic institutions should perhaps be more conscious of how they themselves view the world and how that affects their reporting, as well as be more involved with their sources and audiences, in order to fully understand what is important to the audience and the sources. Journalists might benefit from being humbler and less certain about their representation of people and events in the world, and maybe they should recognize and take into account the different roles and identities people have, and how social and cultural contexts affect how people view the world and themselves. Perhaps that is what is needed for journalism to still matter to people, to paraphrase Sayer.
In May 2016, a heated debate unfolded in the Norwegian press about a caricature drawing. The artist and satirical illustrator Thomas Knarvik had drawn and posted caricatures on his Facebook site of a politician as an ape. The person caricatured was Ali Esbati, a Swedish-Iranian social commentator and parliamentarian for the left-wing party Vänsterpartiet in Sweden. He had reacted publically to a television news report made by the Norwegian national broadcaster NRK, in which Swedish police claimed that they were about to lose control of certain districts. The report was from Rinkeby, a suburb of Stockholm with a high unemployment rate and concentration of immigrants. Esbati claimed that the report showed an incorrect picture of the suburb, and that it was racist.
According the caricaturist, his drawing entitled “The King of the Apes” – was a reaction to Esbati’s claim that NRK had promoted racism. Knarvik’s caricature represented Esbati as an ape hanging from a tree with his anus laid bare. The illustrator followed up with a drawing in which the depicted politician now licked the genitals of another Swedish social commentator, the prolific anti-racist and journalist Henrik Arnstad. These drawings led to Facebook temporarily shutting Knarvik out of the website.
The debate that followed revolved around the question of whether it was acceptable to draw and publish caricatures that represent a politician as an ape. On one side, debaters defended the caricaturist’s right to publish the drawings under “freedom of expression”, whereas commentators on the other side condemned the caricatures as racist.
There were, however, various nuances within these two positions. Esteemed Norwegian newspaper cartoonists (Graff in Smedsrud
Defending his caricatures, Knarvik expressed various intentions he claimed to have had, emphasizing a wish to contribute to an increased focus on the definitory power of – and a bullying culture among – politicians. He wanted to expose how a politician can stigmatize his opponents by “drawing the racist card”. He stressed that a key objective of his deliberately provocative drawings was to ignite reactions and a constructive debate with “wide frames”, and he claimed that his drawings succeeded in this respect (Knarvik,
The provocations did in a sense contribute to creating “wide frames”, by fostering several different interpretations of – and opinions on – the drawings, reflecting divergent views on the value of this type of caricature. Some would claim that the caricatures enriched public debate by provoking diverse reactions and that they realized a long held liberalist ideal of public discussion: to illuminate an issue from as many sides as possible and thus create a greater understanding of it.
This article’s author values this potential capacity of caricatures, and I defend Knarvik’s right to apply this type of political satire to express his opinions. One can wonder, however, to what extent the ape-caricature debate provided the larger public with an improved understanding of the caricatures and their message, or for that matter, what the debaters’ grounds for understanding the caricatures were. The debate was – not only in social media but also in legacy media – largely characterized by mudslinging among different fractions of the commentariat. They could level insults such as, “Esbati plays the nigger role without knowing it”, “islamist loving left-wing” (see Yusuf,
The coarse rhetoric reflected the strong effects applied in Knarvik’s own drawings, and I will argue that one key to decoding the caricatures is precisely the polarized debate among fractions of the chattering classes, whether taking place in social or legacy media. However, I also believe that public debate on visual satire could benefit from readers and discussants acquiring a grasp of grounds and codes for making sense of caricatures. What codes and contexts can readers draw upon to read political caricatures plausibly? I will attempt to exemplify how readers can apply certain codes and contexts in reading provocative, ape-like caricatures of politicians presented in different types of media, both print media and social media. Before examining specific examples, I will draw on theories of caricature to argue that interpretations of such drawings are strengthened if the interpreter acquires and applies knowledge of the following: genre characteristics, how a caricature’s meaning is determined by the type of media it is presented and received within, and the caricature’s political and cultural context. Some knowledge of the caricaturist will also be useful, and I will draw on that when necessary in reading the examples.
Caricature can be seen as a subset of satire (Streicher
As my focus is on political caricature, I find Streicher’s distinction between political and social caricature helpful. He sees political caricature as dealing with the “ridicule, debunking or exposure of persons, groups and organizations engaged in power struggles in society” (Op.cit., p. 432). Social caricatures, on the other hand, deal with non-political affairs that do not possess the potential to affect the distribution of power in society. Duus (2001) draws attention to how political cartoons and caricatures can undermine the legitimacy of rulers and harm their public image, and Buell and Maus (
Political caricature has provoked politicians to act, and even contributed to taking down corrupt politicians (Bal et al.,
Political caricature employs analogy and ludicrous juxtaposition to sharpen the public’s view of contemporary issues. Caricaturists seek to create a response from their audience, influence their way thinking, and predispose them towards a certain course of action. Although attempting to present often complex issues in a simplified and accessible form, cartoons and caricatures do not necessarily make sense to everyone who comes across them. Kleeman (
Building on works of Streicher (
Bal et al. point out that exaggeration is fundamental to caricature as it is used to magnify that which differentiates a person or thing. They hold that the potential for a cartoon to work depends on the degree of differentiation, and the degree of sympathy, that is, the extent to which the audience can relate to and identify with the object of the cartoon.
Political caricature has been a hallmark of satirical magazines since the form was developed in England in the latter part of the 18th century (Rowson,
Many newspaper readers have acquired an understanding of such conventional functions of editorial caricatures, well established as they are. When appearing within legacy newspaper contexts, readers can also make sense of caricatures drawing on the message of the written commentary, as well as on their knowledge of the newspaper’s and the caricaturist’s typical political leanings and viewpoints.
But where there is a certain fixity to the meaning potential of caricatures in traditional print news media, their contexts of production and reception are not equally established or stable in digital media, particularly not in social media settings. Cartoonists have increasingly used the Internet to circumnavigate editorial controls and publish cartoons rejected by their newspapers (Danjoux
In decoding the meaning of caricatures, the interpreter can fruitfully explore the wider political and cultural context of the caricatured political act or event that is placed on the news media agenda. Relevant knowledge can be gained from looking at the satirized politician’s history and record, the political system or government of which the object of satire is a part, as well as the nature of the incident that triggered the caricature.
The meaning of political caricatures may also be determined by their allusions to – or playing with – traditionally denigrating ways of representing politicians as animals. Hervé (
There is, undoubtedly, a long and dishonorable tradition of comparing black people to monkeys in the US and Europe. In America in the 1800s, associating black people with monkeys and apes was a way to justify slavery. Black people were considered by some white people to be more simian than human, and therefore had no self-evident rights, such as freedom (The Authentic History Center,
Caricatures comparing black people to monkeys, then, have consistently been used to denigrate black people as being less worthy of dignity than their white counterparts.
Let us first consider ape-like caricatures of politicians that were initially presented in different types of print media in a range of political and cultural contexts.
In the cartoon (
Printed on 19 August 2010, the political context for making sense of the drawing (hinted at in an accompanying text in the newspaper) is that this was when Zuma ordered police to crush a national workers’ wage strike. This was also the period that the ANC (African National Congress, the governing party of which Zuma is currently president) proposed Protection of Information laws and the Media Appeals Tribunal. According to South African journalists (Shaw,
The object of satire for Zapiro’s drawing should be clear to readers familiar with the political context. Zapiro is playing with the cultural icon that represents evolution as progress. He does this by drawing a march moving from primitive hominids or human-ape hybrids to an apex with a full-fledged human being, the Nelson Mandela figure, who is marching behind primitive hominids who are currently in the position of leading the march. In contrast to the human-ape hybrids, Mandela carries a sheet of paper marked DEMOCRACY. In this manner, the cartoon satirizes, in particular, the politicians succeeding Mandela – and their politics. While the white, primitive hominid politicians from the apartheid period preceeding Mandela appear undeniably as ludicrous figures, a certain progression is implied in the depiction of the movement towards the more upright walking figure of F.W. de Klerk. With the marked visual descent of the figures after Mandela, the ridicule becomes more apparent. What could be seen as a progression up to Mandela is, after him – in the context of current politics – clearly a regression. In the cartoon, the figure of Zuma marks a low point, visually, on the level with apartheid architect Verwoerd. The Zuma figure is, moreover, drawn with a showerhead affixed to his skull. This is a recurring trait in Zapiro’s Zuma caricatures, which is directly related to Zuma’s claim in a 2006 rape trial against him that in order to protect himself from contracting HIV he quickly took a shower after he had unprotected sex with his accuser, a young woman whom he knew had HIV (see Baldauf, 2011).
What is the
As the cartoonist himself has suggested (Zapiro,
Interestingly, a more recent Zapiro cartoon (
Unlike the previous cartoon, this one resulted in public outrage, and accusations of racism. In defending his cartoon, Zapiro explained that he intended the image of the organ grinder and his dancing monkey to be read metaphorically, referring to how the president was in control of Abrahams (Davis,
Zapiro’s defense did not mitigate the public criticism and condemnation of the cartoon. Why did so many have problems with relating to the satire of this cartoon and see it as offensively racist? A news event in South Africa early in 2016 could be part of the contextual explanation. A South African estate agent, Penny Sparrow, posted a comment on Facebook in which she blamed black revellers for littering a beach during New Year’s Eve celebrations, describing them as monkeys (Wicks,
Zapiro’s fellow cartoonists have said that they understand his use of metaphor in the cartoon and do not consider it racist, but they do see his timing of the cartoon as wrong, given the current context (Siwela & Ngubane,
Decoding the following drawing (
A reader who is not familiar with the cartoonist’s subject matter may quickly jump to the conclusion that this depiction of a black person as a monkey is racist. Even if readers are familiar with the person portrayed, a hasty framing of the object of the satire as the politician Christiane Taubira herself would imply that the caricature was mocking the justice minister in a degrading manner. Frequent sharing of the image of Taubira on social media without the crucial elements accompanying the drawing (the text above the drawing and the logo at the bottom-left, see LorenzoA,
However, even with the accompanying elements in place, the reader would need relevant cultural knowledge to give a plausible answer to the key question: What is the object of the satire? For those familiar with French politics, the blue and red flame logo is a clear signal of whom the cartoon is mocking: this is the logo of Front National, the far right political party. The caricature phrase, “Rassemblement Blue Raciste” (Racist Blue Rally (or gathering/unity)), alludes to the slogan of Front National: “Rassemblement Bleu Marine” (Navy Blue Rally), a slogan that again is a word play on the name of the political party’s leader, Marine Le Pen. Provided they have knowledge of this context, the object of the satire should be clear to the reader: the cartoon is mocking the racism of Front National. This contextual knowledge, then, may be seen as a prerequisite for being able to relate to the object, the condition for caricature termed as
Culturally informed readers could make further sense of the object of the satire by expanding the context. The drawing may be seen as an allusion to a Front National politician, Anne-Sophie Leclere, who had shared a photoshop image of Taubira drawn as a monkey on Facebook and made racist remarks about her on French television (Knight,
What, then, is the
Acquiring knowledge of the cartoonist could have countered the misinterpretation of the cartoon. It was drawn by Stéphane Charbier, one of the cartoonists who was murdered in the Hebdo terrorist massacre. Known as Charb, he was a controversial drawer not least due to his contemptuous ridiculing of religion. But he was also a marked anti-racist who participated in anti-racist activities and illustrated the poster for the non-governmental organization Movement Against Racism and for Friendship Between People (see Knight,
The task of producing plausible readings of caricatures that have originated in a social media environment such as Facebook, may, as indicated, be even more challenging than for those initially presented in print media. One thing is deciphering the tribal language that tends to develop within the enclosed system of friends and followers of the caricaturists. Caricatures first published on Facebook may also acquire several new meanings if they are offensive enough to start traveling across different types of media, contextualized by different groups of actors and verbal codes.
I now concentrate on a couple of Thomas Knarvik’s caricatures. Many readers, including this author, became acquainted with his Facebook caricatures through legacy media in which they were subject to the heated debate described in the introduction. A crucial political context for making sense of his caricature of the Swedish politician, Ali Esbati portrayed as an ape (
Knarvik’s caricatures and his accompanying comments on Facebook target particularly what he sees as political correctness and articulations of antiracism that threaten free expression. He was not a well-known public figure when his ape caricatures appeared in legacy media in May 2016. But for those seeking clues to make sense of them at that time, he had articulated the objectives of his project in some of his foregoing media appearances. The academy educated artist had specifically expressed admiration of his earlier teacher Lars Vilks, a Swedish artist and activist known for his Muhammed drawings, which resulted in failed attempts by Islamic extremists to murder him. In a commentary on the 2015 Copenhagen terrorist attacks (Knarvik,
For readers who have had the opportunity to follow Knarvik on his Facebook page by being accepted by him as a friend, the King of the Apes caricature could be accessed there from May 14, 2016. Underneath the ape caricature of Ali Esbati (
This caricature is typical of the drawer in the sense that his object of satire normally is on the left side of the political spectrum. Here, Knarvik can target what he sees as “dogmatic” voices, whether belonging to politicians, authors or journalists. Less often does he attack conservative-liberal voices such as those of the most powerful politicians in the conservative coalition governing Norway at the time of writing. The Facebook caricature is also typical in the way he introduces it with a text that may be seen as an immediate context offered by the drawer for decoding the caricature. In my translation, the text above the caricature reads:
Ali Esbati, politician in the Swedish Parliament for the Left Party, wishes to point out to all of us that NRK is racist. Sylvi Listhaug
This text is a far cry from the analytical and deliberative texts characteristic of journalistic commentaries that accompany caricatures. Written in colloquial language it alternately addresses the reader and Esbati, and at the same time presupposes quite detailed contextual knowledge of debates in the news media in order to make sense of ironic statements such as “I would think he was on the payroll of Gule”.
The response to the text and drawing as presented on his Facebook page, however, testified to how his friends there could
What is the disparity between image and reality here? From the perspective of Knarvik and his approving followers/commentators, I interpret the
However, the extent to which this is considered a gap with a satirical function will depend on how the reader-observer decodes the ape image. Esbati may be seen as an
However, as noted above, quite a few interpreters – not least commentators in the legacy media – read the caricature differently. They saw it as an exposure of racism through its framing of an immigrant politician in a degrading manner. These negative readings were, however, in turn opposed by other writers who pointed to the fact that Esbati has an Iranian background and that there is no tradition for humiliating caricatures of Iranians as monkeys.
In interviews (e.g. Meisingset,
Some of Knarvik’s other caricatures that were initially presented on Facebook have been recontextualized in legacy media settings and subject to diverse opinionating there. This has in turn fostered reactions from the artist himself to commentators’ ‘misinterpretations’, followed by his lengthy explanations – whether expressed in press interviews or on his Facebook page – of what their true meaning is. These explanations, however, are not necessarily enlightening, and may rather testify to a forced attempt to redeem himself after publishing a drawing few people understood. A case in point is a controversial drawing entitled “The Holy Trinity”, which depicts the Norwegian Labour party politician Trond Giske with a little ape child in his arms and with an erect penis from which his partner Haddy N’jie, depicted as a semi-ape, hangs. N’jie, who at the time the drawing was published was expecting a child with Giske, is a well-known and respected Norwegian musician and journalist with a father from Gambia and a mother from Norway. According to Knarvik, the intention of the drawing was to defend N‘jie against the persecution she had been subject to when being called “You rude, disgusting semi-ape” (
By drawing on theories of caricature, I have attempted to elucidate how certain codes and contexts can be applied when reading provocative political caricatures. I have argued that readers strengthen their interpretations of such caricatures if they acquire knowledge of genre characteristics, the caricature drawer, the type of media the caricatures appear within, and the political and cultural context of the drawings. I exemplified the application of such contexts through analyses of caricatures originally presented in different types of media, both print and social media, and in the different political-cultural contexts of South Africa, France and Norway.
For the different caricatures discussed here, I have found that the genre-distinct features of
Interaction between print and social media has an impact on the meaning of the caricatures. For the three cartoons that originated in print media, we note how social media may have played a vital role in the framing and reception of them. The Hebdo caricature alluded to a photoshop montage on Facebook that presented Taubira as a monkey, and the mass reaction on Twitter (Wicks,
As for The King of the Apes, conditions for making sense of this controversial cartoon changed markedly when it was “taken out” of the echo chamber of the drawer’s Facebook page and recontextualized in legacy media. Notably, when members of the commentariat condemned the cartoon, Knarvik seized the opportunity to elaborate on what his intentions were and what the drawing signified. Disapproving responses from the commentariat were, moreover, productive for him in the sense that they triggered several new mocking caricatures of his critics, published on his Facebook page.
The extent to which the different caricaturists discussed in this article take part in a
The reason users had for reporting the drawings, and why the organization decided to shut Knarvik out, is not known (Horvei
According to Oxford Dictionaries the metaphorical meaning of “organ grinder” is conventionally “a person in control of another” (
The author of this chapter had to read contextualizing articles written by persons with such knowledge of French culture, politics, media and satirical publications.
Listhaug is at the time of writing Norwegian Minister of Migration and Immigration, representing the conservative-liberal Progress party.
Lars Gule is a Norwegian social scientist and expert commentator who condemned Knarvik’s Esbati drawing as racist.
If an interest in individual stories is a sign of the times we live in, the profile interview fits well with this
But how unique are we, when the press grabs a hold of us? How unique are we when we are trying to communicate who we are in public, with possible reactions from an audience in mind? Our hypothesis is that the problem of making the unique “universal’’ in the profile interview is solved through the use of a set of recurring discourses. If this is so, it immediately raises another question: Are there dominant discourses, and what, if so, is the connection between the portrayed persons’ different roles and the different discourses?
As Miller (
In the end, there will of course have to be a story. The stories in profiles are about changes – the protagonist has landed a new position, launched a novel, won an election etc., that makes him or her a relevant object for an interview. Still, the core of the genre is about this person and his or her characteristics, not about any breaking news as such. The profile interview offers the interviewee a chance to transform their life into a positive public image. For the journalist it offers material that will make a fascinating story for the readers.
This article examines the questions above based on a study of profile interviews in one of Norway’s leading quality newspapers. Our material consists of all profiles published weekly in
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players,” William Shakespeare wrote in his play
Goffmann called these roles “the face”. The essential question for anyone in a social setting is whether the audience will accept their role. The image of the self that is shown in such interaction with others is not just a presentation of individual qualities, but also a claim to a social position. If the role is not accepted, the person in question will “lose face”. Most social interactions are based on ongoing negotiations about which roles the actors accept for others.
Transferred to the profile interview, this means that the interview situation consists of an ongoing negotiation between the journalist and the interviewee about the role the latter should assume. We will argue that a significant number of the profiles are all negotiations about which position the interviewee should take, a pro or con position within a limited set of collective and broadly used discourses. When it comes to the final description of the interviewee, considering the use of everything from quotes, setting, his or her background or behaviour, the journalist has a relative degree of freedom – he is responsible for the
Following this line of thought, we can see that the journalist plays an important role as playwright. Media audiences are not present in the interview situation, but they are in fact the addressee. The interviewer and the interviewee to a large extent communicate on the basis of the audience’s need for information and experiences, not their own (Svennevig,
Press work however poses a particular problem, because neither the interviewer nor the interviewee know the persons they actually address, the audience. They have, however, some information about their readership’s demographics through surveys. Most large newspapers for example know the level of education, and the distribution of gender and age among their readers. This knowledge is also necessary to create strategies to reach new groups of readers. But statistical facts about gender and age have their limitations, and will not necessarily reveal the tastes and attitudes of the persons behind the figures. Whether a person likes a profile interview or not, will very much be a question of taste and attitudes. This genre appeals as much to emotions as to intellect.
A relatively small newspaper with limited circulation and a clearly defined target group may however also know a lot about their readers’ tastes and attitudes. But when a newspaper is read nationwide and appeals to different social and cultural strata, “reading” the mind of the public becomes more difficult. The Norwegian non-fiction prose scholar Johan Tønnesson has coined public text as a score (Tønnesson
The qualitative analysis is based on critical discourse analysis (CDA). CDA is an approach that combines methods for text analysis with methods for the analysis of social and political thoughts or ideologies. The approach is based on the tradition of Fairclough (
Fairclough operates with a three-dimensional model, where the innermost dimension,
In this book, we take as a point of departure the fact that interest in individual stories is in itself an important part of the the social and discursive practice of the different kinds of public dialogue that we discuss. Social and discursive practice is also, however, often tied to more specific circumstances. Before we start analysing the profile interviews as texts, we will therefore describe what we believe are the social and discursive practices surrounding these texts.
Established as a rather marginal newspaper for the shipping community at the end of the 19th century, it started to broaden its coverage in the 1980s: first by extending its scope to more general business and finance news, and later by reaching out to new audiences. As part of this process, the once rather solemn broadsheet also rid itself of its old mould, went tabloid, assumed a pink colour just like Britain’s
The relaunched old shipping paper experienced a tailwind from its very start. This was a result of the new deregulatory era of the 1980s and shortly after coincided with the fall of the Berlin Wall. In the decades to come, it quadrupled its circulation. This expansion was no isolated occurrence – during this period business outlets as such also expanded from being niche products to becoming general interest media in a number of countries, according to Kjær and Slaatta (
DN professionalised its journalism and approached new target groups systematically, such as women (most readers were male at the time of the transformation) and civil servants. Slowly, the old shipping and business elites were accompanied by readers from entirely different social spheres. The reason for this success was partly the development of a Saturday edition filled to the brim with well-researched feature stories. These were often feature stories that went outside the realm of business and finance, or they were stories that made business and finance more intelligible and intriguing to the lay person.
At the core of this strategy were the newspaper’s profile interviews. And not only for the newspaper, but for the sources as well: to be awarded column space in
On the other hand, the expansion of the business press may have brought with it a pronounced set of values that in many respects differs from the values both of large groups of readers and even of society at large. Although the business press has contributed to increased transparency and increased investigation into economic life, it has also been associated with the neoliberal movements that have emerged in Western countries since the 1970s, and a neoliberal set of values (Kjær and Slatta,
Norway is rather young as an independent country, and probably shaped by that. Following four hundred years under Danish and Swedish kings, the country finally gained full independence in 1905. The national romanticism of the 19th century struck a particularly strong chord in a country whose background included being a Danish province, but which also has a long history of freeholding peasants, almost no feudalism – and a lot of spectacular scenery. At the same time, Norway was becoming a parliamentary democracy with a constitution strongly inspired by the French and American constitutions. The rural, often rough life became a symbol of freedom, and not least, what we can call “Norwegian-ness” – a common identity marker. These sentiments still play an important part in Norwegian political and public life. A recent attempt by the government to reduce the number of municipalities (around 400, many of them with no more than 5000 inhabitants) collided with the ideals of both the small community and relative autonomy, and has sparked heavy controversy and opposition as this is being written. The various aspects of this Norwegian “soul” have been discussed at length by the Polish-born, now Oslo-based, anthropologist Nina Witoszek. She argues that this entails a belief that “ordinary people are wonderful” (Witoszek,
On the other hand, there is also strong individualism. Witoszek (
After World War II Norway created a considerable welfare state with a high level of redistribution, but the state has also played an important role in facilitating business and an exceedingly free market, especially after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Labour Party has been the dominant party with approximately 50 of the last 70 years in power, but there has also been a relatively strong degree of consensus among the political factions, and the welfare state has strong popular support. One important difference today is that the conservative parties are more open to cutting taxes and privatising public services than the left, but they all claim they want to keep the welfare state.
Norway is also one of the most equal countries in the world when it comes to gender. Two out of three women work, they outnumber men in higher education, and chores at home are increasingly shared between the genders. The choice of profession, however, follows more traditonal gender roles than in most Western countries. A clear majority of nurses are women and a clear majority of engineers are men. Norwegians prefer quality of life above their professional career: Half of the population in Europe agree that career is vital for a good life, while only 14 percent agree on this in Norway. There is a likely connection between egalitarian values and less competitiveness, and the large amount of women in the workforce may thus contribute to another set of values (Kjølsrød and Frønes,
Political parties on both sides have played a role in promoting gender equality, but nevertheless the strongest commitment has been on the left. A number of important reforms have been implemented during recent decades, from extended maternity leave and large-scale development of kindergartens, to same sex marriage legislation. In 2016, the Norwegian parliament passed with an overwhelming majority a law that gives people the right to change their legal gender without changing it biologically.
In sum, we can see strong support for the welfare state, which indicates belief in an egalitarian society; strong support for a liberal economy, which indicates belief in individual freedom but not in unfettered markets; and strong support for gender equality. The political choices made over the last few decades have made a certain degree of both social equality
Before we embark on a presentation of the kind of people featured in these interviews, we will say a few words about the difference between a role and a discourse, and then present our overall findings. We use discourse and role as two separate categories, but a role might as well be seen as a discourse. We expect a businessman to be daring and concerned with moneymaking while we expect a politician to be wise and concerned with public values. Both gender and professional roles can be seen as culturally given discourses as part of the identity of the person representing them. However, there are differences between the two categories role and discourse. A role can be defined as a conventional figure connected to a certain type of activity (Svennevig,
The profile interviews we have examined mostly – and not surprisingly – feature the top leaders of various institutions in society. In a business paper one expects these institutions to be mainly business corporations, but an increasing number turn out to be part of the political sphere.
As
Basis for professional power | Number 2005-2006* (female share) | Number 2015-2016* (female share) | Percentage 2005-2006* | Percentage 2015-2016* | Change in percentage points 2005-2006 to 2015/2016* |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Economic | 19 (6) | 11 (2) | 26 | 16 | -10 |
Political | 10 (5) | 15 (10) | 14 | 22 | +8 |
Cultural | 15 (1) | 17 (6) | 21 | 25 | +4 |
Media | 11 (4) | 8 (2) | 15 | 12 | -3 |
Legal or public administration | 7 (4) | 7 (4) | 10 | 10 | 0 |
Sports | 3 (0) | 3 (0) | 4 | 4 | 0 |
Other | 7 (1) | 8 (2) | 10 | 12 | +2 |
Total | 72 (21) | 69 (26) | 100 (29) | 100 (38) |
Another conspicuous change from 2005–2006 to 2015–2016 is however one of gender. Whereas women accounted for 29 percent of the interviewees in 2005 and 2006, ten years later this share had risen to 38 percent. This may reflect both an awareness of gender balance on the part of the editors, and an awareness of which professional roles should be given two full pages with a one-page portrait in one of the country’s most read newspapers. After all, the fields of business and politics are also strongly gendered – there are quite simply more men than women in business, and more women than men in politics and the civil service. There is therefore an intimate relationship between the increase in the number of female interviewees and the increasing number of interviewees with a political power base.
We chose eight profiles from each period for closer scrutiny in a qualitative analysis. We tried to aquire a balance between economic and political power, and between male and female interviewees. When we set out to study these profiles, we discovered that almost all of them centered around three overarching topics. These are all topics rife with content and controversies about how the world should be seen. We can therefore say that the profiles centered around three prominent discourses. These were:
A discourse of national identity: How does the interviewee relate to what is normally considered good or bad values in Norway?
A discourse of personal power: What kind of abilities does the interviewee have to obtain and maintain power?
A discourse of gender: What male or female qualities does the interviewee have?
As we will see in the following presentation, the three discourses are interwoven, sometimes almost to the point of indistinguishability, and in some cases it is highly open to discussion as to which discourse should include which value. In order to decide that, we have had to assess the relative strength of the different utterances and characteristics, and their overall context. This does not, however, change the fact that these questions are what most of the texts revolve around. The leaders’ manner of exercising power is a constant theme. The women are confronted with their femaleness or lack of such. And the degree of Norwegian-ness is seldom omitted, by the interviewer or the interviewee.
We have quantified the occurences of the three discourses and find some minor developments from the first period to the second. The national identity discourse seems to be slightly more dominant in the first period. A slightly larger difference is also found regarding the need to claim an explicit distance to traditional gender roles in the first period. The difference between the two periods is too small to be considered important in our limited material, but could serve as a basis for further research.
In the following we will go through the three dominant discourses illustrated with typical examples from the texts, and finally also tie some comments to the connections between the three. (A more detailed overview of key elements in the discourses can be found in
Value | Discourse of gender, male | Discourse of gender, female | Discourse of personal power | Discourse of national identity |
---|---|---|---|---|
Success | Internally driven success | Externally driven success | Controlling the sourroundings (internal) | Collective values |
Failure | Externally driven failures | Internally driven failures | Legitimate power | Consensus |
Career | Career important | Career not so important | Active career important | Career not important |
Appearance | Natural | Vain | Winner | Natural |
Social resource | Children not important | Children important | Nature | |
Competetiveness | Competetiveness important | Competetiveness not important | Competetiveness important | Equality (economic, gender and socially) |
Control of other’s actions | To a certain degree | Consensus | Yes | Consensus |
Other important values | Rural, humble background |
The discourse of national identity is clearly the most common of the three dominant discourses. In quantitative terms it appears twice as often as the discourse of power and four times more often than the discourse of gender. This dominance of the national identity discourse can be explained in several ways. One reason may be that this is the field where there is most chance of finding common ground for all parties – between the journalists, the interviewees and the audience.
Norway is a country where social mobility has been considerable since World War II, and most people either come from humble beginnings in a small place or they descend from somebody who does. The American dream is nowadays said to be far more within reach in Norway than in America – although differences due to inherited wealth are slighty on the increase in Norway as well (Aaberge
As stated above, Norwegian values may not necessarily – or always – distinguish themselves from values found in other Scandinavian countries, or in Northern Europe at all, but they seem to give a fairly good picture of Norwegian self-understanding. We claim that these are parameters of “Norwegian-ness” that are so deeply rooted in the Norwegian self-image that even when people do not identify with them, they need to relate to them. It could, although in a more subtle way, be said to hold somewhat the same position as the parameter “male-ness” as described by Simone de Beauvoir in her classic book from 1949,
In this small and egalitarian country, even the (rather small) upper and upper middle classes have been expected to act in a way that does not distance them too much from the man in the street, and even the popularity of the (powerless) royal family is based on their ability to be “of the people”. The paramount example is King Olav V, who died in 1991. During the oil crisis in 1973, his chauffeur-driven car had no access to petrol, so the king took a tram to go skiing and politely paid for his ticket. Norwegian society has changed profoundly since 1973, but this act earned King Olav a reputation as “the people’s king” which is still viable more than 25 years after his death. His grandson, the current crown prince of Norway, was recently widely criticised in public for sending his children to a private, international school.
As the above story suggests, a good Norwegian is also an outdoorsy Norwegian. If there are any signs of nobility in Norway, mountain hiking and cross-country skiing are among them. It must be said that a number of these norms also, at times, have a certain elitist ring to them. The lower ranks of society do not primarily build their ethos on mountain hiking, so to an extent one can say that the national and relatively class-blind “close to nature” ideology has some kinship with the old leisure class ideology better known from British or American culture. But there is generally a deep public affection for everything having to do with nature. One of the major bestselling books in recent years was literally about chopping firewood, and owning a small and remote log cabin with no electricity or running water is still highly treasured by a number of Norwegians. It is, however, important to note that a lot of identity-creating values may not always be expressions of what people really do – they are also viable
As national identity markers, however, national myths are very much alive (see also Haugen, this book). Almost half of the interviewees in our analysis explicitly state their love of nature. A Minister of Culture invited the International Olympic Committee to a cross-country skiing trip. They baked their own twist bread over a campfire and ate a special kind of chocolate, a local version of KitKat which due to a successful advertising campaign in the 1920s has ever since been associated with good old-fashioned Norwegian outdoor life. The way the story goes, it seems as if the twist bread episode was what made the IOC understand that not only snobbery, but also doping and match-fixing, are unacceptable in Norway: “[W]e sat around the campfire. […] Made twist bread. They got the message,” as the minister put it. The clearly excited journalist later informs us that the Minister “of course” hiked to the top of the local mountain when she was young (20.02.2016). Furthermore, an interview with a prominent young MP with a Pakistani background is almost exclusively about being Norwegian. The MP is a Muslim, but his loyalty to Norwegian values is the core of the text, as both the quotations from the interviewee and the other choices of the journalist clearly show. The MP describes living in Norway as being “close to paradise on earth” (17.01.2015).
As far as nature is concerned, rougher seems to be better. The interviewees not only have experienced rough seas, they climb the highest peaks, swim the deepest depths, and spend nights outdoors with scouts (02.04.2005, 31.01.2015, 20.02.2016, 17.01.2015). One interviewee was proposed to by her husband on the top of Romsdalshorn, a mountain peak 1550 meters above sea level where one literally has to climb to reach the top (06.08.2005). Another interviewee claims to love nature though without convincing the journalist, and the latter writes rather sarcastically: “He loves the sea and he loves the mountains, he loves early in the morning and late at night” (19.03.2016).
Love for nature is a core value, and is proved through the urge to leave “civilisation” for the peace of nature. Even those who do not make it to the mountain tops make a point of their love for nature. Long walks in the woods to “flush the brain” are prescribed (02.04.2005). Some can hardly wait to leave politics or business to raise sheep or deer on a remote and tiny farm (19.11.2005, 06.08.2005). Only one of the interviewees, an oil industry official, admits openly that he regards economic gain – and consequently jobs – as more important than nature. This immediately makes the journalist from this business magazine correct him, almost disbelievingly: “Don’t you believe in the carbon balance?” (11.04.2015).
Norwegian-ness is important also when it does not have to do with nature. The president and CEO of a major Norwegian international company makes a point of how he had to introduce a “Nordic management philosophy” when he was a regional leader in Asia. Whereas the Thai managers were brought to meetings in their chauffeur-driven Mercedes and private lifts, this interviewee promoted a culture where management was “on the ground, in touch with the employees” (23.05.2015).
The second most salient discourse in the interviews is about power. All profiles contain a story of success – the road to power or the road to new power. But talking about power in Norway is often difficult without referring to “Norwegian-ness” at the same time, as for example in the Olympic Games case, where the minister is also exercising power through being Norwegian. To get a better grasp of how power is presented, it is useful to take a look at the
As a rule, the road to power is described as long and demanding. Social class and geography tend to coincide in Norway. Names like Vestertana, Dønna, Klæbu and Evje are scattered around in the texts. To Norwegians they are important signals: these are remote and humble places. Quite a few of the interviewees come from such places, and both the interviewees and the journalists love to make a point of it: the further away from the more densely populated and relatively urban south-east, the better.
The place where the interviewee grew up is presented in most of the profile interviews we have analysed. In more than half of them the birthplace is used to tell the story of a class journey – which is also mostly geographical.
This combined class and geographical journey probably serves two aims, one of identification and one of legitimising power. The mere use of these remote places in the journalistic texts may trigger a feeling of identification in the reader: “Imagine, it is possible to grow up in Vestertana and end up in a prominent position in the capital.” But in several cases a low, or even a lack of, education among the parents or grandparents is also emphasised, as if this is a quality that adds credibility and thereby legitimacy among an assumed non-elitist public (23.05.2015, 29.04.2006).
Both the interviewee and the journalist engage in telling these stories. The interviewees make a point of their ties to their home regions and express how they always long to go back (and one day they will). The Minister of Fisheries is for example presented by the journalist as someone who grew up on a small farm in “a district in the districts” in sparsely populated Finnmark (19.11.2005). Finnmark is the northernmost county and the word “district” in Norwegian signifies a rural place. This is also the minister who “loves to work with sheep”. These elements serve both to affirm her love for her remote birthplace and as a way of legitimising her being deserving of a position in the political elite.
Obviously there is an unsurmountable gap between the values of the national identity discourse and the discourse of power. But this is the interesting aspect of the class journey story: it creates a bridge between the two discourses. This is apparently so important that some interviewees even stress it a little too heavily. One interviewee, the head of one of Norway’s leading grocery chains, inherited the position, but his father, the founder of the firm, was a self-made man. The interviewee grew up in a middle class area in Norway’s third largest city, Trondheim, not a particularly humble background. Today he is a successful man with taylor-made suits, a mansion in one of the capital Oslo’s most exclusive areas, children in an international school and a fluent management lingo – just the kind of man one would expect a business newspaper to cherish. But in his negotiations with the journalist, he apparently feels he has to defend the choice of school for his children, and the fact that he does not want to move back to Trondheim, a city further north, by stressing the fact that he grew up in a home with “plastic furniture in the living room” and black pudding every Tuesday (19.03.2016). The journalist then comments that the interviewee may have “lost his simple
There is a lot of defending going on in the interviews, whether it is the interviewees’ social backgrounds or their current power positions that have to be defended. One of the few interviewees with an elite background, a lawyer and head of an important division in one of Norway’s most successful international firms, is also the daughter of a well-known TV personality. In the interview she distances herself from her privileged background by stating that it made her “embarrassed” when she was a child (06.08.2005). A former government minister and now head of government relations for a major global firm – who is also a musical artist and the daughter of a prominent and long-standing Labour MP – describes her way into politics as a mere matter of coincidence. As a young trainee in the civil service she accidentally ran into a bunch of young Labour politicians with whom she had – just as accidentally, as the story in the profile goes – jammed with after a concert in her remote birthplace a few years earlier (02.04.2005). As readers, we are allowed to overlook the fact that most ordinary teenagers do not get a chance to jam with people who hold a concert in their birthplace, and that it is equally unlikely that the reuinon in a government ministry some years later should be totally incidental.
All the interviewees are people with power, but the interesting thing is how the discourse of power changes from middle-of-the-week to Saturdays. On weekdays, the newspaper will regularly promote the strong leader and support “international” management styles where the distance between the top and bottom is considerable, and the paper also has a soft spot for union busting. In the Saturday profiles, however, the interviewees express a belief in close relations and community spirit. The CEO of the grocery chain claims that his employees “must be willing to invest [themselves] totally” in the firm. This quote does have a certain totalitarian ring to it. But at the same time he expresses belief in a corporate culture where “everybody is themselves”. Suits and ties have long since been excommunicated – implying also that these managers are down on the floor and on a par with the employees. The Norwegian chairman of a major car dealer furthermore makes his 3000 employees stand up and cheer when he gives a speech. This may sound like some kind of religious worship, but the journalist assures us that the chairman is no “Sun King”. The chairman confirms this by underlining the importance of trust – the employees’ trust in him gives his power legitimacy (30.04.2005). A government minister from a very remote place, who nevertheless made it to the corridors of power, is furtermore presented as living “together with several [minister colleagues] in an apartment complex”. In the text, this free apartment in Norway’s most expensive area almost sounds like a collective, which could be irony. The irony is however obvious when the reader learns that she goes to work in a black car with a driver, but as the colleagues share the car, it is implied that it is almost a kind of public transport (19.03.2005) .
Furthermore, the asset of power does not come easy even after it has been achieved. People sleep on the office couch after long working hours (29.04.2005) and spend lonely nights in the ministry flat in the company of crispbread and stacks of documents (31.01.2015). For power to be legitimate, it also needs to have social responsibility outside Norway’s borders. The chairman of one of Norway’s largest state-owned companies with a considerable international reach, makes a point out of all the measures the company performs in poor countries (23.03.2016). The grocery CEO cannot admit that he is planning a luxury holiday in Africa without at the same time stating that he likes to help the Africans by “supporting their health service, supplying ethanol furnaces to a slum in Nairobi, and [choosing] fair trade roses from Kenya [for his grocery customers]”.
Gender is a challenging point for at least two reasons. Firstly, gender is both a role and a kind of discourse. Secondly, the discourse of gender is challenging because it is highly arguable as to whether different characteristics and parts of the text should be seen as a positive or a negative position within the discourse. It must be noted that the use of the words positive or negative here does not imply that some traits of gender are “better” than others, but that they are regarded in varying degrees as qualities of this or that gender. As in most Western countries, the Norwegian culture operates with double standards. If a woman drinks beer and swears loudly, is she liberated or is she masculine? The gendering of the interviewee is nonetheless a prominent feature, and the ambivalence of the values in the discourse is frequently raised. Is combining a power position with being a mother possible? Is being a Minister of Justice responsible for denying a number of refugees shelter more difficult when she is also a mother? (02.04.2005). Can a man say that he hates to work on his car, but loves romantic comedies (26.02.2005) without placing himself in a negative postion within the discourse of gender? Sometimes the journalist situates the interviewee in an explicitly negative postion in the discourse of gender. A male parliamentarian is described with “a striped, beige scarf that appears strangely feminine” and “the high-toned, light laugh that in a way drains his authority” (17.01.2015).
Terms like the “glass ceiling” and the “old boys’ network” are frequently used (02.04.2005, 06.08.2005, 23.03.2016, 31.01.2015). In one case, the journalist makes a point of the alleged rarity of a woman being so powerful, and follows up by pointing to this interviewee’s feminine traits, but then contrasts these claims by describing her as fearless and tough (02.04.2005). Women’s looks are frequently commented on in a gendered way, whether it be because of their long curly hair, an (assumed) all-over tan (02.04.2005) or more unexpected looks for a woman, such as a “boyish figure” (06.08.2005). We find this practice regardless of the gender of the journalist. In several of the interviews, the women interviewees have to make an effort to get the message through that they in fact are vigourous, playful, brave and tough. And when the journalists – or the interviewees themselves – present the females as tough, they mostly resort to signs we recognise from the discourse of national identity. As an example, one female interviewee insisted on proceeding alone to a mountain top in terrible weather despite her husband’s warnings: “I was prepared to spend the night outside, but the worst thing was that he was likely to call the Red Cross” (23.03.2016).
These personal stories can of course be about power more than gender they confirm the fact that these people have the competitiveness necessary for the job. But the way such stories are highlighted in the interviews with women also suggest that there is an unavoidable aspect of gender here. It is as if the references are used to assure the readers that the director is “tough enough” for the job. Or maybe “man enough”?
The Finnish scholar Jonita Siivonen (
This of course demands traditionally male qualities to be seen in women synonymously with gender equality, and this will often be the case. The irony is, however, that by emphasising so heavily such qualities in a woman, the journalist at the same time sends a message that these women deviate from the norm. In this way they contribute to maintaining existing gender roles even when the women are not gendered in the traditional way – an example of so-called normative contradiction.
As we have seen, there are similarities between different aspects of the various discourses, and sometimes they even overlap. An example of this is when the male Minister of Fisheries tells the journalist about his childhood at sea: “I was outdoors in all kinds of rough weather, mainly alone, and in situations that were much more severe than I realised at the time” (05.11.2005). With this statement he is claiming a positive position in all three discourses: he loves and at the same time challenges and masters nature (national and male gender discourse) and he is daring (important both in a power discourse and a male gender discourse). Another is the example of the Minister of Culture and the Olympics mentioned above, or the Norwegian CEO in Asia – the Norwegianness of his statement about management also presents one type of power. Other values can be seen as positive in one discourse and negative in an other. The journalist states that the first name of a female ombudsman (“Sunniva”) means “sun gift”, but follows up by saying she is actually more like “darkness in the middle of the day” and “thunder” (06.06.2015). This could be associated with strength and determination in regard to power, as well as with something “unfeminine” in regard to gender. On the other hand, this woman is the national ombudsman for gender equality and it is just as likely that the dark description may be a positive description of a modern woman.
There are some differences between the various groups of interviewees, as far as both gender and position are concerned. Since mountain climbing, hunting and the rough outdoorsy life have traditionally been the males’ domain, one could believe that the claim of actively using nature would emphasise the masculinity of the male interviewees. But surprisingly, we find that this claim is uttered more frequently by the female interviewees than the male. The women may express their active use of nature to score in the national identity discourse and at the same time as a break with the traditional woman’s role – and thereby score some points as tough and daring in the discourse of power as well. Two thirds of the male interviewees, on the other hand, stress their experience of a class journey, whereas less than half of the women do the same. A closer look reveals that this is probably caused by the actual backgrund of the male interviewees in our material. But the men also more frequently claim a humble and modest lifestyle, which gives them a positive position in the national identity discourse, and at the same time strengthens their position in the discourse of gender.
The interviews of persons with an economic power base are additionally more dominated by the discourse of power, while the interviews of persons with a political power base are dominated by the discourse of national identity. This is less surprising, as business culture is more hierarchical than political culture, the former with CEOs and other strong leader roles, the latter more team oriented, based on political parties. The dominance of the national identity discourse among persons with political power can be explained by the fact that their power base is national, they need the votes of as many people as possible, and “Norwegian-ness” is the value they share. A vast majority of the interviewees with a political power base focus on the class journey story, while less than half of those with an economic power base do the same. This may demonstrate the democratic value of the class journey in the political world, but also suggests that it is easier to get to the top in politics than in business without an elite background.
Given the fact that both the choice of and the portrayal of people with power in Norwegian society often differ from what one expects from a business paper with a neoliberal stance, the first conclusion one can draw is that social and discursive practices probably count. When a business paper, in a country where strong political currents can be described as “state individualism”, tries to appeal to a larger public it seems that other questions are asked and other aspects highlighted on Saturdays than on weekdays. But there is also another, interesting point to be made: The three discourses we have detected in the texts are largely what make the interviewee recognisable to a broad and diverse public. Close scrutiny of the profiles reveals that the three discourses are almost like a grid, where the more unique information about the protagonists can be placed. We also find that the interviewees try to balance the presentation of themselves within the three discourses, to obtain what they regard as a positive postion in all three of them. The overall impression of the person in question is thereby to a large degree shaped by the proportion of the different discourses. In some cases a certain value will assure a positive position in more than one discourse – like mountain climbing which may be positive in all three discourses. Other values might be positive within one discourse and negative in another. An example of this is competetiveness and a strong career orientation. These are values that can be positive for a business person when the issue is power, but negative from a national identity discourse point of view, and even more questionable when it comes to gender. Along with the three discourses the interviewee’s professional role constitutes a complex web of possible positions. In several cases one can spot a negotiation between the journalist and the interviewee about the position in which the latter should be placed.
We can therefore draw the conclusion that the three discourses function beyond making the interviewee interesting and legitimate to a diverse public. Consequently, one can say that this particularly “individual” genre is almost as much about broader collective phenomena, as about the individual – herself or himself.
Both authors of this chapters are former journalists in Dagens Næringsliv, Fonn during the beginning of the 1990s, Gjesvik for 14 years from 1994. Gjesvik worked with the features department.
The personalization of politics has been widely discussed in recent years, both in academic literature as well as in the public debate. Politicians are not only understood in connection with the policies they make and their political competence, but also through their personal characteristics and lives. The personalities of politicians have become a key part of mediated stories and narratives crucial for voter identification, emotional connection and interest (Alexander,
The personalization of politics is closely intertwined with the notion of media logic and its focus on dramatization, conflict, and a tendency to avoid complexity in highlighting political actions and leaders (Altheide & Snow,
In Sweden, the change towards a more media oriented political scene started in 1976 when the Swedish Social Democratic Party (SAP) lost the election after 40 years in power (Premfors and Sundström,
This study explores how four Swedish prime ministers were portrayed in four leading newspapers, and how personal characteristics were described as embodying values and norms belonging to their respective political parties. This will be done by focusing on social background, personal appearance, and leadership characteristics, identified as important categories in previous research. Two of the chosen prime ministers are from the SAP (Göran Persson and Ingvar Carlsson) and two from the Moderate Party (Carl Bildt and Fredrik Reinfeldt).
The personalization of political leaders can be ascribed to general trends in contemporary society such as the decline in party identification and political ideology as well as the rise of celebrity culture and identity politics. In such an environment, the personal becomes a fruitful way to attract voters who are not interested in formal politics. At the same time, the personalization of politics can be a double-edged sword. For example, Foley (
The notion of personalization has been widely discussed in the literature from various perspectives. For example, Langer (
Other studies find an increase in personalization. Langer (
Moreover, the personalization of politics is closely connected to the notion of celebrity politics. From a feminist perspective Van Zoonen (
In a Swedish context, there has been limited research on the subject. Johansson (
The empirical material consisted of news, opinion and feature articles from the four major newspapers in Sweden: two tabloids (
The prime ministers were selected based on party affiliation. Time periods were chosen so as to incorporate their first time in office except for Ingvar Carlsson, where the empirics cover his last period. As a result, part of the coverage is focused on summing up Carlsson’s political career, which may make journalists less inclined to attribute negative characteristics. The selection of his last period was due to the fact that he entered office by replacing Olof Palme who was assassinated in 1986. In light of this fact, his first period was quite special compared to the other prime ministers. Beyond that, for practical reasons it was also difficult to use his first period in office since the digital database I used first started keeping an archive of articles from these newspapers in 1995.
In collecting the articles, I used the database
Ingvar Carlsson is described as having a traditional Social Democratic upbringing. His father was a warehouse worker and his mother a cleaner and seamstress. When Ingvar was 12 his father died, and he had to contribute to the family economy by taking various part-time jobs. After finishing compulsory education, he pursued a master’s degree in politics and economics at Lund University, where he also became chairman of the SAP student club and met Prime Minister Tage Erlander. Carlsson’s career kicked off when Erlander asked him if he wanted to come to Stockholm to work as his political secretary. Ingvar Carlsson’s journey towards becoming prime minister is often summarized in headlines like “From a Wooden Shanty in Borås to the Sager Palace,” in this case followed by an ingress saying that “It has never escaped Ingvar that he belongs to the working class. Deep down he hates the upper class, instinctively and morally” ( Ingvar Carlsson personifies, both through his background and his work, the Social Democratic dream. He started off with a poor upbringing and significant social hardships but succeeded in becoming a diligent student, a member of the Swedish Parliament and the leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Youth League. He also assumed several arduous political assignments and ministerial posts and later became party leader and finally Prime Minister (
Compared to Carlsson, there are few mentions of Göran Persson’s social background in the empirical material. In one article, we get to know that his father was a construction worker, who was occasionally unemployed. One specific story, which according to the journalists was often told by Persson himself, is that his father could not afford to visit the dentist and as a result had to have his teeth extracted (
In the coverage of Carl Bildt’s upbringing and background there are numerous references to his aristocratic background, such as accounts of family reunions at the aristocratic Nobility House in Stockholm. We also learn that Bildt was not the first in his family to become prime minister, since his great, great grandfather held the office between 1888-89 ( The good little boy already from the outset. A guy who drew fire trucks and fighter planes during lessons. […] His father was a major, his mother a housewife. Calle
Another article about his upbringing states that: “There was not much glue sniffing and smoking” (
The media image of Reinfeldt differs from Bildt in some key aspects. Similar to Persson, there is limited information on Reinfeld’s early years and social background. One of the few remarks is about how his mother was “absolutely convinced” that her son would become prime minister one day, since he had always been structured and well-organized ( And he adds that despite the fact that he carried out one of the biggest transformations of a Swedish political party ever, that work has still not managed to make up for decades of stereotypical images of Moderates as rich men’s kids. […] “I myself have felt that sometimes. I have a simple background, with parents who had no higher education degrees when they met. I have lived in simple apartments and townhouses. Nevertheless, the stereotype is ascribed to me as well. Anders Borg and Sven Otto Littorin have similar backgrounds to me, and we have all noticed that people did not want to accept us as common people. That weighs us down” (
As can be seen, Reinfeldt emphasizes that he and his fellow colleagues are ordinary people, and in doing so he distances himself from the traditional image of the party, personalized by Bildt’s aristocratic and privileged background. This should also be understood in light of Reinfeldt’s project of rebranding the party into the “New Moderates”, aimed at attracting working and middle class voters. Similarities can here be drawn to David Cameron’s ambition to modernize the Conservative Party and to shed its right-wing image by utilizing his private life as a way of becoming more authentic and thus modifying the party brand (Langer,
In the empirical material, there are few references to Ingvar Carlsson’s appearance, except for one where his face is drawn in the shape of a foot. Several humorous references are made to this. In contrast, Göran Persson’s appearance is often mentioned, and in a negative way:
Göran Persson looks like a prime minister from the old days, and that is one of his problems: His image is wrong, out of tune with the subtle signals of what is socially correct in our time. They who socially set the agenda today are slim and fit, and yesterday’s workers who are round and pudgy are stigmatized (
Persson’s appearance here becomes one explanation for his inability to attract voters. Moreover, the frequent remarks about Persson being overweight can be understood in relation to class. Obesity is often connected to descriptions of working class people and their lack of self-control (Olivia,
This bodily continuity is, I think, one of the reasons why Persson manages to pursue a political agenda that at the time was unthinkable to a large majority of the people […]. Only a real “Sosse”
That Persson is as outdated and not in touch with his time resonates with a study by Langer (
Both Bildt and Reinfeldt are portrayed as young-looking and well dressed. The news article below describes a meeting between Bildt and a group of younger people on a TV show.
Carl Bildt, 44 in July, works between 80 and 100 hours a week, traveling as a big shot around Sweden and the world, making speeches, giving interviews, trying to hold the government together, battling the galloping budget deficit and growing unemployment. Yet he looks like a confirmation candidate. This became particularly evident yesterday when he went up against ten young people on Channel 1. There was no visible difference [in their appearances], but the guy in glasses rules the country
In general, there are few connections made between the appearance of Bildt and his political work, in contrast to Persson.
When it comes to Reinfeldt, the journalists describe how he goes to the gym on a regular basis and that he lost 14 kilos before the election campaign. Also Reinfeldt’s clothes are discussed, for example, in relation to how statesmanlike they make him look: “It was Fredrik Reinfeldt’s fifth summer speech as party leader. […] yesterday he wore a new gray suit to emphasize that he is Prime Minister and statesman” (
The descriptions of Carlsson as a person are fairly consistent. He is in general portrayed as “a stubborn working ant with a strong sense of duty, meticulous, Lutheran and professional” (
Another often referred to characteristic of Carlsson is his high sense of morals. Again, the story fits nicely into the Social Democratic movement where enriching oneself is one of the worst things a leader can do, and where any sign of such behavior inevitably leads to a loss of confidence and eventually an end to one’s political career (Barrling Hermansson,
Turning to Persson, the image of him is more negative. His personality and leadership style attract considerable media attention. At times, Persson is directly compared to Carlsson. For example, journalists report that Carlsson used the pronoun “we” when talking about the government, whereas Göran Persson says “I think,” “I have decided,” and “my government” (
The most recurrent theme of Persson is his “bossiness”. In the article “Blunt Persson”, he is said to “cause discontent and uncertainty” among the people around him ( A person who does not think, does not read books, is educated in “Katrineholm-politics”, provincial, a loser, one who feels sorry for himself when being criticized and who gets bored at EU meetings. It seems like Persson can only be described through clichés. This is probably due to the fact that he personifies all of the old traditional prejudices about Social Democratic leaders – uneducated, authoritarian and pompous – who are at best capable of ruling their municipalities, but who are not capable of behaving themselves in more sophisticated settings (
Persson’s media image is also interesting compared to political leader ideals stating that politicians should be loving, easy going and friendly, embodied by politicians such as Tony Blair (Smith,
Some articles describe Göran Persson’s merits in the EU and other international settings. One recurrent story is that Persson finds EU meetings boring and as a result is not very engaged. Often he comes off as “uncertain” compared to when he was Minister of Finance and knew “everything” (
Carl Bildt is described as a fact-seeking politician who knows policy issues in miniscule detail. He is portrayed as interested in history, technology and foreign policy but uninformed about sports and popular culture. Moreover, he is regarded as “always busy”.
Visits, telephone calls, letters, meetings, trips, lunch with the government at noon, a press conference, a foreign newspaper that would like to ask some questions, speeches, opinion articles, Helmut Kohl calls and wants to talk for a while. “Carl cannot keep this pace forever. No one can,” says one of his collaborators in confidence (
Bildt is also described as bad at connecting with people, which makes him come off as cold (
Reinfeldt’s leadership style is often referred to as “listening” and “modern” (
Fredrik Reinfeldt is a soft, modern boss who, in contrast to Göran Persson, listens to his co-workers. Furthermore, he is said to be straightforward with what he wants but allows his co-workers to work independently. Internally, he comes off as a thorough, humble and matriarchal leader as opposed to the arrogant patriarch Göran Persson (
Reinfeldt built his role as politician on being balanced and ordinary (Forsild, […] Controlled politician who seldom allows himself to be pushed out of balance. He came off, for the most part, as an initiator who after much reflection came to the conclusion that Sweden is not on the right path. And he has taken on the heavy task of turning the country in another direction (
Reinfeldt is also contrasted to Persson in relation to female voters and politicians. Apparently, female voters had a lot of confidence in him, as illustrated in the following headline published on International Women’s Day: “Women’s Choice: Fredrik” (
One way of giving credit to Reinfeldt is to compare him to other popular leaders such as the iconic former SAP leader, Tage Erlander.
Fredrik Reinfeldt is like a modern “Father of the Nation”. Calm and secure. More youthful in his appearance than his role model Tage Erlander. He is just what a nice father in the most modern country in the world should be. […] He vacuums the house, makes beef stew and is involved in his children’s lives. Beyond that, he builds confidence and speaks with a firm and clear voice (
In the passage above, the traditional Social Democratic role of the “Father of the Nation” is interwoven with the notion of the modern man who takes an active part in his children’s lives and in the home. Reinfeldt’s emphasis on ordinariness can be connected to what Smith (
The study at hand sets out to explore news coverage of Swedish prime ministers and their personal characteristics from the perspective of party affiliation. In general, the news texts show that leaders’ personalities are frequently interwoven into journalistic narratives, which is one indicator of a shift in media coverage towards more personally oriented coverage of political leaders (Smith,
Yet the study reveals no clear patterns in terms of how leaders from the respective parties are reported on or understood. The issue of upbringing is interesting since it is not only a way for journalists to portray the prime ministers, but also a way for the prime ministers to market themselves by embodying traditional party ideals. The prime ministers are described as embodying their respective parties, their ideologies and policies, in various ways and degrees. Carlsson provides the best example of how personal characteristics are directly linked with the party, in a positive way, embodying the notion of the “good Social Democrat”. This is done through stories of his modest upbringing, success despite structural obstacles, honesty, and low-key personality. Persson aspires, through his personal experiences of a class society, to take on a similar role. However, no such journalistic narrative is created. In contrast, Persson is portrayed as embodying traditionally negative perceptions regarding the Social Democratic Party, and described as a greedy, patriarchal person with an old-fashioned and “trade union boss” mentality. In general, the bullying character of the news coverage of Persson raises questions regarding journalistic norms and ethics. The two Moderate leaders are also portrayed differently, mirroring the re-branding of the party. Whereas Bildt is depicted as embodying a traditional stereotypical view of the Moderates as a party for the rich and privileged, such descriptions are lacking when it comes to Reinfeldt. Rather, Reinfeldt prefers journalists to highlight his ordinary background, interests and life. This narrative fits much better with the re-branding of the Moderates as a party for working and middle class people. The strategic and deliberate use of personal characteristics and life styles as a way of authenticating the party brand is interesting and underlines the need for more research in the intersection between public relations and journalistic studies in the Swedish context.
The study demonstrates that there is not one standardized way in which prime ministers have been portrayed in terms of party affiliation and personal characteristics. This does not mean that journalists do not use preconceptions about the various parties and their histories when reporting on political leaders. For example, both Carlsson and Persson are reported on and understood through the lense of what it means to be a Social Democrat, but also in light of contemporary trends in leadership ideals. One such trend is what Smith (
A common Swedish nickname for a boy named Carl.
The Swedish nickname given to members of the Social Democratic Party.
Referring to Carl Bildt.
It should however be noted that Persson, as did Carlsson, stuck to the strategy “every other seat for a woman” when appointing ministers (Sundström,
The front cover of the first passport I ever owned displayed in capital letters the words “British Passport: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”. In its inside pages it went on to further designate me as a “British Subject: Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies”. My current passport has on its front cover the words “European Union: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”, with no indication of either subjecthood or statehood, while a rather complex note on the third page includes me by implication among both “British citizens” and “British nationals”. These documents thus give written form to a range of “positions” which have been made available to me at different moments in time and within different legal and political frameworks. While I am well aware of all of these designations, none of them actually corresponds to what I might call my own sense of my “national identity”, which I would always state as Scottish: this tension between my “felt” nationality and my technical nationality (or more precisely statehood) is symptomatic of my membership in a “stateless nation”, i.e. Scotland, a nation which currently lacks the political resources necessary – and perhaps even the will – to aspire to the status of nation-state (Law,
Along with many other academics working in this field (Foucault, The move away from the singularities of ‘class’ or ‘gender’ as primary conceptual and organizational categories, has resulted in an awareness of the subject positions – of race, gender, generation, institutional location, geopolitical locale, sexual orientation – that inhabit any claim to identity in the modern world (1994, p. 1).
Since which subject position we choose to (or are obliged to) occupy at different times can vary significantly, our “identity” in that sense is always constructed, negotiated and in flux. If, for example, I need the assistance of a British Embassy somewhere, my identity in that situation is technically but also inescapably British. If I attend a football match where Scotland is playing against another national team, it is Scottish (I might even wear a kilt).
In this chapter I will look at how the conditions of possibility enabled by the “open character of every discourse” (Laclau & Mouffe,
This chapter, then, examines the complex relationships and tensions between an increasingly prominent – though not yet politically dominant – “Scottish” imagined community and a still resilient but increasingly challenged “UK” counterpart, both coexisting in a shared (national and international) political space. It will analyse the particular forms this confrontation takes in the field of print capitalism, focusing on how a range of individuals are presented both as actors in their own right and as part of much larger discursive and ideological frameworks.
The political process which led to the launch of
The new paper, launched at breakneck speed, belongs to Newsquest (the UK arm of the American media company Gannett) and is published by the Herald and Times group. Initial circulation results were heady, peaking at around 60,000 in the first week (for a population of just over five million), but quickly fell back to around 15,000, eventually stabilising at just over 10,000 copies a day. This is a reasonable if not spectacular performance compared with other Scottish “quality” newspapers.
Among a range of unusual features,
Language is a powerful constructor of national subjectivities (O’Donnell,
The second major event to affect the profile of
In this chapter I will concentrate almost exclusively on the front covers of the paper. There are several reasons for this choice of focus. Due to economic constraints
A small number of high-profile columnists and bloggers: award-winning journalist Lesley Riddoch, founder of the Radical Independence Campaign Cat Boyd, and “The Wee Ginger Dug” [sic] (pseudonym of blogger Paul Cavanagh).
Above all the very unusual make-up of its front covers where
The great importance
Both language and visual communication express meanings belonging to and structured by cultures in the one society; the semiotic processes, though not the semiotic means, are broadly similar; and this results in a considerable degree of congruence between the two (2006, p. 19).
Meyrowitz gives a more detailed explanation of the functioning of the caption. The impact of a “representational symbol” such as a photograph or image, he argues, derives from the fact that “the photograph is understood in one act of seeing: it is perceived in a gestalt” (1985, p. 96). However, the lack of linguistic elements which makes this immediate impact possible can also result in the meaning of the image being unclear, or even ambiguous, as a consequence of which “people often rely on a picture’s verbal caption to determine the picture’s specific meaning” (p. 98). The force of the caption in the overall generation of meaning was very clear in the course of this research since many of the images encountered would have defied successful interpretation without recourse to the accompanying text.
Two forms of semiotic analysis are mobilised to deal with the visual elements of
The rather different form of semiotics developed by American polymath Charles Sanders Peirce is also used, in particular his classification of signs into three:
The relationship between
This typology has been extremely useful for classifying the different kinds of representations, thus allowing a more fine-grained analysis.
At the time of writing (16 September 2017, two days before the third anniversary of the Scottish independence referendum), the paper had just published its eight-hundred-and-fiftieth edition. Quantitative data on the corresponding front covers has been gathered using spreadsheet software. For the purpose of analysis these covers are broken down into the following three sets (there is a certain amount of double counting since hybrid iconic/metaphorical and individual/group images, of which there are 90, have been entered under both categories):
Set 1 includes all 585
Subset 1 includes 236 covers featuring 17 individuals appearing 5 or more times
Subset 2 includes 145 covers featuring 120 individuals appearing between 1 and 4 times
This gives a subtotal of 381 covers featuring 137 single individuals
Subset 3 includes 98 images featuring 2 or 3 individuals
Subset 4 includes 106 images of larger groups of any size
Set 2 includes 43 covers with
Set 3 includes 316 covers with
The following “headline” conclusions can be drawn at this point:
Iconic representations of single individuals and metaphorical images are by far the two largest groups, accounting jointly for around two-thirds of front covers
Groups are the second largest category, accounting for around one quarter of front covers
Indexical (“news”) images constitute a very small percentage of front cover images (5%)
If we look more closely at what we might call the “elite” group – i.e. those whose images appear five or more times – this list is as follows:
Nicola Sturgeon, current Scottish First Minister | 59 |
Theresa May, current UK Conservative Prime Minister | 39 |
Jeremy Corbyn, current UK Labour Party Leader | 19 |
David Cameron, former UK Prime Minister | 17 |
Kezia Dugdale, current Scottish Labour Party Leader | 12 |
Ruth Davidson, current Scottish Conservative Party leader | 11 |
Alistair Carmichael, current UK Liberal Democrat MP | 11 |
Donald Trump, current US President | 8 |
Alex Salmond, former SNP First Minister | 8 |
Jim Murphy, former UK Labour Party MP | 8 |
Boris Johnson, current UK Conservative Foreign Minister | 6 |
David Mundell, current UK Conservative MP | 7 |
George Osborne, former UK Conservative Chancellor/current MP | 7 |
Andy Murray, current leading Scottish/British tennis player | 6 |
Ian Duncan Smith, former UK Secretary of State/current MP | 6 |
Tony Blair, former UK Labour Party Leader | 6 |
David Davis, current UK Secretary of State for exiting the EU | 5 |
Of these only Andy Murray does not come from the world of politics. Of the remaining 117 individuals in the “four-or-fewer-appearances” group only 14 appear more than once, accounting for a total of 30 covers, and five are now deceased. The remaining 68 consist mostly of (not necessarily minor) politicians, a medley of more or less well-known media or sporting celebrities, a couple of academics and even, on one occasion, the Queen… There are also 35 individuals who were presented “anonymously”, these appearing mostly as tokens of a specific type (doctor, fisherman, immigrant and so on), where the type is of more interest to the overall discourse of the newspaper than any particular individual, to the extent that several appear only from the neck down: in fact the usefulness of such anonymous exposure resides specifically in its ability to address broader issues, where an anonymous student might “represent” problems in the educational sector, for example, or a fisherman difficulties in that industry. Of all the representations these come closest to what we might, with Barthes, call a “degree zero” presentation, one which “has a generic form; it is a category” (2010, p. 54).
Whether any individual or group appears in the news is the result of a complex set of factors, and changes in political fortunes can result in sudden falls from grace (David Cameron, George Osborne, Jim Murphy) or equally sudden increases in exposure (Theresa May, Donald Trump). However, the quantitative element of this study makes it clear that things are in reality much more complex than this, and that there is no direct relationship between political “weight” and exposure, a point I return to below.
As we will see later, any positive deviation from degree zero is carried almost entirely by Nicola Sturgeon (with a little help from Andy Murray), the vast bulk of all other front-cover images deviating to the negative. I will focus on these first. A particularly useful tool is the so-called “rule of thirds” according to which the “power points” of an image are not in the centre but at the intersection points of horizontal and vertical lines dividing the image into equal ninths (Krages,
Numerous other examples of this technique in operation, particularly in its negative variant, can be found, but simpler techniques are also much in evidence. Immediately below is the third image to appear in
Other downgrading techniques include posterising the individual concerned, showing him/her in black and white, showing only a fragment, or moving them to the side and/or bottom where they are overshadowed by their surroundings, or, even worse, showing them from the rear, as in the following images of David Cameron:
Individuals presented as “out of touch” can appear as spacemen/women (David Cameron and Kezia Dugdale below):
Appearing as a Martian or Frankenstein’s monster offer other options – the latter clearly based on Boris Karlov’s monster though totally lacking in its “redemptive” possibilities (Eco,
As we slide further down the negative slope only part of the individual in question might be shown. Below we see Boris Johnson almost literally as a “half-wit” while half of a snooping Theresa May disappears behind a hedge:
Perhaps the ultimate indignity is to appear merely as a silhouette, as in these images of Kezia Dugdale:
Or perhaps not. The ultimate indignity may be to have your identity hijacked by a character from popular culture, the images below showing Theresa May as Cruella de Vil and Alistair Carmichael as The Terminator:
Occasionally historical figures are also appropriated. A recent cover (14 September 2017) featured Theresa May as no less a personage than King Henry VIII.
An unusual but undoubtedly interesting feature of
The ideological burden of such representation seems very clear: the more times an individual is reproduced in the same image the more negative the overall representation is.
A small but growing number of images show her in mid-close-up from the side addressing an obviously present but out-of-shot audience. In terms of the proxemics, we might usefully contrast this with the presentation of David Cameron in a similar style of shot:
There are only two “mythologising” images, the first appearing the day after the first anniversary of the referendum (19 September 2015) and the second on the day of the following year’s Scottish parliamentary elections (5 May 2016): one in black and white urging support for independence, and showing a very young Nicola Sturgeon waving a saltire – a white Saint Andrew’s cross on a blue background, one of Scotland’s two unofficial “national” flags – and the other in yellowish tones stressing
Both images have a distinctly “retro” and even “propaganda-like” feel while the image on the left below – another interesting
These few exceptions notwithstanding, the overriding representation is what we might loosely call “realist” in that there is relatively little that departs from a rather old-style popular photographic representation which “eliminates accident or any appearance that dissolves the real by temporalizing it” (Bourdieu,
At times proxemics, hexis and gesture combine, as when Ed Miliband appears to be intimidated by a rather threatening Cameron, while the empty space between Sturgeon and Murphy in the second image stresses their ideological distance, her relaxed attitude also contrasting strongly with his more defensive posture:
As regards haptics, we might usefully contrast Sturgeon’s rather formal handshake with Cameron with
Images featuring three actors can suggest more complex power relationships, often enhanced through the use of CGI as illustrated below:
Where some level of individual identification is needed for larger groups, the technique of composite presentation is almost invariably used whereby smaller separate images of each of the individuals involved are presented. The numbers can vary from four or five through several dozen to numbers so large they are impossible to count. There are 19 cases of this type: the second image below shows Nicola Sturgeon surrounded by all the SNP Members of (the UK) Parliament elected on 8 May 2015:
A number of
The latter was not, however, my first encounter with (variations of) this particular image. It had appeared on the inside pages of
There is a small but useful academic debate on whether, in such cases, we are dealing with a
The term “symbolic representation” refers to cases where meaning is expressed mainly metaphorically (though also occasionally metonymically) by means of images. The two images immediately below exemplify the differences between iconic, indexical and symbolic representation. On the left is an indexical expression of war in Syria (ruins are not war, but point towards war). On the right we see a hybrid form combining iconic representation of John McDonnell (UK Labour Shadow Chancellor) with a metaphorical expression of the crisis affecting that party in the form of a house on the verge of collapse:
At this point I will turn to Foucauldian discourse analysis in order to grasp the more complex dynamics of symbolic representation. This approach, based on the work of French theorist Michel Foucault, differs from both of the broadly structuralist frames used so far with their detailed analysis of the inner mechanics of specific (visual or linguistic) texts. This difference lies primarily in the fact that Foucault had no interest in any specific text of any kind as an object of study in itself. As he puts it in
Foucault talks not of texts but of “discourses” – for example discourses of national identity such as the ones we are focusing on here – and of “discursive formations” which arise out of the coming together of discourses on the same broad topic but spread across a wide range of fields: for example, discourses of national identity can emerge in relation to hard news (the case here), sport (very common), advertising, television drama, literature, poetry, music and so on, each of these with its own distinct vocabulary and style. Discursive formations are therefore “systems of dispersion” (p. 41) – they have no single identifiable author and are made up of “statements” emerging from a wide range of “surfaces of emergence” (p. 45). They do not present what Barthes might call a “unary” message (2000, p. 41), being on the contrary “a space of multiple dissensions; a set of different oppositions whose levels and roles must be described” (Foucault,
Importantly for this project, “archaeology”, as Foucault called his approach at the time, does not limit itself simply to the study of expressive forms, but “also reveals relations between discursive formations and non-discursive domains (institutions, political events, economic practices and processes) … it seeks to define specific forms of articulation” (pp. 179-80). Such an approach lends itself productively to the analysis of
Critical Metaphor Analysis (CMA) is also used here as a complementary analytical tool. This approach explicitly challenges the Classical Greek view of metaphor as decorative or ornamental, and stresses instead “its role in the development of ideology in areas such as politics and religion where influencing judgements is a central goal” (Charteris-Black,
Other vehicles include blackboards, schoolboys/girls or lecture theatres for education (five examples) and flowers or candles for mourning (ten examples, the topic however being in most cases terrorism). We should beware of assuming that the same vehicle will always refer to the same topic or be part of the same discourse: as Lakoff and Johnson argue, “metaphor, by virtue of giving coherent structure to a range of our experiences, creates similarities
The captions clearly inform us that in the first case – featuring then Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander – the target is financial dishonesty, whereas in the second, featuring George Osborne, the target is economic naivety and incompetence, thereby creating novel similarities between concepts not normally regarded as overlapping.
A detailed examination of all of the metaphors mobilised is not possible, but the sample provided should make it clear that while semiotics is a valuable tool for the analysis of individual images, something different is required at the level we are dealing with here. This was a conclusion reached several decades ago by Barthes when he moved from his structuralist to his poststructuralist phase, particularly with the publication of
Given the scale of the dataset, in order to keep the analysis manageable I will focus here on a small selection of the captions accompanying individual images of Nicola Sturgeon, always bearing in mind that they operate within a much broader frame of other captions and metaphoric visuals which reproduce the same discourses as those itemised below (the discourses mobilised are shown in italics):
Sturgeon offers olive branch to English progressives as she unveils alternative to austerity
Carmichael must question the whole approach to politics after saying memo leak is just ‘one of those things’
‘I don’t want my niece’s generation to still be fighting these battles. I want us to actually try to win these battles for the next generation of women’
‘I am proud of Scotland and how we voted yesterday. We proved that we are a modern, outward-looking and inclusive country and we said clearly that we do not want to leave the European Union. I am determined to do what it takes to make sure these aspirations are realised’ NICOLA STURGEON
Sturgeon meets EU nationals [living in Scotland] and demands a guarantee from Theresa May that they can stay in Scotland
Sturgeon says Downing Street’s [i.e. Theresa May’s] silence is ‘increasingly negligent’ and confirms indyref2 still ‘highly likely’ as Scotland’s Brexit bill predicted to hit £11.2bn
Care
Negligence
Competence
Inequality
Equality
Incompetence
Dependence
Independence
Honesty
Dishonesty
Humanity
Inhumanity
Justice
Injustice
Legality
Illegality
Openness
Closedness
Progressiveness
Regressiveness
Prosperity
Poverty
Security
Insecurity
Solidarity
Insolidarity
Stability
Instability
Unity
Disunity
The first column designates the discursive universe of
Despite the diversity of images and metaphors, this Manichean universe structures There is more of an obligation on us now than there perhaps has been on our generation before and this is the time for all of us, no matter how difficult, no matter how controversial and unpopular it may be in certain quarters, to be beacons of hope for those values we all hold so dear.
The accompanying article foregrounded a number of social issues – most centrally racism and misogyny – with no mention of independence whatsoever. The paper’s most striking cover to date – a special wraparound cover featuring an artwork by Scotland’s most prominent living artist Peter Howson – again foregrounded not independence (though it is implicit in the Union Jack in the background) but the theme of austerity, of which poverty was clearly a motif:
The Manichean nature of this universe explains many (perhaps all) of the apparent conundrums in
In short, while the
The (for many completely unexpected) result of the UK referendum of 23 June 2016 to remain in or leave the EU has thrown the UK political scene – and the identities/subjectivities it nourishes or attempts to stifle – into considerable turmoil. The result has been particularly complex for Scotland since, as mentioned earlier,
Predictably, the position adopted by the SNP and by THE SNP’s attitude towards the in/out EU referendum is now beyond parody. Here is a party who wanted (and held) an in/out UK referendum, labelled this as Scotland’s “one opportunity”, now hint that a rerun may be only a few years away, and yet don’t want us even to hold a vote on continued EU membership (“Legitimacy warning over EU poll” The Herald, June 10). They warn about the risks and dangers of leaving the EU, having spent most of 2014 dismissing warnings against leaving the UK as “scaremongering”.
The critics of this position have, however, failed to understand neither
Rather than
This chapter has argued, using
“I am reading somewhere else that there is a fear of attacks in Europe now. How realistic is this? I am terrified and troubled by anxiety. Best, Anna”
The question above is posed in the “Question and Answers” forum of Norway’s leading online paper
Both nationally and internationally,
In this chapter, I will examine what kinds of questions
The first version of this studio was designed to cover the trial of the Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik in 2012. The idea had been circulating in the newsroom for some time, and the important trial gave A crucial idea is that VG-journalists would be available for questions and input from the users at all times, and that we will make this communication visible on the front of VG Nett and VG Mobil. […] At the same time, we open up more communication and interaction, and have the opportunity to be personal in our dialogue with the users. Being open about our journalistic practice ties us closer to people and adds an extra dimension to VG’s distribution of news (Glesnes,
This change redefined the social function of the Q&A forum. Previously, the readers had asked about the specific story the studio was set up to cover. Now, the readers could ask whatever they wanted.
Nyhetsdøgnet proved itself viable. Towards 2016,
When analyzing how interpersonal relations are represented and constructed in texts,
In the case of Nyhetsdøgnet, the interpersonal metafunction is crucial, as the main purpose of the text is to stay connected with the audience. We can identify different kinds of relations by analyzing features like style (formal or informal), modality (the degree of reservation or commitment to what is said) and speech acts (stating facts, making evaluations, making promises, asking questions, etc.). However, the ideational metafunction is important as well, as the social roles are closely connected to which kinds of questions the readers raise, and how they frame them. Some world views qualify as legitimate by receiving a proper response from the host, whereas others are met with discursively circuitous answers – if they get published at all. In the end, this also affects the textual metafunction, as the range of questions and social roles may or may not entail a coherent set of text norms. If the hosts act inconsistently when deciding which questions to answer and how to answer them, the readers might struggle to grasp the social meaning of the studio, and vice versa.
The coherence and stabilization of text norms is furthermore a matter of genre. According to Miller (
Obviously, Nyhetsdøgnet shares several features with existing genres. It is closely related to journalistic live blogs, as studied by Thurman and Walters (
The analysis below is based on two samples of questions and answers from the forum, and two qualitative interviews with selected studio hosts.
The main text sample consists of all questions and answers posted between 28 June and 14 July 2014, just a few weeks after
For comparison, I have retrieved a second sample between 7 and 11 May 2016. Due to increased reader activity, this shorter period contains about the same amount of posts as the 2014 material (ca. 50). The 2016 sample can indicate whether the text norms have changed since 2014, possibly evolving towards a more stabilized and manifest genre.
To be able to understand how the studio hosts perceive their own role, I have also conducted qualitative in-depth interviews with one of the hosts from each sample. I will be referring to the 2014 host as «host A» and the 2016 host as «host B». Both hosts were active in both periods, but they were more active in respectively 2014 and 2016. They were interviewed separately in December 2016.
In the early months of Nyhetsdøgnet, none of
Some readers ask about matters they find insufficiently covered in the news:
As we can see from the examples, the questions range from simple requests for facts (Mr. Hansen), via fact requests combined with expressing an attitude (Jamilah), to more overarching questions that call for a more elaborate and possibly subjective view from the journalist (Ayan M). In general, questions about the news are answered in the impersonal style of the common news discourse, often supplied by links to previous stories on Hi Jamilah, Such a conflict is sad for all parties involved. From what VG knows, Doctors Without Borders and the Red Cross are supposed to be in the conflict areas. […]
A distinct group of the questions are mainly rhetorical ones, aimed at ridiculing or criticizing certain aspects of Cf message from the police at 07:17 about the fire in Sel; Guess it’s not often the police announce that they are about to start a fire?? Or that they are planning to commit a crime ;-)?
The police tweet read:
Regarding forest fire in Sel. Watches on the location during the night – helicopter on stand-by – planned start up again at 0900 today.
There is of course a slight possibility that Sunniva really has misunderstood the tweet, but it is unlikely. The studio host must therefore choose whether she should join in on the joke or clarify what the police meant. She does the latter:
Good morning! These messages can be a bit cryptic as Twitter demands you to limit yourself to maximum 140 signs. As I understand it, what was planned to start up again was further extinguishing, but now it turns out it is not necessary. The local newspaper Gudbrandsdølen Dagningen reports that the fire is out: followed by URL
Sunniva’s attempt to establish a common, implicit humor fails. Maybe she has missed the genre; ironic comments of this kind are rare. However, quite a few readers explicitly criticize
In such cases the host generally answers in a fair and polite way:
We are monitoring the situation on the Gaza strip continuously, and we will continue to do so. At the moment we have several stories on the situation in the Middle East on our front page.
However, if the readers make too problematic assumptions, the host may dispute them:
The forum does not allow Stig to reply directly, but he passes on documentation via another question and actually gets the information included in a subsequent story on
One of the largest group of questions in early July 2014 was about the weather. There is no reason why
Again, some questions merely require facts (Ronald), whereas others expose an additional need for comfort (Sonia). The host tries her best to answer in a supportive way:
Hi, Sonia! Sadly, it seems to be quite rainy, and possibly even thunderstorms, from Monday on. According to the current forecast, anyway. On pent.no [
We should be aware that the sample is from a period when parts of Norway were flooded, and there had been a number of news stories about the weather. Still, the majority of questions are not related to extreme weather at all. It rather seems like the readers inspire each other; if one of them asks about the weather at his or her whereabouts, it is often followed by similar questions from others.
The fact that readers prefer to ask
Because of the current flood, several roads were closed or hard to drive on at the time I collected this sample. This may be the initial reason why a great deal of the questions are about driving directions:
These readers obviously believe that the journalist is updated on which roads are closed or not. Occasionally, the host tries to link to the traffic advice from highway authorities, but nevertheless ends up searching in Google Maps on behalf of the reader: “I am not familiar with this area, but Google Maps suggest you drive Rv3 and E136 from Hamar.” Sometimes even Google cannot solve the issue:
In general, the readers often seem to prefer asking
One reader has picked his nickname from a song by the Norwegian veteran rock singer Åge Aleksandersen from Namsos, and has noticed something striking about the young, female host’s profile picture:
It is fairly common that readers try to establish a private conversation like this with the host. Contrary to the failed attempt to make fun of the police’s tweet, the hosts answer posts like these in a personal and humorous style. Thereby, the readers are implicitly assured that questions like this lie within the genre:
Being private in this kind of question is apparently not in conflict with the journalistic mission. The host may chit-chat and play along, and may even share her music preferences, as long as she does not state subjective views on news matters.
The readers obviously have some problems grasping the social function of the live studio. The last group of questions is a kind of meta-discourse – readers asking what they are supposed to ask about, or how the studio really works:
The six categories presented above suggest that the Q&A forum is receptive to a wide range of ideational meanings. It is evident that the discourse differs distinctly from the discourse of conventional user commentaries in online newspapers. As mentioned above, research on debates in online news has shown that posts are often conflict oriented, in the sense that it seems more important to argue for one’s own point of view and criticize the opponent’s arguments than to seek mutual agreement. The conflict may include conspiratorial thinking, personal attacks and other forms of domination techniques (Winsvold
To answer the six kinds of questions, the host needs to interchange between four distinct roles.
We have seen above that questions about the news are often answered in a quite neutral, distant voice resembling that of a news story. Sometimes, the answers look like short news items in themselves, except for the personal opening greeting, which seems to be mandatory:
The answer is stripped of any evaluation of the kind we would expect to find in a more personal narrative (Labov and Waletsky
The host may also turn to the role as neutral news oracle when she needs to answer angry or sarcastic comments, and when the readers ask for her interpretations or opinions. The discursive discrepancy will then be a signal that the questions in some way violate the text norms of the genre, thereby receiving another kind of response than they expect.
Often, the host answers a question by providing a link to a website with more information. This is usually the case when readers ask about something they could have figured out themselves online. However, the role can also be a strategy to avoid answering questions that are vague or too private:
When the readers prefer to ask
Obviously, the relationship is also determined by the host’s reaction. And the host does tend to write in a more personal style when answering “pathfinding” questions than when answering general news questions:
Nice to hear that you would like to subscribe. For more information you can enter this site: [URL] […] Have you tried VG’s weather service […] But there is always a possibility that E6 will open again tomorrow. Follow the traffic messages here: [URL]
Contrary to the news oracle, the online pathfinder may personalize her answers with smileys and slightly lowered modality. However, because the host merely functions as an intermediary, the personalization is modest. An analogy could be the smile and appearance of a friendly clerk at an information desk. In fact, host A mentions “the service-minded” host as a sub-category of the pathfinder, since an important task is to answer general customer questions about
Some of the readers have bigger worries than finding their way to Ålesund or deciding whether to bring an umbrella or not. They are in search of a mutually understanding journalistic voice, hoping the host can bring some comfort or reassuring facts. The question I mentioned in the introduction is in this category:
The host tries her best to ease the reader’s fear, while at the same time staying on the subject:
In the concluding sentence, the host downplays a story that most newsrooms presented as a much more serious threat the day before.
Newspapers often use such rhetorical techniques to trigger the readers’ emotions, in this case a sense of fear. When conversing with the readers directly on the forum, though, the journalists may have to do the opposite. In the 2014 forum, it is hard to find signs of exaggerations, strong bias, personification, contrasting, polarization and other features we often associate with a “tabloid” news discourse. The studio host cannot answer: “Yes, we really have to watch out for this extremely dangerous bomb maker from Yemen!” Instead, the forum fills a unique role as a counter-discourse to the most speculative aspects of the news. Host A recalls:
There were several such questions. […] I understand well that she got nervous. It is interesting that you call it “the comforting psychologist”, because I have not thought about it that way. But you may be right, the idea behind [answers like that] might actually have been to comfort.
The host may get even more personal than in the above example. Here, another girl is afraid of thunderstorms:
In this role, the studio host balances acting as a comforting friend and a provider of information. As long as she does not give any personal advice, the text norms apparently allow expressions of empathy and comfort. In retrospect, though, host A believes that in some cases a better solution would be to cite a reassuring source instead of taking on the comforting role herself, as she could be at risk of stating facts that have not really been confirmed. Still, for questions like Lise’s above, there is obviously a need for a certain intimacy that exceeds the role of the ordinary news journalist. I call this role “the comforting psychologist” to highlight the focus on mental issues, although one could also argue that the relationship just as much resembles one between friends. Fully symmetrical relations between pals, however, are best described through the host’s fourth possible role, outlined below.
“We have a somewhat more personal tone at times”, says Executive Editor Christian Brændshøi about the live studio. He uses the expressions “informal tone”, “loose format” and “personified style” and draws parallels to social media (Hågvar
Most questions in the “private” category are answered in this way; those who approach the host with a personal question get a personal answer in return. It is interesting that the hosts even bother to answer questions like this. The ideational content has probably no interest for others than the submitters, and it has nothing to do with news journalism. When they still do, it could be explained by the interpersonal metafunction: The studio hosts may wish to appear cool, friendly and forthcoming, and maybe also illustrate that they happily receive all kinds of questions. By the summer of 2014, only 4-5 questions were published on a regular day, and the live studio’s social relevance would drop severely if it did not generate traffic and interactivity. Just staying in touch then becomes a rhetorical aim of its own. In Roman Jakobson’s terms we could say that this role highlights the
Host A agrees that the questions could get quite intimate:
I have more than once been proposed to, asked on a date and things like that. I have not let those questions through. However, sometimes it has been like a pleasant break at work to communicate a bit informally. I have never felt any discomfort or had any negative experiences with the personal questions.
In 2014, then, most of the personal and informal questions were quite nice and innocent. During the next two years, this changed quite severely.
The comparative sample from May 2016 shows signs of both genre stabilization and development. The forum still contained questions about the weather and other trivial issues, and both of the interviewed hosts agree that the four journalistic roles from 2014 still applied. By now, the studio was no longer run by random volunteers. Instead, four journalists were employed as full-time studio hosts, which indicates that
The most striking development since 2014 is that the majority of questions were now a response to the current news (70 % of the sample). Furthermore, about half of the questions took a critical stance towards the host and/or
Some of the posts were not even questions, but mere statements:
To some extent, the discourse of the Q&A forum had thereby moved towards the conflict-oriented discourse of the readers’ comments below ordinary news stories. In most cases, the studio host remained quite neutral and simply referred to published stories on the matter, as in 2014. However, when presuppositions turned too controversial, even the host might answer in a polemic style:
Host B recalls that the discourse of the questions suddenly turned more hostile around the summer of 2015 and confirms that it remained so throughout 2016. She believes the main reason is the sudden increase of refugees to Europe:
When I came back from my summer holiday [in 2015], I found that the questions had become so racist that I had a hard time dealing with them, they had turned so mean. So I will say that this has changed a lot. I do not know if it is because of Nyhetsdøgnet itself, or if those who are very active in the commentary fields have just turned to Nyhetsdøgnet.
Towards the end of 2016, the majority of questions the hosts receive are racist or hostile in other ways, often aimed towards media in general or identified journalists. Host B has several times had to report death threats to the police and block specific readers. She estimates that 19 out of 20 questions are not published, often because they violate Norwegian law. Furthermore, the widespread hostile discourse in the questions that remain unpublished, might eventually affect the tone of the answers that A lot of this does not get out. And we are sitting there browsing through it, and I can feel that I get emotionally affected myself because it is so coarse, so nasty. Both because it is such a mean way to speak about other people, if they have a different skin colour or whatever, but we are also wallowing in an enormous disgust for the media. So I think that when he answers like that, it is because he has read 20 messages and brings them with him into that answer, and possibly reads even more into that question than is really there. I can sometimes find myself interpreting everything in the worst possible way, that everyone is posting with a racist agenda. So even if it is just a question, when I read “criminal immigrants” I get so discouraged that I … Then you answer that it would be a “massive scandal” or something like that.
Host B suggests a fifth journalistic role, namely the one “in which we discuss and sometimes even quarrel with the readers”. We might call this role There are many who claim that so-and-so politician has killed so-and-so. Totally crazy things. And then they ask: “Why don’t you write about that?” Obviously, I cannot let that question through without also publishing the claim. So we will not answer those questions.
This discourse of hostility was rarely to be found in the 2014 material, even among the unpublished questions, according to host A. In addition to host B’s explanation, this might suggest that the studio has been gradually adjusted to previously known genres and discourses, in this case how readers are used to commenting upon news stories in commentary fields below the stories or in social media. At the same time, the hosts answer far more questions than before, and the majority of published contributors seem to agree on discussing the news. As the ideational and interpersonal discrepancies are reduced, we may say that the genre is settling. The impact of the genre was further confirmed when a travel agency copied the interface of the studio and used it for content marketing on
I opened this chapter by asking:
The analysis has found four distinct journalist roles that run throughout the period, and a fifth role that has been evolving since 2015. The four basic roles of the host represent four stages of increasingly symmetrical relations, from the distanced news voice to the buddy-like chattering voice. The host mirrors the style and relationship suggested by the reader, as long as the question does not require her professional point of view. When readers start asking questions of a political or possibly controversial nature, she steps back into the sober news discourse and refuses to contribute any analysis or opinions in her answers. The same thing happens if readers try to engage the host in satire or jokes about news stories.
Host A states that although there are no official guidelines, she is never in doubt about which role to take on: “It is difficult to describe how I make those judgements, but it all comes natural to me.”
These findings suggest that there are some stable text norms for the ideational and interpersonal metafunctions of the Q&A forum. On the whole, the host is allowed to be
Considering the textual metafunction of the forum, internal coherence was strengthened from 2014 to 2016, as the range of topics and discourses narrowed. Somewhat paradoxically, the stream of hostile discourse actually makes it easier for the readers to make sense of the Q&A forum – you know what to expect – whereas the journalists find their roles increasingly challenging.
Do the hosts’ diversified roles contribute to further openness about
Therefore, the hosting roles do not serve as grounds for more subjectivity in journalism. If anything, the pseudo-subjective style that sometimes comes to the surface is really about mirroring the readers’ style of approach and telling them what they want to hear – although the sparring partner role represents a slight exception in the 2016 material. The openness, then, does not lie in the ideational information provided, but in the interpersonal style that in certain areas constructs a more symmetrical relationship between readers and journalists.
What
In a broader perspective, these findings touch upon ongoing scholarly debates about media innovations, genre development, user involvement and journalistic transparency. The evolution of VG’s Q&A forum illustrates how current ideas of user involvement and transparent journalism might come in conflict with more traditional journalistic norms and discourses, such as the distinction between news and views. Thus, the present study echoes conflicting discourses on transparency, as identified by Vos & Craft (
For brevity, I will hereafter refer to “questions and answers” as “Q&A”. Readers’ nicknames have been altered.
Both O’Mahony (
I have tried to keep the original grammatical errors etc. in the translation of the quotes.
For simplicity, I refer to the host as «her» or «she» when I am not aiming at one particular person. In reality, the hosts are both male and female.
On 16 August 2012, South African police fired live bullets into a miners’ protest at the Lonmin mining company, killing 34 of those gathered there. Much of the television footage of what was briefly termed as the “Marikana massacre” (and then later “crisis”) was literally over the shoulders of the police. This was a poignant visual confirmation of the overall media coverage of the entire scenario from its beginning. There was almost no coverage from the miners’ or their families’ perspective. Approximately 3000 men had gathered at Lonmin mines as part of a protest for better wages in order to improve their well-being and standard of living. Yet, due to communication strategies adopted by both the media and the miners themselves, the dire circumstances in which they lived were not conveyed to the public, who instead were presented with images of an unruly mass of protesters seemingly unprepared to negotiate. The coverage of this incident, and the failure of the media to provide critical and informed coverage of the crisis, has been heralded by many media analysts and practitioners as a watershed moment in South Africa, with the majority agreeing that “the media let us down” (Wasserman,
The past decade has seen a growing number of wildcat strikes in the mining sector in South Africa, with many occurring between May and September each year. A wildcat strike occurs when workers take industrial action outside the organisation or approval of the relevant union. In August 2012, one such instance occurred at the platinum mine owned by Lonmin at Marikana, an area close to Rustenburg in northern South Africa. The dispute was originally covered by the national media as a labour negotiation for a wage increase that had escalated into a full strike as the trade union, workers and mine management failed to reach an agreement. There were sporadic outbreaks of violence that the media attributed to conflicts between the two established trade unions, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), and their members. This suggested that normal systems of negotiation had broken down, and it raised the question of legality. While labour laws uphold the right to strike, labour action must occur within traditional bargaining frameworks. Thus, the event was referred to as being a wildcat strike, and the police were called to the scene to establish order.
It was true that the workers were no longer operating under the trade union. Believing that the sparring unions were not actually representing their best interests, the Rock Drill Operators decided to appoint their own representatives and then drafted a memorandum outlining their poor working and living conditions justifying their request for a significant raise. It was triple their current earnings.
Despite the large and often vocal gathering (in terms of chants and singing), the miners’ individual voices were noticeably absent in the media coverage. This has been attributed to two significant communication approaches adopted by the parties involved in the labour dispute responsible for representation. The first was the one adopted by the media. It may be traced to established international patterns of coverage of trade unions where greater emphasis is placed on industry and what big business thinks, rather than the plight of the workers. This will be discussed in more detail later.
The second was part of a communication strategy adopted by the miners themselves. A desire to be recognised, coupled with the decision to speak directly to their employers about their conditions, meant that the miners broke from the trade unions to broker a deal by themselves (Hayem,
The chosen tactic also created more unintended complications. The miners were enacting a lot of cultural heritage as part of their chosen negotiation strategy. They emphasised oral tradition, rites and rituals. Oral traditions allow for the construction and dissemination of “shared experiences”, foundations that build a sense of community and belonging. Hayem (
With a few notable exceptions, the media described them as men made all the more dangerous by the fact that they were armed, backwards, “tribal” (they sang traditional martial songs, the same sung during the Mpondo Revolt, to stiffen their courage) and irrational, since they used the services of a
Why had the police elected to use such a violent response to the strike? In their book,
A later study (Rodny-Gumede,
In terms of labour disputes, there is a trend in news media coverage to rely on official sources and to have a pro-business bias. This is in part due to the larger pool of resources industry and government can muster in order to manage, and in many ways dominate, information flow to news organisations (Schudson, This shows how dislocated reporters are from what is happening on the ground in communities in South Africa; they only cover communities when there is violence (Cowling interview on 17 February 2014, cited in (Rodny-Gumede,
The lack of critical inquiry became so embedded, that once shots were fired, the media present at the scene failed to “see” what was happening in front of them: the second killing field a few hundred metres from the front line of the police. Eventually uncovered by academic analysts (Alexander, Sinwell, Lekgowa, Mmope, & Xezwi,
Recently, the term
Questions are often raised about whether this philosophy may be considered to be an African media ethic and implemented accordingly. While theoretically promising, the debate has many nuances as to its relevance in the contemporary newsroom. In some literature, this principle is aligned to or associated with Western normative theories, such as communitarianism or social responsibility. In its most beneficial guise, it calls for empathy with, and a perspective “from”, the people. Chasi & Omarjee (
It is important to note that
Yet, it would be remiss not to note that there are also discussions as to how
There are real and immediate practical challenges to adopting the suggested approaches in the South African media. With reference to
There are also tensions as to which community is being served – the broader national one, the political one, or a specific cultural group. Some believe that I have no idea what is meant by I recognise the need to rethink how journalism is conducted… I am not clear on what
At the same time, most South African journalism programmes continue to educate media practitioners from the point of view that objectivity, and by extension, detachment, is still the best path to obtaining truth or fact. While many agree that this perspective is flawed, most continue to see it as a necessary routine to maintain in the absence of any other suitable alternative. Until it becomes a tangible option with definite guidelines
In response to the clear lack of “unofficial” sources (although, arguably people affected directly by an event should be considered “official” in terms of credibility), there were several attempts by South African media houses to rectify this gross oversight by paying tribute to those who had been killed. Two notable pieces stand out, in that they used extensive first person accounts and narratives from family members about the loved ones they had lost, and the impact this had on their own livelihood and future. Thereby these embody elements of individual exposure and Ubuntuism.
The first is an online compilation published by His father, Mboneni Ngxande, said it was difficult for the family to speak about their son, who was a rock-drill operator at Lonmin, as it was not acceptable in their culture to do so before a funeral. However, Mboneni said his son had a wife, a child of his own and two other children who relied on his wages from the mines. “He had warned us about the strike and raised fears that he might lose his job and have to come back home. He said he had no choice but to join in the strike because everyone was involved,” his father recalled. “I really got worried because we kept hearing on the radio there was violence at Marikana and that people were dying,” he said. News of his death came as an enormous shock as the Mphumzeni they knew was a peaceful person (City Press & Media24 Investigations,
There is also a slide show with a photo and brief description of each miner killed (City Press & Media24 Investigations, Multimedia - South Africa - Faces of Marikana,
This online collection is an eternal memorial that can be visited frequently by anyone who wishes to remember and reflect. However, while the Internet provides the ability for such a memorial to become a national space, one must question the choice of the platform of delivery considering the technological access of the actual families involved. While effective in a collective sense, it could well be a cemetery that those affected families may not be able to visit.
The second case, and the one that will be discussed in more depth in this chapter, was a newspaper supplement published one year after the crisis by the
What makes this supplement noteworthy, is that it contains both byline and source subjectivity (as discussed by Steensen, this book), and the application of these two key concepts will be illustrated in the discussion that follows. In addition to these elements, it is also interesting that it was supported and resourced by what many consider to be a “quality paper” normally critical of government policy and activities. Yet, in this case, the reporters do not adopt a typical interrogative role. Instead, in this supplement, the reporters write a reflective piece at the start, about their own role and the approach they adopted. This is then followed by personal narratives from one or two members of each family who receive half a page or a full page to talk about their personal feelings or situations faced one year after the killings occurred. These are almost entirely informed by the chosen spokesperson or people, and include many direct quotes:
Ntandazo used to send home R2000 a month and now, Nosakhe says, “There is no money to buy my children clothes” and by the middle of the month, “there is only salt and soup” in the kitchen (Tolsi & Botes, “There is no money going into the bank, I am just taking money out, but how can I say ‘No, I mustn’t withdraw money’ if the children fall sick, or we need to eat?’” she asks. “I can’t buy red meat. I don’t buy sausages anymore. Or Tastic rice. I just buy the basics,” she says, longing for the time when her husband would take the family to a fast-food chicken outlet on payday. “We would get a six-piece meal,” she remembers. “Whatever drinks we wanted — and ice cream for Babalo.” These are luxuries now (Tolsi & Botes,
All articles are accompanied by a stylised and professional photo of the person who speaks, captured by the news photographer in an artistic fashion, in their actual house or surroundings. A theme of bleakness or simplicity is common to all these images. It is blatantly clear to the audience that this is an impoverished community with limited resources and means in a semi-rural area. Occasionally, the piece is also accompanied by the only photograph the family has of the person. In many cases, this is often an official identity document photo – an image that rarely does a person justice, nor does it invoke any specific memories related to family, personality or that person’s interests for those who remain.
Niren Tolsi and Paul Botes, the two journalists largely responsible for the collection of material and representation of the families, were able to interview more than forty sources for the supplement. Of these, 72% were female – most of whom were wives, or the mothers of the miner’s children. All had relied on the victims as their sole source of income. Parents of the miners (28%) and siblings (9%) also discuss how in some cases they have had to step in to help the wives and children left behind. It is a sad testimony of social and historical inequalities that few of the women affected have education beyond high school, and some even less than that. They are aware of their predicament, and many discuss the unlikelihood of finding employment to be able to support their families themselves. There are references to official sources, such as the Farlam Commission of Inquiry or lawyers, but these are in passing and form part of the person’s narrative, as opposed to being primary sources themselves.
This particular supplement makes for a powerful message. While many of the families are now financially destitute, there are no calls for charity or advocacy. Their narratives are presented simply “as is”: a glimpse of the very real challenges they face. This is a clear example of the individual’s subjectivity presented and accepted as fact. This requires the reader to enter into an understanding of that reality of, and with, the “other”, and that state is not questioned as being anything but their truth. Arguably, this may present a case of subjective journalism that does not dilute the “facts”, and is more informative, than a reinterpretation of events by a reporter striving to remain objective or detached. The source is quite literally the “consequence expert”.
In the introduction, “What Happened to the Families?” (Tolsi & Botes,
The supplement starts with an explanation of what motivated Tolsi to request the assignment after attending one of the funerals:
The resignation of those tasked with attending to the dead miners’ families highlighted the vulnerability of the families and their communities. It became important to understand the consequences of the Marikana killings on families and communities that were already marginalised and impoverished (Tolsi & Botes,
There is thus an explicit intention to shift away from more conventional news gathering practices, to one that resonates with a conscious decision to use one’s own voice or communication channels to contribute to a group’s wellbeing or welfare (as described in the previous section). The two journalists speak of “documenting” experiences in an effort to “move away from mainstream media’s snapshot pictures and easy headlines” that “requires being embedded in space and subject” (Tolsi & Botes,
They note that the type of news gathering practices used for this media coverage is a “slow journalism”. This time reference is in part due to: the sensitive nature of the conversations that needed to be handled delicately; that fact that interviewing all members of the surviving families is itself time-consuming; the poor infrastructure that made access difficult; as well as the need to allow time for reflection and contemplation when preparing the stories for publication.
The task took eight months to complete, a rarity in the contemporary 24-hour news cycle:
It involves driving long distances into the deep recesses of rural South Africa — and getting lost, often. It has meant navigating the roles of traditionalism and patriarchy involved in a community deciding who gets to tell what stories, and in how grief is confronted. It has meant encountering the indomitable spirit of South African women often (Tolsi & Botes,
Time is always an interesting component in contemporary news production. There is an inherent tension when it is discussed: one needs time to do due diligence when gathering information at a moment in history when time is no longer deemed a relevant factor to the audience due to instanteous delivery mechanisms. There is some disjuncture between the need to be well-informed, and the need to know now. The two are not always compatible. In many instances, it is not unusual to find several types of coverage running simultaneously on news sites. There is invariably live coverage which can include regular updates and social media messages, and then there are slightly more (although not necessarily always) analytical pieces that are being updated on a less frequent schedule (in some cases, daily or weekly). This supplement points to another level of time: reporting that has taken one year to gather in order to provide a richness and depth of understanding not otherwise possible or achievable in the instances mentioned above. In this case, time must be deemed an investment and treated as such. As supported by what the journalists themselves admit, it is only once they are given this important resource of time that they are able to reap the benefit of sharing local knowledge and insight.
It is significant that the last comment of the journalists refers to the very group absent from the original coverage: women. It is a sad irony that the very people omitted during the crisis are key to the discussion after. In truth, their prominence to the “story” has not changed. The chosen narrative frame alters their centrality in the coverage. This again emphasises the flaws in the original approach: sources essential to reflection and contemplation were rendered invisible to the audience. By providing these figures with the platform to express their concerns and the challenges they face, the decision to opt for collective labour action outside the trade unions becomes more comprehensible to those of us unfamiliar with the specific context. Once more it appears that journalists following non-conventional methods of gathering information for a news report are more likely to listen to a range of sources, rather than adhering to a predetermined media narrative (Wasserman & Hyde-Clarke,
Yet, despite this chapter demonstrating that this specific case presents an improved model in terms of building public understanding of a community through individual exposure, the reality is that such an approach is unlikely to be adopted across all news genres. Critics of more community or resource driven journalism argue that aside from notions of Ubuntuism being idealistic, there are also the economic realities of the media industry, the competitive nature of news services and personnel that often result in scoops and sensationalist reporting that will continue to support the more commercially viable frames currently in use. Very few media houses can afford the luxury of time and personnel to compile reports of this nature during a crisis. Crises by definition are fast paced and sensitive to escalating factors. However, a good counterargument is that crises rarely appear from nowhere. Wildcat strikes are a common phenomenon in South Africa, and often affect the mining sector. As such, national news agencies should have large archives of information devoted to this subject, and to the communities involved. It would only behove agencies if they had better contacts and cultural knowledge of the communities affected. A similar solution has been suggested for conflict situations by those advocating for peace journalism in South African news (Hyde-Clarke,
In the end, we are left with more questions than answers. Does this case provide evidence that there is space for more reflective reporting in news media that is not the “exception” after a crisis, nor is relegated to opinion journalism spaces such as editorials or columns? Alternatively, does this case merely emphasise the need for more indepth investigative journalism (as suggested by Duncan
Perhaps this case demonstrates that there is an interest amongst the media to explore alternatives to existing practices. Clearly, there should be an ability and flexibility of journalists to shift between different styles and formats to elicit different meanings. This suggests a reflexive journalist, one who has developed the necessary competencies to distinguish between groups and group interests, and government policies or national patterns – and has the authority or institutional support to do so.
For the purposes of this chapter, this intent to change practices can be extended to describe and justify a “journalism of returning”: returning to substantiated investigative practices; returning to a community to understand it better in order to represent it better; returning to a crisis after a time of reflection and contemplation in order to avoid returning when another crisis occurs; and returning to the norms and values that are the core of social responsibility in the media. This returning to better understanding and representing a community or collective sits at the heart of the Ubuntu ethic. It suggests that while the journalist may stand
This argument does not necessarily point towards media advocacy or activism. Instead, it suggests that there is a need for a greater awareness of the responsibility inherent in the choice of content and delivery used in news reports. Journalists may not “speak” as a source, but they knowingly affect, or “have a voice” through their choice of sources, narrative or frame. The danger is that too often it appears that news reports follow patterns of broad generalisation and categorisation that tend to have a leaning towards the dramatic or conflictual to improve ratings while driving down costs. There is little evidence of mindfulness or contemplation in that pattern. If there is to be a shift in how collectives are represented through individuals, particularly in terms of how local communities are covered by national journalists, then there should be a correlated shift in the belief and assumptions of what constitutes the role of the media in society in relation to the communities it serves. A journalism of “returning” suggests better allocation of resources, time and some degree of critical immersion – but most importantly, “returning” requires critical contemplation and reflection.
Understood to be the use of personalised narratives to ‘expose’ or uncover facts or objective reality through the use of storytelling techniques (Steensen,
At the time, the average salary was approximately R4000 (280€) a month.
Later identified as Mgcineni “Mambush” Noki
My emphasis
Marikana is approximately an eight hour drive from Lesotho, which also demonstrates how far from home some of the miners had to travel to find work.
On 13 October 2016, the news was out: The leading Norwegian female cross-country skier, Therese Johaug, had tested positive for a banned substance in a routine urine sample.
The announcement was made at a press conference hosted by the Norwegian Ski Federation (NSF,
The day after, on 14 October, a portrait of Johaug in tears covered the front page of
I will do a critical discourse analysis (CDA) in order to interpret the construction of meaning in the coverage in Describing discourse as social practice implies a dialectical relationship between a particular discursive event and the situation(s), institution(s), and social structure, which frame it: The discursive event is shaped by them, but also shapes them (p. 258).
I take into consideration different semiotic resources – different modes of expression, both verbal and visual – in a multimodal analysis of verbal text and visualization, including the front page and the following three pages in
In the analysis, I will look particularly at
Knowledge of context is crucial to understand and assess how meaning is created and interpreted (Skovholt and Veum,
Doping as a widespread form of cheating in all sports causes major concern, and may be considered a consequence of the increased commercialization of sports. National and international institutions constantly strive to prevent and uncover doping. International sports organizations, including the Norwegian Confederation of Sports, comply with general guidelines, specified as lists of illegal substances and methods defined by WADA.
Doping cases frequently get major news coverage in international media. News value may influence the prominence that a particular news story gets within the overall composition of selected news (Hjarvard,
A popular saying in Norway goes like this: “We are born with skis on our feet”, and illustrates the significant position of cross-country skiing in Norwegian culture. Skiing has a long history, dating back to the era of the Vikings. The polar explorer and “national hero” Fridtjof Nansen named cross-country skiing
Broadcasts of cross-country competitions with leading skiers maintain high viewing and visiting rates in Norway. It is one of few sports where Norwegians get top ranking. Cross-country skiing is also a favoured sport and interest of Norwegians on a hobby basis. Enthusiasm for cross-country skiing can be considered an expression of national sentiment and an arena that unites the country in an
In recent times, many Norwegian skiers at the top level have attained higher status as national celebrities, thanks to the media and highly priced sponsorships. Case studies of sports news in selected Norwegian newspapers from 1950 to 2015, point to an increase in the individual exposure of athletes (Roksvold,
The fact that Johaug tested positive for a banned substance in a routine urine sample, became public during the press conference hosted by the NSF, October 13. This setting, or the situational context, as we may call it (Skovholt & Veum,
Earlier in 2016, another Norwegian cross-country skiing scandal attracted a lot of attention, namely the doping case concerning Martin Johnsrud Sundby, a leading
The Johaug case was enthroned as the most important news in
Nine pages are marked and devoted to “The doping case” inside the paper. The text in the appendix, is marked “The tears”, in addition to the overall marking. The
Together the news stories constitute a whole. The various news stories see the case from different angles, each one indicating that the other perspectives may have been decisive for the focus and form of the specific news story by Johansen (see appendix). Each news story strives to have a separate and unique approach, also in terms of
On page 3 in the newspaper, we find an expression of opinion, written by a sports commentator in
Roksvold (
The Language Council of Norway presented “kommentasje” – in English: “commentage” (
The information that emerged during the press conference the day before constitutes the core of the coverage, meaning that the news had already reached massive media coverage online and on television when this paper edition arrived. Since a paper edition cannot bring the news first, it must strive to offer something different, something unique for readers who are already informed.
The striking feature of the visualization on the front page is the explicit exposure of
The headline on the front page concerning Johaug’s case is directly linked to the content of the story by Johansen (appendix), highlighting elements from the text: “A Google search could have uncovered the doping ointment”. The following sentence underlines Johaug’s emotional expression: “When Therese Johaug was caught for the use of illegal substances, the world around her fell apart”. In the photo, Johaug is decontextualized, meaning there is no situation surrounding her in the picture (Skovholt & Veum,
Kress & van Leeuwen (
Kress & van Leeuwen distinguish between four coding orientations (
The visual elements inside the paper are all photos from the press conference. On page four is a photo of Johaug, apparently captured at the same moment as on the front page. Here, Johaug is depicted from a different angle, in half-profile. Her glance is again directed to the sky, with a perspective towards the verbal text on page 5. The posture, as well as the headline “When there is nothing left to believe in”, imparts religious connotations.
This photo establishes a part of the story, which continues in the verbal text on the following pages, labeled “The tears”. This caption introduces a kind of omnipotent narrator, the journalist expressing what it
On page six, there are two photos:
Both are in black and white, which makes them part of a cohesive narrative in the story about the tears. The upper and largest image shows Johaug surrounded by a majority of men. To the left is a solid bunch of press photographers, and on the right a man stands looking at her. Behind her, a few more men are entering the room, including the Communications Manager of the NSF, Espen Graff. Yet, Johaug is the only one mentioned in the caption. In this photo she is contextualized, visually captured as a part of more extensive surroundings. She “moves” in the picture, more specifically, she is on the way to the podium. “The distance was far, from the backdoor of the press conference room to the chair she was sitting on”, as the caption says. The caption also highlights that she was “[…] very emotional when she met the press”.
The second photo on the same page, a smaller one, is placed in the middle. On the wall behind her is a sort of shadow play. Two shadows appear. One of them is hers. The other belongs to a man outside the frame. This is a vague contextualization, creating a kind of eerie feeling that something is smoldering in the background, behind Johaug.
Overall, the visuals have one focus: Therese Johaug. The pictures and captions in combination highlight her feelings. What may seem most striking is that none of the photos inside the paper include Bendiksen, even though he is central in the verbal text. Another key actor in the text, the NSF, only appears by virtue of the context in the first photo showing the surroundings at the press conference and in the shape of a shadow in the second photo.
The first part of the verbal text is based on what emerged during the press conference (appendix). The opening lines establish a kind of plot:
The story they want us to believe is as follows: In September this year, a sports physician with 36 years of experience walked into a pharmacy in a small alpine resort at 1800 meters altitude in northern Italy.
The text then presents descriptions of the events that led to the present. There is a chronological sequence, leading to a kind of
Then, a related matter is introduced and included as part of the context, namely the doping case concerning Sundby. The journalist makes a point of the fact that “we” have laughed at others (foreigners) who have been convicted of doping, and now it is our turn. Then the text presents reactions to the Johaug case in the foreign press, mainly Swedish newspapers. The final part of the text takes the readers back to the press conference (here and now), with the NSF as the central actor. The text ends with the rhetorical question:
We find two levels of story in the text: 1) A story dealing with the doping-ointment and the explanations given by Johaug and Bendiksen. 2) A story that highlights the issue in a larger context, with the NSF in the leading role.
Johaug is naturally the main character in the real situation, as in the text. She is established as the emotional character, and definitely the most visible. She is characterized not only as “the world’s leading female cross-country skier” but also as “The furious woman”. Descriptions of her personal feelings, as well as of her appearance, are key elements in the text: She is “full of sorrow”; “Her face and eyes were red, she sobbed, sniffled and wept”; “Every half minute a deep sob welled up from Johaug” “struggling to breathe”; “small and frail”. She is also described as very needy in the situation that led to the treatment: “[…] Therese Johaug’s lips were so sore that they were bleeding. She looked as if she had crossed the desert without water”. On a previous occasion, however, she was “so excited that without notice she jumped into the arms of King Harald on the grandstand of the Holmenkollen ski arena”. The function of the exposition underpins her emotional nature. At the same time a contrast is created between the winner that readers are used to seeing (and want to see), compared to Johaug here and now.
Bendiksen is established as highly rational and cautious. He was dedicated to his work and conscientious in his profession as a physician. According to the text he was even nicknamed “The Pedant”. His characteristics of being careful and vigilant are linked to descriptions of his work routines:
This was a sports physician who, like all other sports doctors could have sleepless nights fearing that some of his athletes would end up in a doping case. A doctor who cross-examined athletes about their dietary supplements. A doctor who never left a bottle of water unattended.
These descriptions are in stark contrast to the story of the purchase that led to the situation in which they now find themselves: At that time “Norwegian sports doctors were on red alert”. People in Bendiksen’s position were, or should have been, on high alert due to Sundby’s doping case. Inadequate action to prevent the use of this specific treatment for mouth sores is repeatedly pointed out in the text: “But this September day in Livigno, Italy, Fredrik S. Bendiksen did not even read the ointment’s leaflet”, and: “Nor did he type the name of the ointment’s active ingredient, clostebol, into the Google search field”. The lack of expected action in this situation is underlined by words like
The NSF is directly linked to words expressing its powerful and leading position, mainly by the use of metaphors: “Direction: The Norwegian Ski Federation”, “Then the Ski Federation machinery started grinding”, “The Norwegian News Agency (NTB) was fed with information”. NSF is the actor who rules and maintains all that goes on: “After all, we are talking about a gang that managed to keep the Martin Johnsrud Sundby case a secret for 18 months.” This part of the text points out that the NSF managed to keep
The journalist makes limited use of direct quotations, and the central voice in the text is the journalist’s own voice. Only Johaug and Røste (the President of the NSF) are cited directly. Bendiksen, however, is only quoted in terms of a few incomplete sentences baked into the journalist’s renderings, such as: “
At one point in the text, the journalist exposes how Reading the words in hindsight is one thing. But to experience them “live” from the addled, crying and at times desperate voice was something entirely different. It was “listen to me, look at me, believe me”, and if it was not true, it was Hollywood.
The journalist strengthens the pathos appeal of the text, as well as his own ethos and trustworthiness as a reporter. This specific part of the text may be interpreted in different ways. The Hollywood reference can be understood as support for Johaug’s declaration of innocence, in the sense that this is
Other parts of the text question the story presented about the treatment. The doubt is mainly expressed regarding Bendiksen’s role, for instance here: And the most remarkable thing about this story is that he fails to explain why he did not. (
In Greimas’ actantial model a story always has a
Johaug is the
As I have already pointed out, Johaug’s emotions are constantly in focus. To some extent, this is natural, considering her very emotional appearance during the press conference. In contrast, however, men are given other personal qualities throughout the text. The contrast contributes to the construction of Johaug as the weaker part, and as a victim. For instance, in the citation here: “Small and frail, surrounded by serious men”. The men in the text appear to be rational and professional, and physically larger. The criminologist Nils Christie (
In the text, Johaug is held accountable for the situation she is in, but only to some extent. In a quote picked up from another context, Johaug said: “I never take anything I am offered without checking it first. Whether it is an ointment or a tea. I check one, two and three times.” There is a mismatch between what she has claimed she does, and what she actually does. Her respectable project is questioned. However, responsibility in the situation is mainly linked to Bendiksen, who had the last word in the story of the ointment: “Now she asked the doctor if the ointment was on the doping list. That way she put her career and her reputation as a skier in his hands. He replied that she could start the treatment”. The only time Johaug is explicitly held accountable is not with the journalist’s own words, but in a principled statement from a professor and physician, Inggard Lereim. He is quoted as follows (p. 4): “It is good that the team doctor takes on responsibility, but the athlete is always the one responsible”.
Still, Bendiksen is framed as the one who should have acted differently. His ability to take precautions is at the same time established as one of his foremost qualities. However, he performed one last decisive action (in the absence of other actions), namely the final one, which eventually resulted in the situation: “Rather than seeking more information about an ointment he knew little about, Bendiksen put it in Therese Johaug’s hand”. The journalist quotes the physician’s final message during the press conference: “[…] if there is justice under the law for athletes, Therese Johaug should not be punished for his mistake”. In this manner, Bendiksen takes on the blame and his presence in the text terminates here. The text then leans perspective towards another guilty part, the NSF, as an opponent to Johaug by virtue of not having lived up to their general and superordinate responsibility.
The text presents a narrative based on the explanations of Johaug and Bendiksen. Thereby a role gallery is created. However, this is not a classic story with a coherent narrative, even though it may contain fragments of narrative, the text is composed and complex – as is the role gallery.
On a superior level, the text presents another and unfinished story, which constitutes a more complex role gallery. This story extends beyond the questions of guilt that include Johaug and Bendiksen. The story on a superior level is derived from the first story based on statements from the press conference. The text takes a new twist from the point where Sundby’s case is drawn into the context. The journalist thereby connects the two doping cases, and emphasizes the similarities of Johaug’s declaration of innocence during the press conference, and the expressions Sundby used in a letter to the International Sports Federation. Both situations resulted in the resignation of their sports physician. Thus, the story about Johaug and Bendiksen is part of a bigger picture. The journalist highlights incidents of doping associated with three foreign athletes to illustrate that Johaug’s and Sundby’s doping cases are of a more innocent kind. This brings in another point of view. These were cases that affected athletes from other countries. Now, everything is different:
But this time the drama is unfolding in our own backyard, in the country with the oil, the salmon and skiing – in the only sport where we are always the best in the world.
The country itself, Norway, is affected. Thus in the text, Johaug is not the only one to be considered a victim.
A personal approach that includes the reader is introduced in the opening line: “The story they want us to believe is as follows […].” Form of address is included as an analytic category to make sense of the interpersonal metafunction in a text. The use of pronouns has consequences for the structure of the relationship between reader and creator of the text (Skovholt & Veum,
Johaug’s doping case thus involves a correlation with the Norwegian people, and those responsible for Norwegian cross-country skiing on a professional level. As expressed here:
The way the Sundby case had been handled hardly increased the Norwegian people’s confidence in Norwegian skiing. Now with Johaug’s case in addition, no wonder many are forced to think: “What can we actually believe in?”
In this part of the text, the journalist presents the assumption that the readers are familiar with how Sundby’s case was handled, and that many share the opinion that this treatment was not optimal. The statement accommodates the claim that the Norwegian people have had confidence and trust in Norwegian skiing up to this point. The headline is also interesting in this respect; “When there is nothing left to believe in”. This sentence lacks a subject, which makes it appear somewhat unclear as to who believes or does not believe. My interpretation is that it is the journalist – on behalf of the Norwegian people – who cannot believe. The question of what to believe or not implies that until now someone must have had faith in Norwegian cross-country skiing. The headline is an expression of a broken trust between the Norwegian people and Norwegian cross-country skiing. The NSF is presented as the overall responsible actor in the text. Thus, the NSF is appointed a guilty party, facing a second victim, the Norwegian people.
The first part of the text adds up to a kind of
The text is saturated with a kind of distrust in Bendiksen’s explanations. Questions such as “But how could a man who is paid to be so awake, sleep so heavily?” indicate the journalist’s lack of confidence related to the story presented. In the text, the qualities of the males and the female conform to traditional gender roles. The woman is emotional and to some extent even appears as uncontrolled in her emotional outbursts. The men are portrayed as serious and rational. They also appear as encircling and powerful. Such characteristics may contribute to creating an understanding of – and sympathy with – Johaug as a victim. Because of this, the readers will not necessarily interpret the text according to the journalist’s apparent intentions, if the journalist’s actual purpose is to sow doubt about the explanations given, and accordingly, about Johaug’s
We find two levels of victim-villain-stories in the text. The overall story includes the Norwegian people and the Norwegian Ski Federation on a professional level. This victim-villain variant can be seen in the context of one form of journalistic ideology, first presented by political scientist Olof Petersson (
The journalist positions himself as part of a “we” and “us” and thereby creates an intimate relationship with the reader. The salutation form can thus be used intentionally to engage the readers. The reader is drawn into the text as a co-victim. As emphasized by Wahl-Jorgensen: “[…] personalized story-telling enables empathy, or the identification with and understanding of another’s situation, feelings, and motives.” (2013, p. 132). An expression of opinion in that context is that the “we”, the Norwegian people, now have less trust and confidence in Norwegian cross-country skiing, or at least
In the text, the subjective interpretation of the journalist is prominent. This breaks with the objectivity ideals of news reporting and must be understood in light of the genre as a kind of comment or commentage. Interactions of text norms and genres, however, may contribute to different interpretations of the text, as I have suggested.
The various role assignments in the text have created a kind of two-parted story, or victim-villain story on two levels. The verbal text involves actors who barely appear in the photos, and amongst them are representatives of the overall responsible actor (NSF). When they appear, they serve to stage a context, for instance in the shape of a
The coverage not only plays on Johaug’s but also on the readers’ emotions. The pathos appeal is prominent in both text and visualization. In that respect, this specific news story complies with the idea of emotionality as a central strategic ritual in journalism (Wahl-Jorgensen,
About cross-country skiing:
Robert Veiåker Johansen
Journalist in Aftenposten
The story they want us to believe is as follows: In September this year, a sports physician with 36 years of experience walked into a pharmacy in a small alpine resort at 1800 meters altitude in northern Italy. Fredrik S. Bendiksen, a medium tall, baldheaded man with glasses, a fixed gaze and clear voice, had an important errand for the world’s leading female cross-country skier.
After far too many days in far too strong sun, Therese Johaug’s lips were so sore that they were bleeding. She looked as if she had crossed the desert without water. She needed treatment. The ointment Trofodermin ended up in the doctor’s shopping bag.
This was a sports physician who, like all other sports doctors, could have sleepless nights fearing that some of his athletes would end up in a doping case. A doctor who cross-examined athletes about their dietary supplements. A doctor who never left a bottle of water unattended.
Someone could sneak something into it.
Besides, only two months had passed since the world’s leading
But this September day in Livigno, Italy, Fredrik S. Bendiksen did not even read the ointment’s leaflet.
Nor did he type the name of the ointment’s active ingredient, clostebol, into the Google search field.
And the most remarkable thing about this story is that he fails to explain why he did not. He remembers everything else from those days in painstaking detail. “The Pedant,” they called him. But this he cannot remember. He “has studied this night and day over the past week”. He made “a mistake”. It is “his responsibility”. But how could a man who is paid to be so awake, sleep so heavily?
Those who “googled” Trofodermin and clostebol yesterday, quickly found that the drug is on WADA’s prohibited list; that it is not permitted in Norway; that it tends to be mentioned in connection with bodybuilding in Brazil. The Italian pharmacy where the ointment was purchased even says that it comes with a doping warning on the label.
Rather than seeking more information about an ointment he knew little about, Bendiksen put it into Therese Johaug’s hand.
She has previously explained her routines: “I never take anything I am offered without checking it first, whether it is an ointment or a tea. I check one, two and three times.”
Now she asked the doctor if the ointment was on the doping list. That way she put her career and her reputation as a skier in his hands. He replied that she could start the treatment.
On Friday, 16 September she provided a routine urine sample at home in Oslo. On 4 October cross-country skiing manager Vidar Løfshus phoned her, and life as Therese Johaug once knew it, would not be the same for a while. Such cases are not like mouth sores that finally will heal.
One time Therese Johaug was so excited that without notice she jumped into the arms of King Harald on the grandstand of the Holmenkollen ski arena. On that occasion, in March 2011, she had just won the World Cup’s 30 kilometer distance at home.
Yesterday, 2,050 days after she had earned tens of millions in advertising and prize money, she was full of sorrow – but mostly enraged.
Most of the people in the room heard her when the back door to the press conference at Ullevaal Stadium was opened. Her face and eyes were red, she sobbed, sniffled and wept. She walked the 25-30 long steps forward to the podium – small and frail, surrounded by serious men.
Advertising posters were cleared away to the sides of the room. She was dressed in neutral civilian clothes. Not a sponsor in the world would want to be associated with substances on the prohibited list.
Communication Manager Espen Graff explained what was going to happen. Every half minute a deep sob welled up from Johaug on his right side. It was as if she was struggling to breathe. She rubbed her eyes. Hid her face in her hands. When she got the floor, she looked at sentences on a sheet in front of her. “Completely broken.” “Insanely devastated.” “Totally indescribable.” And not least: “I will sit here with my back straight and tell everything. I have
Reading the words in hindsight is one thing. But to experience them “live” from the addled, crying, and at times desperate voice was something entirely different. It was “listen to me, look at me, believe me,” and if it was not true, it was Hollywood.
Johaug told about the sores on her lips, about the ointment. She had first tried one ointment during the gathering in Livigno, but it did not work. Then she went over to Trofodermin, again after asking the doctor if the product was on the doping list.
She finished her eight minute long speech as follows: “To get a guiltless (positive) doping test (result)
The words had some similarity to those Martin Johnsrud wrote in a letter to the International Ski Federation when he was in Johaug’s situation. He wrote: “The possible penalty for the charges I face, has the potential to destroy me, my family and my future. If I am to be disqualified from these races, I risk being seen as a cheater, regardless of any explanation. I kindly ask you to understand that I have complied with the rules and acted in good faith.”
At that time doctor Knut Gabrielsen took the blame for Sundby’s asthma medication, and subsequently resigned.
It quickly became clear that this routine was to be repeated yesterday. Fredrik S. Bendiksen had to go. His farewell message after answering the questions, was that if there is justice under the law for athletes, Therese Johaug should not be punished for his mistake.
Sports history is full of doping. It is also full of strange doping explanations. An ointment for mouth ulcers is not near the top 50 on the list.
We have chuckled when foreign athletes have told their stories: Sprinter LaShawn Merritt explained his positive test by saying that he had taken a penis extension medication. Ben Johnson claimed someone had smuggled something into his sports drink. Cyclist Tyler Hamilton put the blame on an unborn twin.
But this time the drama is unfolding in our own backyard, in the country with the oil, the salmon and skiing – in the only sport where we are always the best in the world. It is not about a Finn, an Austrian or an East-European. It is about Therese Johaug. And it happens a few months after the Martin Johnsrud Sundby case. These two are the best cross-country skiers on the planet.
The way the Sundby case had been handled, hardly increased the Norwegian people’s confidence in Norwegian skisports. Now, with Johaug’s case in addition, no wonder many are forced to think: “What can we actually believe in?” Traffic on Swedish websites from Norwegian IP addresses were massive yesterday. What did they believe, those who see Norwegian skiers with slightly different eyes?
The Swedish newspaper
These are competitors who for years have been left behind in the races, abandoned and humiliated by Johaug and Sundby and other Norwegians uphill after uphill wherever the Skiing Circus has moved. They have been told:
Polish Justyna Kowalczyk, who for many years had criticized the use of medications in Norwegian skiing, simply posted an image on her Twitter profile of the forbidden ointment with the doping warning.
It was intended to be a day of celebration. The Norwegian Ski Federation’s plan was to arrange their annual “kick off” for the winter season at Ullevaal Stadium. 65 athletes from six different forms of winter sports were brought to Oslo for the event. The invitations had been sent several weeks ago.
But a few people in the Norwegian Ski Federation knew what this day would be like. The insiders kept quiet, behaving as if nothing had happened. After all, we are talking about a gang that managed to keep the Martin Johnsrud Sundby case a secret for 18 months. Until a few hours before the big event was supposed to start, the host to be, the person in charge of image streaming, those responsible for communications and the athletes that would attend, all of them still believed that everything would happen as planned.
Then the Ski Federation machinery started grinding: The athletes were phoned and told about the cancellation. The press conference room at Ullevaal was cleared. The five who were going to sit on the podium were drilled. The Norwegian News Agency (NTB) was fed with information, first came the brief message “Cross-country skiing star Therese Johaug tested positive for a prohibited substance”, then came the long story about the mouth sore ointment.
But efficient crisis management by no means diverted attention from the message. The Norwegian Ski Federation’s President Erik Røste looked like he had become ten years older overnight when he took the floor.
“This is a day of sorrow. In many ways, a bit unreal. I think everyone here understands that what should not happen, has happened.”
But it has. And now the question is: What happens now?
The aged celebrity who gives another tell-all-interview about his ailing health. The four-year-old who suffers from a rare syndrome and can die tomorrow. The community fearing for their lives if the local hospital is closed down. The healed patient who found a miracle cure. The chronically ill women fighting for a medical diagnosis. The three-year-old cancer victim, and the twin brother he left behind.
We meet intimate stories of suffering, strength and support across networked media, popular culture and in the news media (Frank,
At the same time the mediation of people’s personal struggles also potentially simplify, emotionalize, (self-)expose and push vulnerable people into public scrutiny (Coward,
To contribute new insights into how journalists and editors meet these challenges the present chapter asks:
The news media possess the power to let people speak or to silence them, to give groups a voice or leave them voiceless (Couldry,
The structural factors that give advantages to elite sources do
Related to this, a vital discussion in studies of health journalism concerns the narration of health news - how to balance
In their study of exemplar use in health journalism, Hinnant et al. (
Whereas one line of research primarily analyzes exemplars as journalistic tools to make health news more accessible, a critical tradition has analyzed how patient narratives and human exemplars are key ingredients in recurrent standardized health news narratives: a traditional conflict between a ruthless system (health authorities) and those who represent victims/patients (lawyers or medical doctors) (Seale,
In general, individual stories are explanatory narratives incorporating cause-effect accounts which simplify the processes they explain, convey credit or blame, and distribute individual responsibility (Tilly,
As mentioned above, patients’ narratives pose different ethical challenges for health journalists than professional elite sources (Glück,
Historically the main emphasis has been on publishing and the end result (the journalistic text), but in recent decades, the need to be tactful throughout the journalistic procedure (including research, data gathering and source relations) has been added although the wording is vague (Larssen & Hornmoen,
This chapter analyzes how health reporters and editors reflect on employing a personal narrative in their reporting, based on in-depth interviews with 12 Norwegian reporters and editors who specialize in health. The author and a colleague conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews with media professionals (health reporters and editors of medical media, 12 interviews). Additional interviews were conducted with leaders of influential patient organizations (3 interviews) who interact closely with health reporters in the process of finding and recruiting patients for the media.
The interviews were conducted in two rounds (March–April 2015 and April–June 2016) as part of a larger research project on mediated health debates. Each interviewee was asked to reflect on the key characteristics of health journalism such as sourcing strategies, narratives, ethical concerns and challenges. During the interviews, which opened as general conversations on health journalism in Norway, all interviewees brought up patient stories as important voices and compelling narratives. The follow-up discussions and critical reflections concerning patients as valuable, yet vulnerable sources comprise the data analyzed in this chapter. The interviews, lasting from 60 to 90 minutes, were digitally recorded, transcribed and de-identified. The reporters and editors interviewed, named Reporters 1–10 and Editors 1–2 to protect their anonymity, largely reflect the decentralized Norwegian media structure representing regional newspapers (3), the main national newspapers (4), the national broadcasters (3) as well as specialized health magazines (2). Their titles vary, and they are based on different newsdesks within the news organizations, but they were all responsible for health coverage in their newsroom at the time of the interviews. Whereas both of the editors were male, all of the interviewed reporters were women. The gender imbalance in our sample indicates that most specialized health reporters in Norway are women, a pattern found in most international studies of health journalists (see among others Tanner et al. (
The editors and reporters interviewed are all skilled communicators and experienced public speakers, potentially more able to control and frame the interviews than non-elite interviewees. To avoid formulaic well-rehearsed statements, the interviewers (who have extensive experience with interviewing media elites) carefully prepared follow-up questions and included examples from the media coverage. This methodological approach provided the opportunity to get behind the general compliance with professional norms and ideals and to reflect on dilemmas in contemporary health journalism. Such dilemmas involve critical reflections on voice vs. exposure, criticism vs. campaigns, context vs. simplification – the ethics, production and political impact of individual narratives.
Overall, the interviewed health reporters and editors perceive health to be a topic, which is both universal and deeply personal at the same time, due to the perceived emotional proximity of the topic. As explained by a long-term health reporter: “It is immediate and close… for all. Everyone is affected in one way or another, themselves or their near family. It is an issue which touches people’s private sphere” (Reporter 2). Her colleague in a national broadcaster, emphasizes that health stories invite viewers to relate to the news: “[…] It always involves human beings - patients or next of kin or user – everyone relates to health in various ways throughout their lives” (Reporter 1). Health concerns life and death, and often documents crisis or trauma that could potentially harm the public or someone they love: “Stories of individual patients burn into our minds … there are many of these personal stories and they are important because if it happens to one person, it has probably happened before, and it could happen again” (Reporter 4).
“What characterizes health journalism is
A reporter from a national newspaper, states that a case always has to add to and nuance the story to be included, “It needs to tell an important story and illustrate the topic in a representative way” (Reporter 9), a functionality or pedagogical argument for including personal stories
Other interviewees present patient exemplars as journalistic tools to document systemic failure and maltreatment, “Because if someone does not receive proper treatment, the consequences can be dramatic and ensuing reports follow a very traditional script” (Editor 2). Particularly those interviewees who have covered health policies point out the rhetorical power of a striking, dramatic case, and how the right case (often understood as charismatic, deserving and vulnerable) could mobilize, draw political attention to a problem and push politicians to act on the issue. Illustrating the mobilization argument, an editor in a healthcare magazine explains that even though they are a specialized health sector publication targeting health professionals, they seek to employ the patient narrative rather than a professional or medical narrative to maximize impact and attention:
We framed a major investigative reportage on school nurses around the potential consequences for the pupils, as we documented how school nurses did not have time and resources to deal with the students’ health issues. It was a story about children and teenagers, but underneath it was also a story about health professionals, priorities and hierarchies, so there are always many agendas at play (Editor1).
A senior reporter in a major national newspaper, is worth quoting at some length:
The best stories, which are also well-read and of high quality, contain a case that represents and exemplifies an issue, which potentially affects many and that many identify with. And these reports are better when our story contributes to solving the issue at stake. […] I remember there were two heart-wrenching stories, which demonstrated systemic failure after a large-scale merger in the hospital sector. A young, single mother who did not get proper testing, did not receive treatment soon enough and lost months of her life. The other, a young boy, a cancer survivor, fell out of the system and was not called in for his control… They made an uproar and were very moving stories to write. It not only affected me, but the entire newsroom and newsdesk were involved. Those are typical stories with an impact (Reporter 10).
In addition to pedagogical and political motives, a commercial imperative and push towards a more engaging, emotional and immediate journalism was a recurrent issue in the interviews. For the health reporters in commercial TV, a face or human exemplar is a requirement in every health story (a medium argument). Others, working in radio, print and online, explain that it has gradually become a demand from the editors and the newsdesk to include at least one case. In the online editions, particularly larger health features were systematically put behind the paywall to boost digital subscriptions. A reporter from a national newspaper put it this way: “Online, we have to trigger the reader’s curiosity… a universal, substantial topic with a broad headline is not enough, you need a compelling story” (Reporter 9). Consequently, health stories with a personal angle are prioritized on the front page, in the headlines and online, to attract much-needed audiences. The immediately felt connection to a compelling personal health story, thus exemplifies the strong belief within contemporary media and politics that people respond to emotions rather than facts or ideas (Ahva & Pannti,
Although they recognize the relevance of exemplars and employ them frequently, the interviewees are ambiguous towards the plethora of personal stories in contemporary health reporting. Many interviewees share a concern that personal narratives may move health news towards a simplistic, emotional, black-and-white style of reporting. This skepticism largely corresponds with traditional journalistic perceptions of emotions as unprofessional and symbols of low quality, tabloid reporting (see Pannti ( By a ‘tyranny of cases’ I mean how journalists obviously know that the emotional trumps the rational in many settings, and to hook the reader you need to bring in the emotional argument, right… And if you find elderly Kari, who has to live in the nursing home bathroom, then you know it will catch the readers’ attention. But I believe that this tyranny of cases blocks systemic, more rational health reporting. And I see a tendency among journalists here, compared to other countries, of going too far in that direction (Editor 1).
Although all interviewees acknowledge the necessity of humanizing health news, most share a concern that the case narrative has become too dominant. Further, although all interviewed reporters argue that they strive to combine exemplars with written data, experts and background information, there is a shared concern that this is often demanding to put into practice. The pressure to include cases at a time when production resources are limited, deadlines shorter and news formats briefer, represents a common concern among reporters, who feel that the possibility to include substantial, thematic information in this situation becomes more limited. An experienced broadcast reporter pinpoints the challenges of routine health reporting:
Within the one minute twenty I have per story, I must squeeze in a case, the Health Minister and someone who thinks the minister is stupid […]. So time pressure is the very prosaic explanation, but it does not entirely excuse the dominance of the personal, we do tend to fall in love with the case and then struggle to explain it in its proper context […]. It is a generic challenge in journalism, but particularly in case-oriented health reporting, we should reflect on these issues: that it is actually not enough to tell only the individual story, but explain why and how it happened, what can be done differently and how experts perceive the issue (Reporter 4).
Some of the interviewees differentiate primarily between the media outlets and story formats in their criticism against emotionalizing and the lack of substance and context, distinguishing between quality and popular, specialized and general, broadcast and newspaper. Others argue that case-orientation is symptomatic of Norwegian popularized journalistic middle culture (Editor 1, Reporter 8). Some interviewees worry that the pre-defined roles and positions in health reporting, where most stories are narrated from the perspective of innocent, deserving patient victims, can scare away medical professionals, scientists and experts from participating in the media, which again risk reducing the number of informative, specialist voices (Editor2).
Related to this, several interviewees are concerned that the media’s tendency to foreground mistreatment and wrongdoing in the health sector, gives a skewed representation of the overall state and success of the healthcare system (Reporter 5). According to a reporter in a national news organization, the health sector presented in contemporary case-oriented health reporting shows crisis, the atypical single cases and tales of horrible conditions: “(I)t sounds like waiting lists are endless and patients fall between cracks all the time, which is not representative”. (Reporter 2). Overall, these interviewees worry that the media may contribute to a public discourse on modern healthcare that does not allow risk, failure and death (Editor 2).
Patient cases are asked to share their experiences and feelings in a difficult life situation, first to a reporter, then with the general public. Even though being used as a human exemplar in the media potentially involves exposure of personal trauma and struggle, the interviewees agree that finding and recruiting individual cases is easier than expected. All the interviewed reporters from general news organizations use patient organizations or professional organizations (such as the doctors’ organizations, nurses’ organizations) as facilitators to find and put the journalist in contact with the right patient, medical doctor or nurse on short notice (Reporters 1–10). Other strategies to identify compelling cases or stories representing a topic or development include: Monitoring patient blogs or patient support groups in social media to discover new, gripping patient voices and recruit experienced patient voices (Reporters 1, 3, 9); sharing calls for particular experiences or stories in the reporter’s social media networks (Reporters 3 & 10) or through the news organization’s social media sites (Reporter 10); asking friends, family and colleagues if anyone knows someone who fits the case description (Reporter 9); and monitoring local and specialized media, for engaging individuals and unusual stories. In addition to the reporters’ own initiatives to research and find patient cases, they are very often contacted by patients or interest groups and organizations with stories they want covered by journalists. According to a reporter in a regional newspaper, most of the individual patient initiatives are simply put aside: “A lot of people contact us to complain and whine over everything they are dissatisfied with. We have a high threshold for pursuing these stories […]. We are not medical experts and it is difficult for us to decide to what extent patients have received the wrong treatment” (Reporter 5).
Initiatives from organized patient interests represent a more complex challenge for the interviewees. In the interview setting all reporters declare that they shy away from pre-packaged information from professional stakeholders, although they may still use some of the information from these subsidized packages. Most relevant here – health journalists often outsource the direct recruitment of patient cases to external interest groups. For the interviewees who report that they have to produce more stories, for more platforms and more formats than 5–10 years ago, using patient organizations as facilitators is more efficient. Moreover, when patient organizations recruit patients they can select patients who are vocal and representative cases, who can articulate their feelings and experiences to a broader audience. Patient organizations further prepare patients for the interview situation and recruit patients who are ready to go public with their story. Through these practices health reporters “share” the responsibility of vetting patient cases with patient organizations, although the ethical responsibility lies with the journalists. The interviewed reporters underline the importance of a strong personal motivation for sharing patient narratives, and the motivation ranges from information about rare illnesses and diagnoses, health campaigns and education, public attention and mobilization for better treatment or living conditions for individuals and patient groups.
The interviewed editors in specialized publications take a more critical position regarding the patient organizations’ role in current health coverage. These editors argue that the general news reporters can be naïve and turn a blind eye to how various interest groups form unholy alliances and “push patients in front of them” in the news media to fight for their own sector, political, professional or commercial interests (Editors 1 & 2). The interviewed reporters from the mainstream news media organizations acknowledge the fact that patient cases can be sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry or patient organizations and that this challenges their professional practices: They acknowledge seeing “the agenda, but not always the hidden agenda, and there are grey zones” (Reporter 1). Although the interviewees in this study take a critical, distanced stand vis-à-vis the pharmaceutical industry, they distinguish between various interest groups and tend to lower their guard in cooperating with patient organizations, particularly through wide-reaching professional collaboration regarding patient cases.
Moreover, patients’ narratives pose ethical challenges for health reporters regarding how to balance being a critical reporter and a fellow human being. For one thing, the interviewees all argue that it takes time to approach, recruit and fact-check patient stories. A television reporter explains how she approaches new patient sources:
We spend a long time on the phone first. I let them tell their story and during the first conversation interesting details often come up: They have photos, they have home video recordings, they have a support network that can be a valuable source. We first spend time on the phone, and then it takes time to check the veracity of the story – that what they say is actually what happened […] In difficult cases I have them sign an informed consent agreement (Reporter 3).
This approach to vulnerable patient sources, exemplified here, illustrates how an experienced reporter who routinely recruits and employs patient stories balances professional distance and human empathy – she engages and takes the time to listen to the patient’s story, and through this process secures details and contacts necessary to verify the story.
In addition to traditional source work, the interviewed reporters also highlight the extent to which they try to prepare the patient sources for the coming media exposure. Again, talking on television is more dramatic for most sources than giving an interview to a newspaper reporter. At the same time, most stories today are published on numerous platforms, including online news platforms with user comments. A health reporter working primarily for television – explains that they have to use extensive resources in preparing individuals for what a personal interview actually implies in a hybrid media reality:
One thing is to prepare them to be on television – that we will come with a camera; how television can make a great impact; that the story will be online; your portrait; that you can be debated in the online commentary section, such things. We also make them aware that we cannot go beyond a friendly professional relationship after the story is published, because many people get very attached to us, particularly as they share their life story […] I have talked to many people who tell me things they have never shared with their wife or children, and they do it on television. It is quite intense (Reporter 1).
This quote also illustrates the tight bond that can develop between reporters and sources who share their personal story: For non-professional sources who have undergone traumatic or dramatic experiences, the reporter who takes time to listen can serve as a proxy therapist. The reporter’s need to balance closeness and personal bonds with professional distance, is arguably more challenging when patients and other vulnerable sources share their personal stories and experiences. Another and related ethical issue, concerns the reporter’s responsibility to protect vulnerable sources who cannot fully understand the consequences of sharing their personal details and private suffering. A reporter in a regional newspaper puts it this way:
Not everything is published, sometimes because the patient is worried and other times because there is a risk taking such private things public […] I believe that if people are putting themselves out there and share their story, they should feel safe and know that we will take proper care of them (Reporter 8).
Many of the interviewees say that they meet patients with important stories who cannot be exposed in the media, because they are deemed too vulnerable or the topic is too sensitive. Overall, from the interviews it appears that it is the reporters who protect the sources, rather than push them to share more than they are comfortable with. Nevertheless, the editor of a specialized, paper claims that his competitors in commercially-oriented media organizations expose details of suffering and illness unfit for the public. He further stresses that such sensitivity regarding individual cases should not be restricted to patients and relatives, but also involve individual health professionals who speak out and serve as illustrative cases without always grasping the potentially negative consequences of their media appearance. He says:
My journalists have a clear obligation to follow our sources closely, also regarding the consequences media attention may lead to. So we work extensively to inform and involve them, and discuss what it implies, for instance, to be on the front page. So I would say that we take responsible decisions, even though it may be boring sometimes, and we also de-identify the cases sometimes. (Editor 1)
Most interviewees explain that they strive to prepare the patient for the level of exposure their story will get: whether it will be headlining, whether it will be on the front page, if it will be available online (forever), and whether it will potentially be shared in social media. Some reporters have routines to inform their patient sources as soon as they know the degree of exposure. Others are hesitant to give promises they cannot keep, as they know from experience that the size and placement of a story is rather unpredictable and out of their hands in the final stages of production. It is a dilemma for health reporters, who wish to prepare and follow up their sources, that they have limited means of control over the scale of a story, after they have completed their reporting tasks. Reporters disagree as to whether the interviewed patients are actually aware of what they are putting themselves into or not. A health reporter in a regional newspaper elaborates:
I can tell them that their story will make a mark in the paper – but it does not seem like they are really prepared for the level of exposure they receive, although they realize it will be a prioritized story. Many times I have experienced that you prepare them for something and then the end result is different. Something happened somewhere else in the world […] It probably makes them disappointed or angry, but they do not complain to me directly, they complain to their friends and network. We rarely hear about it except from interest groups. We often get a sense of how satisfied they are, however, during the quote check (Reporter 5).
Whereas some prepare the sources for the massive attention they may get, other reporters emphasize the importance of preparing the patients for the ephemeral character of media attention – “that they are in the center of attention, and then they blink and it is over” (Reporter 1). The interviewees stress that how patients experience the publicity and exposure varies significantly, and that it is rather unpredictable. It is natural, yet ethically challenging, that the reporter-source relation and editorial responsibility to patient sources usually ends abruptly after publication. In contrast to documentary makers and reporters who follow their sources for extensive periods of time and often keep in contact with their sources after publication (see Larssen & Hornmoen ( You never know the consequences of sharing a difficult experience on television – but most people are very satisfied afterwards, because they receive a lot of feedback from friends, family and people they have not heard from in a long time. They get a lot of empathy and they feel it is easier to talk about things. It is very rare to find anyone who regrets the story or finds it difficult (Reporter 3).
On the other hand, interviewees are aware of the fact that patients who share their personal illness narratives can have negative experiences post-publication, related to all kinds of unwanted feedback (gifts, money, cures or hate mail) from healers, advocates for various medicaments or diets, suitors and trolls. In addition, patient stories can be shared and debated on various networked media outside of editorial control. The interviewed reporters are aware of these costs of exposing personal struggles, but acknowledge that although they try to prepare and protect the patients, the individual response and experience will vary.
This chapter has investigated how experienced health reporters and editors reflect on the use of the
The widespread, routinized practice of using patient organizations as case recruiters and facilitators, points to a potential risk for pressed reporters to become dependent on professionalized, powerful interest groups in their daily work, and moreover to outsource ethical concerns to these interest groups. Overall, the influence of organized patient interests corresponds with broader patient mobilization, increased patients’ rights and the growing authority of lay expertise in current health debates (Nettleton,
Finally, the interviewees highlight the delicate ethical dilemmas involved in giving voice and publicity to people in vulnerable positions. Health reporters and editors acknowledge the risk and unpredictability of public exposure, but generally do not go beyond the professional source-reporter relationship to protect vulnerable individuals, who make their experiences as patients public. This is primarily due to limited resources, continuous deadlines, and to a traditional critical approach towards all sources. This chapter has offered insights into these considerations and reflections from a professional journalist perspective. To fully analyze and comprehend the cost and potential of making one’s medical story public, it is necessary to conduct more studies of how vulnerable sources themselves experience this process.
The study presented in this book is part of the Media Impact in the Public Service Sector project (project 237014) financed by the Research Council of Norway.
Also called human exemplar, human interest, individual story, case or personal narrative.
Confer Pannti’s (
Larssen & Hornmoen (
We know more about the world than we have ever done before. Still many questions remain unanswered. As Friedman, Dunwoody, and Rogers (
In the last few years, science stories have flourished in the media. When scientific uncertainty meets news criteria like conflict, sensation, and timeliness, collisions tend to occur. According to Andersen and Hornmoen (
In this chapter, I will explore a not so common genre in the coverage of science, namely narrative journalism, including characters, feelings, and elements of drama that we are familiar with from fictional literature. I will argue that this genre can make room for new kinds of science stories and new portrayals of scientists, and I will ask what the consequences of this might be. Throughout the chapter I will use an example from my own work, a narrative story published in the documentary magazine
Different kinds of subjectivities will be adressed. One concerns my own role as a journalist, what Steensen in
By exploring a less common practice in science journalism, and then reflecting on my experiences, I enter into a methodology of “reflective practice” or “critical reflection”, two expressions often used interchangably (Fook,
Critical reflection will unfold in a dialogue with other scholarly work. I will draw upon theories from fields such as science journalism, literary journalism, and media studies of literature and film, in order to gain a broader understanding of the topics I investigate. After all, both fictional and true stories have been told for thousands of years, and several academics have looked into how people may be affected by them, and why.
The chapter is based on a master thesis in journalism, where I used the same combination of practical experience and scholarly work to look into how narrative science stories may affect the reader and which challenges such journalism may imply.
In the story published in Flying into Bodø, Giulio Selvaggi enjoys looking out of the window. He looks down at the u-shaped valleys, formed by glaciers, and at the v-shaped valleys, formed by rivers. He looks at the fascinating white beaches, so far north. Still, even a man of nature needs a roof above his head. Therefore, on an August day in 2013, he is standing at the top of a ladder, propped against an old wooden house outside Bodø. He holds a paintbrush in his hand. He wants the yellow color to be just as it was before; he will do a good job. His parents raised him to be a responsible person. This summer day the whole family is painting and gardening: two children, a Norwegian mother, and an Italian father. They spend every summer at this place. However, everything has changed now. The yellow wooden house is no longer a holiday house. It can become their new home. One day they hope to pack their belongings in Italy and travel north for good: two children, a mother, and a father who is convicted for the manslaughter of 29 people (Pileberg,
Selvaggi was one of seven academics and public officials convicted for manslaughter in L’Aquila, Italy, in 2012, after what people regarded as misinformation prior to a large earthquake.
Selvaggi was, and still is, a leading seismologist in Italy, but his life changed dramatically after the verdict. When I wrote the piece in 2012/13, I did not know that he would be aquitted in the appeal. He is presented as a seismologist, but also as a husband, a father, and an accused man, with all the pain, insecurity, and anger that involves.
The media often portray scientists as experts, and scholars have claimed that these portrayals may present scientists as heroes, positioned high above other people. Gregory and Miller (
The story about Selvaggi was part of Pileberg (
I will briefly describe narrative journalism and journalistic storytelling. A simple definition of a story is a text that describes a sequence of actions. Often the story has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and it gradually builds up to a turning point. It is told by a voice that is less neutral than what is common in news journalism (Bech-Karlsen,
Human beings have told stories for hundreds of thousands of years, and there is a long storytelling tradition in journalism. Writers like Daniel Defoe, Mark Twain, and Ernest Hemingway are famous for their non-fiction stories, followed by Truman Capote and Tom Wolfe, who introduced “new journalism” in the last half of the 1900s, also described in [The form] consumes devices that happen to have originated with the novel and mixes them with every other device known to prose. And all the while, quite beyond matters of technique, it enjoys an advantage so obvious, so built-in, one almost forgets what power it has: the simple fact that the reader knows
He also gave names to techniques used by narrative journalists in his time: scene-by-scene construction, extensive dialogue, third person point of view, and detailed descriptions of the symbols of people’s status life (Wolfe,
The narrative form also requires an
I am not the first to explore narrative science journalism. Ted Anton and Rick McCourt wrote about “the new science journalists” and said that they belonged to three categories (1995, p. 4): “Those who write in an original style, those who investigate with new zeal, and those who pull together the data of specialized studies to identify important new trends.” Hornmoen (
The story about Giulio Selvaggi only partly fits into this picture. Selvaggi, the story’s main character, is a scientist, but the story does not have an educational purpose in the sense that science results are simplified and communicated. At least that is not the story’s main point. Rather, the story strives to dig into the scientist’s role and responsibility in society.
Many terms have been used to describe narrative journalism, e.g. “literary journalism”, “creative non-fiction”, “new journalism”, and “new new journalism”. These terms share much of the same meaning and I will stick to the term “narrative journalism” in this chapter.
Several scholars have claimed that narratives, whether fiction or non-fiction, seem to engage readers, viewers, and listeners in a special way. And several scholars have tried to figure out why. Even Aristotle, the Greek philosopher who lived 350 years B. C., was puzzled by the number of people who gathered to watch tragedies, which even made them sad! He launched the
Later, several theories have been launched. Oatley (
The latter does not explain, though,
Both Zillmann and other scholars have stated that stories can give us big and intense experiences while we sit safely in our homes. In a narrative world we can experience simulations of alternative personalities, realities, and actions, and it does not cost us anything. In this way, we do not have to change our jobs, wives or husbands in order to understand what it is like, we can just read a story (Green, Brock & Kaufman,
In 1986, the Pulitzer-winning journalist and scholar Jon Franklin wrote about humanizing science through storytelling. This is not something that scientists usually long for, according to Franklin:
The scientists want us to ignore the drama that proceeds in his laboratory, and, more important, in his mind. He denies that he has feelings about salamander tails and that he hopes for things and dreams of things […]. And yet these characteristics make him human, make him real. They make his efforts, his frustrations, and his mistakes interesting and understandable. And
Jon Franklin claimed that by using literary techniques, the journalist can add emotion to science stories, which in turn could lead to people feeling touched or even being changed.
According to narrative theories this is not unlikely, and
Vorderer & Knobloch ( Usually the viewer or reader keeps clearly in mind the distinction between his or her person and the character in a drama. Very often cues in the drama will prevent the audience from feeling as the protagonist does, through information that the protagonist does not have (Vorderer and Knobloch,
Vorderer and Knobloch believe that empathy can explain some of what happens when a reader is submerged into a story. The reader observes the character and either applauds or condemns his actions and intentions. If she applauds, the character becomes a kind of friend, or hero, for the reader. If, on the contrary, she condemns the character’s actions, the opposite happens: the character becomes an enemy. The reader’s “verdict” over the character will, in one way or the other, trigger the reader’s hope for a positive outcome and fear of the opposite.
Whether you name it empathy or identification, the reader establishes a relationship to the characters in a story, and narrative genres have qualities that make this more likely. Cohen (
Wied, Zillmann, and Ordman in 1994 (referred to in Cohen,
Other fields of study also point to the importance of human relations when receiving a message. Dan Kahan and Donald Braman (
The processes are not crystal clear, but several studies point to the importance of the relationship we establish to characters in a story or the sender of a message. This may affect our experience of the story, our actions in our own lives, and our understanding of the world we live in. Although most of these theories describe fictional narratives, studies suggest that non-fiction narratives affect the reader in the same way, as mentioned earlier. It may seem like Jon Franklin was right when he wrote that humanizing science has the potential to
In this story, the reader meets the Italian seismologist Giulio Selvaggi and his Italian-Norwegian wife Ingrid Hunstad. Selvaggi had received a serious verdict. In short, he and six other scientists and public officials were convicted after being accused of calming down the citizens in the days prior to the earthquake in L’Aquila, 2009. After a series of smaller earthquakes in the area, people feared a more devastating earthquake and desperately wanted advice about what to do. In this seismic zone there was a long tradition of bringing blankets to a piazza and sleeping outside in such periods, but after what people understood as advice from the experts, many chose to sleep in their homes. This became their doom.
The story was full of emotions. Entire families had been eradicated. Many were children. One of the persons I interviewed and who is portrayed in the story, had lost both his wife and his daughter. The pain was overwhelming. There was also a huge debate about whether the scientists were guilty or not guilty. In the end, this became a story about a scientist and his wife, both in an extreme situation. But it was also a story about a father and a mother; a man and a woman. They were sympathetic, reflective and kind, qualities most of us appreciate. In addition, it was a story about responsibility; about what society may expect from you when you possess specialist knowledge. Lastly, the story raised questions about justice and injustice: What the survivors viewed as justice – namely the verdict – was viewed as incredibly unjust by those convicted.
Writing a story that is full of emotions and controversy is challenging. What was right and wrong was not clear. Lives had been lost. Could the scientists have done a better job of informing about the earthquake risk? The opinions were split, but one misunderstanding was clear: The public had expected more answers from the experts than they were able to provide. People in L’Aquila wanted predictions of the future. Unfortunately, reassuring messages were conveyed through the media, though not by the scientists themselves. Later the experts did not agree on having reassured anyone. Myself, I clearly saw the complexity of the situation, and felt strong empathy with both sides, but after investigating it I also got the feeling that the verdict was not right. Throughout the writing process this gut feeling continued to follow me, and some readers may experience the story as biased.
A story being regarded as subjective is not uncommon in journalism. Although objectivity has been held up as a journalistic ideal, scholars have argued that objective news journalism does not exist. Njaastad (
When we look at literary tradition, narratives are more open to subjectivity than news journalism. Hartsock writes: “The subjectivity of the literary journalist must take a more active role in the composition of the report in comparison to the relatively more submerged role implicit in the abstract nature of objectified journalism” (Hartsock,
The presence of subjectivity in narrative journalism is also emphasized in other chapters in this book. Steensen writes about byline subjectivity and source subjectivity, both being strongly present in narrative journalism. While the first refers to the journalist’s own experience, the second refers to the source’s subjectivity. Steensen writes that the journalists who wrote new journalism aimed to get involved, to be participants, in order to create a “truer” journalism, in line with existentialist ideas.
In my own work, I was strongly aware that I had two roles: I was a journalist, and I was a human being. I had to make a long list of choices: Who would be the main character? Which message do I wish to convey? Which voices and thoughts should be heard, and which voice should be used by the storyteller? I knew that these choices can lead the reader’s empathy in a certain direction, and even result in attitude changes. I also knew that I was covering a controversial case. All this requires an awareness of responsibility and ethics. I had to be aware of Njaastad’s advice and ask myself: Is this a significant story to tell? Have I done a thorough job? Is what I am writing true? Still, I knew that the story would contain a large degree of subjectivity; both byline and source subjectivity. I could write a story that reflected reality, but I would not be able to write a story that reflected
I chose Selvaggi as the main character. His wife is also an important character in the story. Since narratives allow scenes and using a third person point of view, the characters’ views are presented in passages like the following, from September 24th 2012:
A tall, blond woman sits in a courtroom. The accused is her husband, Giulio Selvaggi. On her first time in a courtroom, May 30th, she watched him take the witness stand. She was so nervous for him that she could not write. Today she will. Their daughter, Liv, has lent her a notebook. For Ingrid Hunstad writing is a way to escape from her thoughts. It feels so embarrassing to be there. They, of all people. They, who through all their adult lives have been working for the good cause; for a greater understanding of how earthquakes hit. Today they should have been on the other side, together with the victims. How wrong it feels that the victims sit there scowling at her; that they see her as the wife of a killer (Pileberg
The simple fact that Selvaggi is the main character, and his wife the second, increases the chance of bending the reader’s empathy towards him. In order to have a more balanced story, I was careful to use a variety of sources. One important choice was to let one of the victims tell his version of the story. He was in the most terrible situation, having decided that his family should spend the earthquake night in their house. As a result he lost his wife and daughter. He blamed himself, and he blamed the experts for what he regarded as advice.
Another way to have a more balanced story, is to add context, so that the reader can form her own opinion. I added context both to the story itself and to smaller texts next to it. After communicating with the editor, I added even more context, and more sources, than what was the case originally. Still, it remained a piece with a high degree of subjectivity. Without subjectivity, this story would not exist in the first place.
As mentioned earlier in this essay, scholars have cautioned against the heroic pictures of scientists that might be the result of traditional science news stories. Still, these arguments were presented in the 1980’s and 1990’s, and in my search I have not found much new literature on the topic. It may be natural to assume that our view of scientists has changed along with rapid changes in the media in general.
However, according to studies from various countries, where people have been asked to draw their image of a scientist, there are still strong stereotypes. In an interview with
To refute these issues, Hornmoen argues that elements of personal characteristics should be seen much more often than what is the case today:
This is not only because it may give the reader or listener a necessary closeness to the material. It is also about making it clear that science is a human activity, that scientific studies in crucial ways are colored by the humans taking part in them. (Hornmoen,
Also climate scientist Stephen Schneider pointed to the fact that science is based on values: “Values creep into virtually everything”, he writes in a discussion. “For a scientist, the best way to deal with a value question is to do it explicitly. Try to know what your biases are and put them out in the open” (quoted in Boffey, Rodgers and Schneider,
I do believe that stories like the earthquake story contribute to painting a broader picture of scientists. In that story, the scientist is a man who did not fulfill society’s expectations. He is not a hero, but rather a human with limitations and no ability to predict an earthquake, just like the rest of us. In the media, there have also been other stories portraying scientists as humans, for instance the story “He Felt Worthless” (Berg,
I believe that humanizing science can have positive effects. It can allow identification and empathy with the people behind the science, which may again lead to readers changing their views of scientists, perhaps seeing them more as humans and less as pure experts. In other words, narratives can make it clearer that science is a human activity, marked by the humans who perform it. This perspective can be an important addition to news stories focusing on scientific findings. The reader of a narrative may also experience science more from the “inside”. The distance between the “people” and the science institutions, may diminish. However, when our feelings for the main characters – for example the scientists – are colored by empathy or identification, this can make us less critical towards the messages in the story (Slater,
Humanizing science, as I see it, does not necessarily involve portraying scientists. It can also involve portrayals of people that are somehow affected by science or people involved in scientific work. As long as the journalist succeeds in finding elements that can add feelings to the story, we can talk about humanizing science. There is a wide range of stories that can contribute to broadening our view of what science really is, and bring it closer to our own reality.
Writing about science in narrative style has its pros and cons. Such a story may be a better read than a news article, and since these stories are often longer than a news story, they can add more context and give a broader picture of what’s going on. They can also contribute to a deeper understanding of what science really is. However, this also begs several questions. Is it really important that people have a knowledge of science? And, will not the criteria for the narrative, just like the news criteria, force science into a format where it does not necessarily fit? I will briefly examine these questions below.
It is safe to assume that a basic knowledge of science and scientific processes is a positive thing, for individuals, democracy, and policy. There is more than one reason for that. Increased knowledge does not necessarily make people more positive towards science. On the contrary, Gregory and Miller (
Both source subjectivity and byline subjectivity can make the reader see the world differently. Perhaps the reader’s world will look a little more like the world seen by the main character or the journalist. Awareness can be passed on, or opinions shared. As long as the story is truthful, and the journalist does thorough research, this can strengthen a story. When the reader sees the world through someone else’s eyes, she may gain deeper insight. The Norwegian journalist Berit Hedemann expresses it this way:
As I see it, insight differs from understanding, insight is characterized by filling the body just as much as the brain, insight is “total” understanding. The understanding of a phenomenon, a causality, an institution, can be gained at universities. Insight can rarely be gained by studying. We gain insight through people, experiences, and relations. Insight implies a deeper understanding of complicated circumstances and relations. It changes our feelings and our actions (Hedemann,
The story about Giulio Selvaggi was one of four narrative stories originally written as part of a master thesis, in which I reflected upon issues addressed in this chapter. In that work I realized that there are quite a few challenges in writing narratives about science. For instance, many scientists are used to being portrayed as scientists, not as humans. This can make it hard to enter their personal world. Moreover, ideas for narrative science stories can be difficult to find. I needed to be patient, both in the process of developing ideas and when reporting. Another challenge occurred while writing the earthquake story: I saw that it can be difficult to cover a controversial topic using narrative techniques. Mixing feelings and subjectivity into a bowl of politics, science, unknown facts, and tragic consequences, was challenging.
Later it occured to me that these challenges were linked to the framing of science that a narrative requires, just as other genres do. I was searching for faith, hope, and love in a world that can be tedious, professional, and complicated. I did not always find what I was looking for. In addition, making a coherent story out of lots of uknown pieces and fragmented facts, necessarily involves simplification. Although I spent weeks and months on research and interviews, the story does not present the whole picture.
I would not argue that applying narrative techniques is a “magic trick” that necessarily will improve today’s science journalism. However, I believe that using a range of journalistic genres can contribute to a broader picture of science and possibly position science coverage closer to reality than formulaic news depictions of what “new research shows” are capable of. Therefore, I would argue that we need science journalists who not only report new scientific findings, but also scientific processes, failures, or challenges. Moreover, if journalists
Subjectivity is everywhere. Our opinions and thoughts are framed by our genes, our background, and the environment we live in. However, subjectivity is not always obvious to us.
In narratives, the reader meets real people, whether they are scientists, hairdressers, retirees, or writers. Such stories let the reader see the world through someone else’s eyes, and it can give her a closeness to the material that she often does not get from reading news stories following the model of the inverted pyramid. Narratives enable identification, empathy, and trust, but also the opposite. The reader represents a third subjectivity in this puzzle, and the writer must recognize that she is by far the most mysterious one.
In the last passage of the earthquake story, Giulio Selvaggi and his wife are back in Bodø, Norway. At this point, the reader has been brought to Italy during the days around the earthquake in 2009 and the following years. Now, Selvaggi stands by the sea, fishing:
Most of Norway is unknown to Giulio Selvaggi, but not Bodø. He feels so good here. It is like finding the perfect pair of shoes. As he stands by the shore with his fishing rod, with his wife of 19 years next to him, they feel the weather changing. The air from the land brings the coldness from the glaciers, the air from the sea brings the salt, the mild weather, the rain. In two minutes everything can change. What will it be like to be here in the autumn or in the winter, when it is cold and dark? How will it be for the kids, will they find friends here? “No matter what, it is better than being in Italy now,” Ingrid Hunstad says. If it were up to her, they would move tomorrow. But Giulio Selvaggi wants to wait. He’s fighting a battle in Italy, a battle for his freedom. What happened is not fair. He did a good job, and was convicted for it. But it is nice to be able to breathe, not having to check the news first thing in the morning. It is nice just looking for porpoises in the sea or wondering which fish will bite. Up here, 67 degrees north, Giulio Selvaggi feels a part of wild nature. Nothing more, nothing less. Here he is free. (Pileberg,
The story ends with an open question.What will happen to Selvaggi is still unknown. Time would show that he was aquitted in November 2014, along with all the accused scientists. One of the public officials got a milder verdict.
A question that will never have an answer is which effect this story had on the people who read it. Did it make them hope for him to be aquitted? I do not know. Did it change their view of science? I do not know. Perhaps some of the readers did not like the story’s subjective style, and therefore did not get so involved. Finding an answer to these questions would require a study of its own, and although a reception study was my initial idea when I started working on the master thesis, I soon realized that this was beyond my capacity. Still, I hope that most readers got something out of reading it. I also hope that it contributed to an understanding of the fact that science cannot give us answers to all our questions – even when we need them the most.
Still, even a man of nature needs a roof over his head. Therefore, on an August day in 2013, he is standing at the top of a ladder, propped against an old wooden house outside Bodø. He holds a paintbrush in his hand. He wants the yellow color to be just as it was before; he will do a thorough job. His parents raised him to be a responsible person.
This summer day the whole family is painting and gardening: two children, a Norwegian mother, and an Italian father. They spend every summer at this place, but everything has changed now. The yellow wooden house is no longer a holiday house. It can become their new home.
One day they hope to pack their belongings in Italy and travel north for good: two children, a mother, and a father convicted for the manslaughter of 29 people.
L’Aquila is a beautiful medieval city in the Apeninnes. The baristas serve their espresso like in all other Italian cities, clothes are dried outside the windows, and students create a lively atmosphere in the streets.
However, for the last several months the citizens have been worried. A sequence of small earthquakes have shaken the city, and there are rumours of a big earthquake being expected. A retired lab technician has placed homemade radon measurement equipment around the region, and now he is predicting a large earthquake. The problem is only that such measurements haven’t proved credible in scientific studies. Throughout decades of research, scientists have not succeeded in perfecting a single method to predict tomorrow’s big quake.
Still, many people now hope that the experts can tell them what to do, whether to leave their homes or stay calm. Many have great expectations for the meeting which is initiated by the state civil protection office, Protezione Civile.
Selvaggi looks forward to performing his duty. He will inform the people in power about all the small earthquakes that have been experienced in the area; he will explain that it
He will say what he knows – about the past. He will not make evaluations for the future. That is not his duty.
He has no idea that 31 March 2009 will be a fateful day for Italy. No one can know such a thing, until the day arrives.
The meeting proceeds as such meetings often do. Data are presented, reports are passed around. Daniela Stati, the head of Protezione Civile’s regional office, asks whether she should believe those who are spreading fear. The leader of Commissione Grandi Rischi, Franco Barberi, assures her that their claims have no scientific basis:
“The seismic sequences do not tell us anything about what will happen, but they certainly direct our attention to an area where, sooner or later, a large earthquake will hit,” he says.
Another member of the commission, Enzo Boschi, concludes that a large earthquake is less likely in the near future, but that one can never know. He talks with aggression and determination:
“In Italy this is the zone which is most exposed to the risk of earthquakes, one of the zones. It can happen tonight, tomorrow, in one year, in twenty years!”
After the meeting Daniela Stati thanks the participants. She says that they have made it possible for her to calm the citizens.
The mayor of L’Aquila interprets things in another way: he decides to close some of the schools in the area.
They do not respond. It looks like they are still asleep.
In the small town of Albano Laziale, 130 kilometers southwest of L’Aquila, the seismologist couple Giulio Selvaggi and Ingrid Hunstad wake up because their bed has moved. Selvaggi’s first thought is that the frequency is low. The quake comes from somewhere far away.
Immediately he calls the surveillance room at work, finds out where, how strong, and sends a prayer: “Thank you, God, it was not 7.” An earthquake of magnitude 7 can cause enormous damage, but this is 5.9 on the Richter scale, several thousand times weaker (the earthquake would later be measured at 6.2). Still, he knows that the earthquake has hit the populated city of L’Aquila.
Giulio Selvaggi does everything right this morning. He turns his feelings off. Wearing his pyjamas he calls the head of Protezione Civile and informs him about the strength and the place. Then he pulls his trousers on, runs down to the car and arrives at work half an hour later.
Around Vincenzo Vittorini there is a darkness that he has never seen before. And the house is dancing. The walls, the floor, the furniture – they are all dancing. He feels as if he is inside a blender.
And then there is the sound. The terrible sound! It is not like a “boooaaaaaah” like he has been told. It is more like a scream. It is a scream so high, that when Vincenzo Vittorini screams with all his might, he can’t hear a thing.
Five days after the visit of the earthquake experts, 309 people die in L’Aquila. The survival of Vincenzo Vittorini is an absurd miracle. For six hours, he is buried under concrete and furniture, crouched next to his and Claudia’s double bed. He listens to the gradually weaker sounds from his wife and daughter; he tries to speak to them, but his voice cannot reach them.
It feels so embarrassing to be there. They, of all people. They, who through all their adult lives have been working for the good cause; for a greater understanding of how earthquakes hit.
Today they should have been on the other side, together with the victims. How wrong it feels that the victims sit there scowling at her; that they see her as the wife of a killer.
Fabio Picuti, the prosecutor, is talking, loudly and slowly, so as to underline every single word. Dressed in a long black robe, he blames the accused for having kept scientific findings secret at the meeting in L’Aquila.
Why didn’t anyone mention the study from 1995, which claimed a 100 percent probability of a big earthquake during the next 20 years? Why didn’t anyone mention the book saying that a sequence of small earthquakes often precedes a big one?
“Here you see the flimsy, negligent, and inappropriate behaviour of Commissione Grandi Rischi,” Picuti states.
Hunstad takes notes, but she can barely believe what she is hearing. “It is absurd,” she says to herself. It seems like the prosecutor is cherry picking research material, presenting it as the one and only truth, and not as what it really is; namely pieces of transitory knowledge - later it would be turned down.
Inside the courtroom it is 30 degrees celsius, and no ventilation. After four hours Hunstad feels like she might faint any moment. She leaves the room and strolls over to the small wooden house next door, where three women run a coffee bar. They smile at her as she enters through the door. Hunstad feels relieved.
He regrets that Claudia and he made the decisions they made; he regrets having bought the apartment in the first place. It was a nice apartment on the third floor, with a wonderful balcony and a view of the green valley. They used to sit there during long summer evenings. However, he could have been perfectly happy without those evenings, if he had not lost his wife and daughter.
If only they had chosen differently. If only they had decided to do as his father would have done. When small earthquakes shook Vincenzo’s birth home, his father always brought his family outside to sleep in a piazza.
If only they had not listened to the experts.
The experts had told them it was safe! Just before the meeting on March 30th, the vice director of Protezione Civile, with a grandfatherlike calmness, told the local TV station that people could calm down:
“The scientific society continues to assure me that it is a favourable situation. The small earthquakes release the energy (…)”.
Therefore, when a pretty strong earthquake hit at 11 pm, 5 April 2009, and then a smaller one at 12.40 a.m., Vittorini and his wife told each other that what had been said seemed right; the more energy released, the better it is.
What we do know is that relatives of 29 victims went to court. They claimed that if their loved ones had not been calmed down by authorities and experts, they would have left the homes that would later fall down on them.
Giulio Selvaggi, the five other scientists at the meeting and the vice director of Protezione Civile were accused of having given “incomplete, imprecise and contradictory information” prior to the big earthquake.
The trial received worldwide reactions. The world’s largest scientific association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, sent an open letter to the Italian president and asked him to intervene. They called the accusation “unfair and naive”. The journal Nature called the verdict “perverse and ridiculous”, and encouraged people to protest.
Prosecutor Fabio Picuti had to defend himself.
“I am not crazy,” he told Nature.
“I know they can’t predict earthquakes. The basis of the charge is not that they didn’t predict the earthquake. As functionaries of the state, they had certain duties imposed by law: to evaluate and characterize the risks that were present in L’Aquila.”
According to Picuti, the risk assessment should have included the density of the urban population and the known fragility of many ancient buildings in the city center. Picuti claimed that the experts were more interested in calming down citizens than telling them how to prepare for an earthquake.
“I never reassured anyone,” Giulio Selvaggi says.
The minutes of the meeting support him. The e-mails he sent to worried citizens who contacted him before the meeting, also support him.
Massimo Mazzotti, Director of the University of California Berkely, wrote in a commentary that one of the scientists’ mistakes, was that they did not correct what the politicians said to the media. The comforting messages that reached the inhabitants of L’Aquila in the days prior to the earthquake may have led them to make fatal choices.
Giulio Selvaggi experienced the trial as if he were outside himself, as if motion pictures were floating by him. He was convinced of his innocence and thought all along that he would be proven not guilty. That was what everyone around told him as well, all the colleagues, all the top lawyers, everyone, except one.
Ingrid Hunstad did her own thinking, and warned him, again and again: “The lawyers are taking this too lightly. They do not understand how serious it is.”
The courtroom is too small for the attention this trial has received. People are pushing their way in between the chairs. Photographers are standing along one wall. The cameras are from Japan, Germany, Great Britain … Italian Rai Uno is broadcasting directly. Giulio Selvaggi thinks about his mother who is sitting at home watching. He still believes that he will be declared innocent, but deep inside him a notion of injustice tingles.
In the back of the room are the relatives of the deceased. Among them is Vincenzo Vittorini. He wants justice.
The judge enters the room wearing a black robe. He looks straight ahead, then he bends his head towards the decree. The verdict is the same for all of the accused.
After a few minutes Selvaggi turns towards the woman who has been his wife for 18 years. He understood before she did: from now on, everything will change.
The verdict may be the first where scientists are convicted after a natural disaster. According to Norwegian Professor of Sociology Law, Kristian Andenæs, it may not be the last.
“It has become more and more common to call for punishment and other strong reactions,” he says.
If a public official made a mistake a few years ago, one was usually satisfied with expressing disapproval or – if more serious – financial claims. Today, more and more people and institutions are prosecuted if they make a mistake. Andenæs believes the reason is that victims get more attention, along with the idea that victims are better off if the responsible person is punished.
Andenæs still believes that the L’Aquila case is special. In this case, it is not clear whether the convicted have done anything wrong at all.
“This case revolves around people not being able to predict the future. This is a task involving a high degree of uncertainty.”
The case also revolves around communicating uncertainty to people who lack expert knowledge. On 31 March 2009, the inhabitants of L’Aquila were scared and nervous. Should the scientists have put more effort into communicating?
“If there is reason to believe that something can go wrong, those who know that have a responsibility to say so. It is hard to tell whether the experts should have been more active in this case,” Andenæs says.
He adds:
“Today, it is easy to say that they should have made an effort to enhance the information that reached the citizens of L’Aquila. But at that point, it may not have been as clear.”
Outside, the green garden is dressed for winter. The kiwi tree stands there with no fruit, and the caravan is parked in its usual spot. It has been driven thousands of miles. Every summer, it is driven from Albano Laziale in the south to Bodø in the north, with Hunstad’s parents behind the wheel. And a few weeks later, it returns from Bodø up north to Albano Laziale down south. Then, Hunstad and Selvaggi are driving.
The afternoon sun is reflected on the Mediterranean several kilometers from their window, and the couple talk about the last few months, and years. Their lives changed during these years. In the beginning, they were a family like all others; then they turned into a family with a father convicted of manslaughter.
They talk about the two men in the fish store who start whispering when Selvaggi enters, about all the looks – at the supermarket, in the bank. They talk about guilt, about innocence, justice and injustice. They talk about the shock after the sentence, about depression, and about how time works, “in a perfect way”, to make people deal with what they never imagined they would have to experience.
They also talk about all the help they have received, mainly from abroad, including Norway. In Norway they have colleagues, relatives and friends. They relax there. Among the fjords and mountains at Hunstad, close to Bodø, they find the peace that has been so hard to find in Italy.
As he stands by the shore with his fishing rod, with his wife of 19 years next to him, they feel the weather changing. The air from the land brings the coldness from the glaciers, the air from the sea brings the salt, the mild weather, the rain. In two minutes everything can change.
What will it be like to be here in the autumn or in the winter, when it is cold and dark? How will it be for the kids, will they find friends here?
“No matter what, it is better than being in Italy now,” Ingrid Hunstad says.
If it were up to her, they would move tomorrow. But Giulio Selvaggi wants to wait. He is fighting a battle in Italy, a battle for his freedom. What happened is not fair. He did a good job, and was convicted for it.
But it is nice to be able to breathe, not having to check the news first thing in the morning. It is nice just looking for porpoises in the sea or wondering which fish will bite. Up here, 67 degrees north, Giulio Selvaggi feels part of wild nature. Nothing more, nothing less. Here he is free.
This story is based on communication with Giulio Selvaggi, Ingrid Hunstad, and Vincenzo Vittorini in 2012, 2013, and 2014, on observations in L’Aquila and Albano Laziale in December 2012 and on conversations with inhabitants. Other sources are photographer Tina Alnes Jørgensen, lawyer Marcello Melandri, seismologist Gaetano De Luca living in L’Aquila, seismologist Alessandro Amato at the INGV, professor Kuvvet Atakan at the Institute for Geoscience, University of Bergen, the Association L’Aquila Che Vogliamo, a long list of newspapers and magazines, the minutes of the meeting from 31 March 2009, Ingrid Hunstad’s diary, and photo/video material accessible on the Internet.
309 people died because of the earthquake in L’Aquila, Italy, 6 April 2009. The earthquake had a magnitude of 6.2.
Relatives of 29 victims went to court, convinced that their loved ones had died because they had been calmed down by authorities and experts prior to the earthquake. Without these reassuring messages, they would have left their homes.
In 2012, seven people were convicted for the manslaughter of 29 people. Five were among Italy’s foremost seismologists and geologists, and four of these were members of Commissione Grandi Rischi. The last two accused were both from Protezione Civile (civil protection).
Commissione Grandi Rischi’s duty was to advise authorities in risk situations. Protezione Civile was responsible for informing the citizens.
The seven were convicted of analyzing earthquake risk in a “superficial, approximate and generic” way, and it was implied that they had taken part in a media operation to calm down the citizens. The reasoning of the verdict was 950 pages long.
After the verdict the leader, second leader and forming leader of Commissione Grandi Rischi stepped down from their positions. The verdict made it impossible for them to perform their duties.
All received the same sentence: six years in jail, legal interdiction, financial claims of in total EUR 7.8 million, and loss of the right to recieve salaries from the Italian state. No one admitted guilt.
The appeal started 10 October 2014.
In December 2015 the Danish newspaper
The attack on 55 year old Finn Nørgaard happened on the afternoon of 14 February 2015, when he was shot and killed. He was a photographer, film producer and director, though not widely known in Danish society. He was shot outside the local hall Krudttønden in Copenhagen where he took part in a public debate about freedom of speech. It seems that Omar El-Hussein had planned to attack the participants of this event inside the center. The course of events that led to Finn Nørgaard’s death have not been fully documented, but it is believed that he left the room before or during the moment when Omar El-Hussein was shooting through the windows of the building. On the street, Finn Nørgaard was shot while attempting to overpower Omar. Several policemen were wounded as Omar El-Hussein escaped from the scene. This attack at Krudttønden, the killing of Finn Nørgaard, and the wounding of several policemen were characterized by the Danish Prime Minister at the time, Helle Thorning-Smidt, and the police of Copenhagen, as an act of terror, and an intense hunt for the presumed terrorist began.
Dan Uzan, a 37 year old Jewish man, was shot at 1am by Omar El-Hussein on 15 February, just a few hours after Finn Nørgaard was killed. As he had done many nights before, Dan Uzan was guarding the Copenhagen synagogue and the appurtenant reception rooms as a volunteer. At the time of his shooting, a party of approximately 100 people were celebrating the bar mitzvah of a young girl in the buildings. Dan Uzan was guarding the entrance of the synagogue, unarmed, accompanied only by two policemen. The two policemen were also wounded in the attack.
Neither victim was known to the public before the attack, but the postmortem news coverage of them quickly made them public figures. In this chapter, I deal with some of the reasons why this happened, in order to understand how the narratives about them played a key role in the media’s agenda after the incident, the first on Danish soil with a fatal outcome since the 1980s.
I am inspired by the notion of the ideal victim (Greer,
The aim of the chapter is to show the attempts to construct the two deceased as coherent subjects, and to demonstrate how some of the newspapers idealize the two in distinct ways. I will also investigate the parallels as well as the differences in the ways the national papers impose grief following the loss of the men, since the coverage was not that consensual or integrative. I argue also that some of the frames that I identify in this case can be traced back to a significant controversy in Danish newspapers years before the incident took place. Finally, I present the mutual relations between the mediated frames and the agendas of leading politicians, and argue that the coverage and the identified frames serve both editorial and political purposes.
In order to understand some of the mediated frames in this study I need to present a brief introduction to a settled dispute in Danish media. In 2005, the editor of the newspaper
The cartoon crisis is believed to be a major reason why Danish society has been a target for terrorists for many years. Lars Vilks, who was supposed to speak at Krudttønden when Finn Nørgaard was killed, has been an advocate for the right to depict the Muhammed cartoons in order to pay tribute to freedom of speech.
In the analysis I argue that the constructions of the personalities and identities of the two deceased men from the Copenhagen shootings aim to mobilize the audience and to engage them morally, based on the assumption that the audience engages in identifiable narratives that attempt to create empathy. The mediation of death, not least in this case, is a question of “politicization” (Christensen & Sandvik,
The February 2015 Copenhagen shootings can be defined as a high-profile tragedy (Walter,
The media texts analyzed display a growing tendency to focus on the stories of ordinary people (Coward,
Because the February 2015 Copenhagen shootings are officially labelled as a terrorist attack, it can also be discussed whether the framing of Finn Nørgaard and Dan Uzan is to be analyzed as if the attacks were disastrous events, terror, crime or a combination (Greer,
I choose to analyze five Danish printed newspapers, both broadsheets and tabloids.
I have searched the Danish media database
The choice of these periods represents the idea that mourning post disaster is not a defined process with a closure. Rituals related to death and loss are repeated in a cyclical way in society in general, and ceremonial news coverage is often related to anniversaries of disastrous events (Sumiala,
In this first part of the analysis, I will identify traits from the mediated framing (Entman,
Often, journalists present
The course of events that led to Dan’s death is described as a fatal attempt to obstruct Omar’s plan to attack the synagogue. By his death Dan saved a number of other people from dying (
Hakala’s (
One question differentiates the texts: Did Dan Uzan belong to the small Jewish community or the broad Danish community – or both – after his death? A member of the Jewish community states that “he took the bullets” for the community (
Dan was “an angel”, his father states after his death, Dan held the vision that “evil could only be defeated by kindness” (
The framing of Dan as a sacrificing, non-violent hero, is one of the two frames that stick to Dan in the weeks after his death. This is a strong storyline that “resonates with larger cultural themes” (Gamson & Modigliani,
The attempts to frame the other victim, Finn Nørgaard, contain elements of a core plot (Kitch,
The ambiguity in the efforts to construct Finn as a coherent subject relates first and foremost to the fact that Finn was participating in a public debate about freedom of speech in the local hall at the time he was shot. The competing media frames from the cartoon crisis is one reason why the constructions of Finn as a coherent subject seem to vary more, and his appearance as an individual depends on the newspaper and the editorial line of the newspaper. Among the Danish papers,
But parallel to his participation in the arena discussing the suppression of freedom of speech, his involvement in producing documentaries about the integration of ethnic minorities into Danish society is applied to construct him as a proponent of tolerance, as well as a defender of the freedom to demonize Muslims (
This makes it difficult for some papers to position Finn Nørgaard in the same martyr role (Moeller,
At the same time,
When the newspapers apply frames in order to construct the identity of the deceased, strong attempts are made to leave a specific impression in the reader’s mind (Moeller,
But there is still one struggle left regarding the framing of Finn Nørgaard. In the first days after the shootings, there is no overview of the course of events, and hence no explanation for why Finn Nørgaard faced attacker Omar El-Hussein on the street. It takes days before it is stated in witness testimonials that Finn made an active attempt to defeat the armed terrorist (
The media construct “idealized identities” (Sumiala,
A striking feature in this analysis is the absence of attempts to construct the identities of the two men in the broadsheet newspaper
I will now first analyze the mediated grieving over the two men. Then I will examine how leading Danish politicians adapt the narratives of the deceased, and continue to use the frames provided by the media in relation to their own agendas. There is a significant general interplay and tacit agreement between the media and leading Danish politicians to mourn the two in the first period of time after the attacks, though the mediated frames differed as shown above.
In the case of high-profile tragedies, the media often engage in thorough descriptions of the grief of the bereaved (Chouliaraki,
Media texts that cover memorial ceremonies and funerals as news, are especially “infused with emotions” (Wahl-Jorgensen,
Mourning the deceased is to a large extent displayed in pictures. Shrines from both crime scenes play an important role (Simonsen,
Before the shootings, the Danish Prime Minister in 2015, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, was criticized for not showing her feelings and private side, which affected her image negatively – a critique that is also identified in cases of other female prime ministers (Fonn & Lindholm,
Even though Thorning-Schmidt appears to be a protagonist in the media’s representations of official Danish grief, the newspapers also shed light on the reactions from other politicians, and especially the agreement of mourning the dead. The pictures represent an agreement that the situation calls for mourning. In addition, they convey the message that officials gather across everyday disagreements and conflicts of interest (
After a terror attack, audiences are “invited to feel for, and act upon, the suffering” (Pantti et al.,
The dominant mediated narratives of the subjects Dan and Finn are constructed as a counter balance to the anger and blame that might occur post disaster. In the news media, anger never becomes the prevalent emotion following the Copenhagen shootings. This is done through constructing the identities of the two as idealized victims, who become an antithesis to the meaningless terror attack (Sumiala,
The plots of the narratives of the two men are not identical, but attempts are made to give the two men an equal status, to unify them, and mourn them in the same way.
However, in this last part of the analysis, I will present the media’s subtle struggles to define whether one is more worthy of grief than the other. The contours of a hierarchy of grief begin to manifest themselves not long after the attacks. Accounts of the deceased construct a hierarchy of grief (Andersen,
One argument is that the death of Dan Uzan should be mourned the most, due to the vulnerability of the Jews. In a letter to the editor of If you stretch your tolerance, you might get a vague understanding of how the aggressors resort to violence to oppose the criticism of and satire on their religion, but it is impossible to comprehend why they, as a cynical appendix, had to cause an attack on Jewish institutions (
This perspective is also found in a column written in the same newspaper by former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Uffe Ellemann-Jensen. Again, a differentiation is being made between the causes of the attacks on the two men. Elleman-Jensen argues that the lesson to be learned from the shootings is that “we ought to guard our Jews more actively and demonstratively […] without the Jews our country would be a poorer country” ( ignores […] the second victim […] who is not mentioned as one of the citizens that Denmark has to protect […] Ellemann-Jensen flirts with risky logic, when he attributes to one victim more right to protection than the other […]. Two men were killed in Copenhagen this weekend. Both were in need of protection (
Even though a partial consensus is temporarily reached in the mediated frames of the two, and despite the fact that the plots of the narratives about the two and how they were killed is framed within a discourse of heroism in a self-sacrificial way, dissent continues. In December 2015, a very overt controversy over who to mourn the most, breaks out. Whereas the first debate seemed subtle, this is not the case in the debate that occurs later.
In his New Year’s Speech on Danish television a few weeks later, Lars Løkke Rasmussen begins with a tribute to Dan Uzan: “Dan possessed courage: the courage to be kind. He protected the guests at a confirmation party. He guarded others, without caring for himself.” The choice to enhance Dan Uzan, and not mention Finn Nørgaard, is strongly criticized in the months that follow. Finn’s sister expresses her devastation in long interviews carried out a year after the attacks ( I understand Finn Nørgaard’s sister. I have had the same thought. I have great, great respect for both – and their families. It is true that Finn Nørgaard has passed into oblivion, and that is not fair […] I believe that Dan Uzan has received a lot of honor – which definitely is well-deserved. Though I have been thinking: Where is Finn Nørgaard in all this? (
It is peculiar and strongly conspicuous to mention the one, but not the other […] one can definitely talk about ‘damnatio memoriae’ […] [which] means that you wipe out the memory of someone […] They also did so in Hitler’s Germany and in Stalin’s Soviet Union (
The first interview initiating the explicit questioning of whether Dan is worth more grief than Finn is presented in
The consequence of this overt controversy is that, in the months that follow, the media, politicians, and others make sure to mention both men when references are made to the shootings.
In this chapter, I have analyzed a case of how death initiates journalism that involves the construction of identities and emotions. This is an example of the ways the media frame the identity of victims differently, and how media texts can be understood as tributes to people who die in spectacular and unforeseen events. Although the case analyzed in this chapter can be characterized by a low number of casualties and, in that respect, is not as disastrous and overwhelming as other recent terrorist attacks, it provides an opportunity for an in-depth analysis of how the media construct identities – also of the deceased. In this case, the journalistic media strive to construct the two men as coherent subjects, and they appear as highly valuable victims. As idealized victims they become points of identification for loss and suffering.
In the case of the Copenhagen shootings, the media coverage accords a great deal of attention to the deceased, to the bereaved family and friends, and to official representatives. The salience of this is to a large degree a question of repetition (Entman,
I have identified a pattern in the way media frames are applied. Most of the media – and leading politicians – apply what seem to be consensual frames: The media cover the deaths of the two as a sacrifice to be remembered as heroism, which is constructed as an ultimate ideal. The constructions of both men’s identities seem to underline the dominant ideology advocated by the media and the state: strive for peace and avoid conflict. This frame can be identified in many cultural and national settings, and it is not really questioned in the media or among politicians.
Another frame is more contested. This frame can be traced back to the beginning of the Danish cartoon crisis and has had a longer national history in Denmark. The frame regards the importance of avoiding the demonization of Muslims. A contrary frame in Danish public debate is the importance of freedom of speech. These are binary frames in a Danish context that have dominated public debate for years. They are oppositional, held in a dialectical relationship (Gamson & Modigliani,
All frames identified are prior to the case (Vreese,
By framing the men as sacrificing heroes, whose death will not lead to conflict and exclusion of Muslims from Danish society, the media personalize a possible and suitable solution to the social problem of intolerance and conflict among people with different religious backgrounds. In this respect, mourning the deaths is a way to gather the audience in a political project. The audience is invited to engage in a reinforcement of solidarity, though the attempts do not pass without controversy. Finn Nørgaard’s sacrifice seems more complex than Dan Uzan’s. The blurred narratives of Finn seem to trouble a coherent framing, and the apparent controversy of whom to mourn the most leads to a hierarchy.
The expansion of stories concerning emotions and sentiments is by some labeled as
There are a number of doublets in both samples since the names of both men appear in parts of the texts.
In 2011, Norway experienced a lone wolf terrorist attack. It was the worst event in the country since World War II. The terrorist first placed a car bomb close to the government building in downtown Oslo, where Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg had his office. The explosion killed eight people and wounded 209 others. Just less than two hours later, the terrorist went on to massacre 69 people, mostly youths, at a Labour Party (AP) summer camp.
Five years later, there is no lack of research on this terror event. Yet, few researchers have focused on how journalists experienced the tension between the need for informing the audience objectively and in a balanced way, on one hand, while on the other having to deal with a reality that might have appeared surreal at the moment. An important issue in understanding journalism is the notion of professionalism. Örnebring frames the notion of professionalism as a “bulwark against both excessive partisanship and rampant commercialization, or a tool used to achieve societal power without accountability and to ensure a steady supply of docile employees” (Örnebring,
Few scholars have looked at whether journalists experience a break with objectivity as a strategic ritual during an event like a terror attack, when family members or friends might be part of the tragedy or when they might even know the terrorist personally. If, under these (extremely subjective) conditions, journalists try to hold onto objectivity as a strategic priority, how do they do so? Karin Wahl-Jorgensen (
Tuchman (
This article argues that journalists tend to be depicted simply as an extension of the media industry for which they work, rather than as creative individuals who might be socially aware. As Cottle points out, journalists “are more consciously and knowingly involved with, and purposefully productive of, news texts and output than they are often theoretically given credit for” (2000, p. 22). Analyses have shown that TV journalists and producers are very aware of the subjective strategic rituals of their daily practices. Rather than falling in line with Coward’s (2013, p. 8) claim that they always aim for “impartial” and “objective” reporting, they know how to organise their work so as to impact the final product as they see fit. In other words, as this chapter will demonstrate, the reporters interviewed for this article not only knew how to handle professional rituals and accommodate the needs of their sponsoring institutions, but also actively pursued their own ends and agendas. As they performed their roles as anchors, live reporters or investigative journalists, they applied various strategies with new-found autonomy.
Tuchman (
Breaking news, such as terror events, is hard news, and part of what Tuchman called developing stories. Occasionally, a story simply grows as more facts are gathered, until they become what in her days was known as “what-a-story” (1978, p. 59; for later labels, see also Berkowitz
For this article, we interviewed twenty-four journalists in a semi-structured, qualitative manner between July and October 2011, including reporters, photographers, editors, middle managers and news editors. Our point of departure was a seminar at Norwegian TV2 during which journalists discussed dilemmas regarding the ways in which reporting on their own cultural context was sometimes “too close for comfort”. This seminar inspired us to look more closely at those dilemmas, especially in relation to the abiding tradition of objectivity in journalism. In this chapter, the sample includes interviews from personnel representing three media organisations geographically situated close to the terror event.
The first is NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting Cooperation), the public broadcasting service in Norway that creates content for TV, radio and the web. The organisation consists of a central main office (located close to the city centre in Oslo) and several regional offices all over Norway (Erdal,
The second organisation is the commercial counterpart to NRK: TV2 News. It was first established in 1992, and was created on the condition that TV2 would produce alternate TV news (Waldahl et al. 2006, p. 67). Since 2000, TV2 News has: had an increased focus on breaking news and live production; more focus on the presenters; developed new technology, speedier production, and more production of news content in less time with less resources. In 2007, TV2 established a 24/7 news channel, although as part of the already existing news production (Lund 2013, p. 110).
The third organisation in this study is the the newspaper VG’s online edition, which was established in 1995 (Lund and Puijk 2012, p. 71). The newspaper itself has an important place in Norwegian history as it was established by members of the Norwegian Resistance right after World War II. It is presently owned by the Schibsted Group. The newspaper has grown to be the biggest tabloid newspaper in Norway, and launched its online edition in 1995. This is the most popular Internet news site in Norway.
As mentioned earlier, as an illustrative case study in journalistic adaptation during a crisis event, we chose the lone-wolf terror attack in Norway on 22 July 2011. It remains one of the few terror attacks committed by a domestic rightwing individual, and it suited our study because it forced journalists to think “outside the box”. There was nothing in Norwegian history nor in the Norwegian cultural psyche that could have prepared the populace for comprehending what was happening in their normally peaceful country on 22 July 2011, and journalists experienced the same lack of emotional and general coping mechanisms.
Right after the bomb exploded at the main government building in downtown Oslo, a peculiar situation occurred in front of the VG building, a media house, across the street. The blast from the bomb blew out the front windows of the media building. Reporters were told to evacuate the building, and they then walked down the staircase before entering the street where there were wounded and dead people lying on the ground. Several informants noted that some of their colleagues started to run But I am used to working with breaking news and sudden events. […] I felt like I should contribute. I expected that of myself and I am sure others expected this of me as well. And in comparison to a summer temp . . . I should contribute. And it was summer and not a lot of people were at work. There were a lot of summer temps, and I think they did a very good job that evening. But you can’t expect them to run upstairs. And then maybe it is OK that . . . we’ll have to do it then, sort of. (Senior Reporter VG Nett, 30.09.11)
The decision to disobey orders of the security guards as well as the police was hard but necessary, some felt. A younger reporter even said that he was willing to die for the newspaper in order to get information out to the audience (Online Reporter VG Nett). Reporters felt that objective, balanced reporting would help the public to be better informed in this most crucial phase and, at least in the very beginning of the event, did not focus on social media. According to these journalists, the only way to take control of the situation was to return to the one place they He [the editor] sort of said, “You are here of your own free will. You are here voluntarily. I cannot vouch for your safety in being here”. (Senior Reporter VG Nett, 30.09.11)
In his own interview, the editor switches between sympathy for anyone who might want to leave and admiration for those who stayed (as all of them did):
There were perhaps one or two of those [reporters] who joined us later, who were uncertain whether or not it was a good idea, whether or not it was safe, but who chose to do it anyway. On their
Several of the staff members of this team who forced their way back into the newsroom emphasised that the job came first, and then came the personal realisation of the extent of the tragedy and its resonance. The leader of this group explained his approach to all of the day’s subjective experiences and emotions from a different angle, seeing them almost as valuable resources for the objective professional. He noted that it was, oddly, a dream for a journalist to be working so close to a breaking news event, even one as horrific as this. When asked to elaborate, he explained that he had long worked with people who had been through major events, and now felt he could identify with them and understand or even share in their strength: “To experience yourself what you have looked for in others . . . is interesting” (ibid.).
In contrast to the example above, the editors at TV2 had a slightly different challenge. TV2’s main office is located in Bergen, on the west coast of Norway, and another office is located in downtown Oslo, not far from the government building. Until the attack on 22 July 2011, this split arrangement had been frequently discussed internally at TV2. In October 1990, the Norwegian parliament had decided that TV2’s main office had to be located in Bergen (Syvertsen, I was sitting at my place at the newsdesk on the fifth floor in the newsroom and talking to [the evening news editor in Bergen] […] We were brainstorming ideas to improve the 9 pm news broadcast. […] which is quite ironic to think about afterwards. As we exchanged ideas aloud, there was an explosion. (Desk Editor, TV2, 25.08.2011)
At that moment, the Oslo news editor thought the sound of the explosion might have come from some of the technical production equipment on TV2’s rooftop. The whole building trembled, and parts of the plastic lamps in the ceiling fell to the floor. About thirty people were in the newsroom, the editor recalled, and some screamed aloud, and ran back and forth. A couple of team members were sent to the government building, and then the phones started ringing everywhere and e-mails began to arrive. The news editor recalled that after two or three minutes, he knew it was a bomb attack, and that the bomb had exploded in the government quarters (Desk Editor, 25.08.2011).
From this point on, the news editor had to field various incoming inquiries, including calls from staff members in the field:
There was a lot of shouting and screaming . . . of course when you arrive at the government quarter and see the situation there, many reacted strongly. […] You hear it on the phone. It is not difficult to hear that. (Desk Editor 25.08.2011)
This news editor explained that he understood the staff members’ dramatic reactions, but then went on to advocate the ideal of objective and balanced media coverage by emphasising that when “you are at work, you
This news editor, then, clearly privileges capturing the event on camera at any cost. By using words like “shouting and screaming” to describe the reactions of his offsite colleagues, he distances himself from their emotional involvement and represents the ideal of the distant observer, someone who is cool and balanced and in control, with no emotional attachment. This editor’s behaviour is in marked contrast to the way in which the top news editor of TV2 News talked about his experience that evening. We held this interview three weeks after the event, and he displayed both an editor’s professional distance and an attitude of acceptance towards the subjective and emotional reactions of his colleagues:
We are used to covering the worst incidents in the world and we take on a role. Often the reaction comes afterwards, but you need to do your job. You reflect upon your work: “Okay, I need to hurry, hurry, if I am going to be able to produce this within the deadline. I need to fix this and that. This is shit but . . .” […] then reactions follow. I also have the same reaction as many reporters speak about. I have covered the tsunami, and I have walked among dead bodies in Thailand. I have talked to the victims’ relatives and all that. However, this was different, because it happened at home. It did something to us. Also, as a reporter you understand that earthquakes happen. It is understandable that a bus full of kids might hit a rock wall. Of course it is a tragedy, but tragedies do happen. That a twisted person among our own people walks around and executes children, that should not be allowed to be understood. It is not possible to accept. The fear he spread around for about one and a half hours out there [on Utøya], the damage he caused, it is not possible to grasp. It awakens a different kind of feeling in you than during natural disasters or a huge traffic accident. [ ] Then I thought: “It is OK. Why should I be unaffected? Why should I be balanced now when so many people are experiencing an indescribable hell?” (News editor TV2 News, 11.08.2011)
This high-ranking manager at TV2 recognises the importance of showing empathy, compassion and emotion during an event such as this. He was also comfortable talking about it in our interview a couple of weeks later. His openness concerning his emotional state was clearly different from how our other informants explained their feelings The reporters from all the other organisations emphasised that they prioritised the job, and dismissed their emotional responses in the name of their professionalism. In other words, the manager clearly expressed and processed feelings, while the news workers chose to focus on routines and practices, and did not identify emotions as part of the journalistic profession, even during extreme events.
The situation in the newsroom may not have been significantly different in terms of news production and content management, but the situation in the field was creating new challenges.
NRK was headquartered further from where the bomb exploded than either TV2 or VG. One journalist informant recalled being notified by a flash message from the Norwegian News Agency (NTB) at about 3.40 pm. While he quickly grasped the magnitude of the event, the photographer he took with him was new to the job and slower to understand what was happening. When they arrived at the site, both saw that it was even bigger than they had imagined:
[At first] I am focused on not speculating on who was behind the attack. First of all, we did not know if this was terror. We observed huge damage, but did not know the motive. I remember keeping the options open, but concluding that we did not know what it is. It might be a gas explosion; it might be a bomb. We did not know. We needed to wait to hear what the police would say. Then, some of the experts in the studio, whom I heard talking through my earpiece, started talking about Al-Qaida. […] I reacted to that, standing at the location, because in my experience it was too early [to make this statement]. [Senior Reporter NRK, 9.10.2011]
It is clear that the reporter on site saw things that made him gauge the situation differently from those journalists who remained in-house. Still, the experts in the studio were being encouraged to analyse in a vacuum, while the reporter had not been asked to do the same. Later, the police confirmed that a bomb had exploded, and the reporter realised that this invited such speculation. The NRK informants all remarked upon the gap between the news workers who were located safely indoors, and those who worked more independently outside. One technician who was immersed in work at the site lamented the fact that the indoor staff workers were better accommodated, and that the desk editors often lacked the competence to organise or allocate the right resources to the right person:
There were simple things, like the fact that we have some equipment that can be used in the city where we do not need a satellite, and we have some equipment that requires one. We can only use that if we can make contact with the satellite. But the satellite is not straight above; it is sort of to the side. So if a house blocks it, it won’t work. So, downtown in Oslo, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. The editors didn’t understand this. I tried to explain it a hundred times and how this is very important.
This statement notes the chaos of the initial phase of the event and highlights the problems associated with not having access to the right person with the right competence at the right moment. He then described the situation when he was working closer to Utøya:
No one thought about us, and when you’re sitting there and have been working twenty hours straight and haven’t eaten in about twenty hours, uh . . . you get really provoked when you receive an email about how dinner is served and dessert, and I don’t know what the fuck they are getting, you know. […] All the organising for those out in the field was not good. [ Technician NRK, 9.10.2011 ]
In addition to concerns about organisational constraints, this quote shows how distance to the main office affects working conditions. Although the technicians do not have an editor looking over their shoulder, they were also affected by lack of resources. Here the technician shows how isolating it can be to work in the field. In this instance, the indoor environment appeared safer, more comfortable and more team-oriented. In other words, to be able to use their given autonomy and have more control over the work, they need to have the possibility to do so.
Even though reporters and technicians are assigned to certain missions when working outdoors and away from the newsroom, such work comes with dilemmas that require decision making without having to contact the editor. At TV2 for example, a team consisting of a reporter and a photographer arrived at the TV2 newsdesk from an assignment on Utøya, ironically, just as the event unfolded in Oslo, while the terrorist was making his way to where they had been. The experienced news reporter from this team ran straight to the government building, because he and his photographer had heard the blast in their car. The photographer followed and recalled how she just let her camera record everything, except for about five minutes as she crossed over from the street (Grubbegata) behind the government building and experienced a complete loss of memory (Photographer/Reporter, 5.8.2011). She explained that she needed to take control of herself and make her own choice whether or not to continue filming: “Everyone becomes their own news editor, in a way,” she said. Ethical considerations were particularly individual: “You need to make some serious choices concerning what length you can go to”. This was true of the aforementioned, high-ranking TV2 editor as well, who described in great detail his own struggle to reconcile himself to his work, however difficult:
So this did a lot more to me as a human than as a journalist. . . I thought this was horrible. And I barely ate and slept. So I thought, “It is okay. Because why should I have . . . Why should I not be affected by this? Why should I be okay when so many people are feeling extremely bad?” So it is, it is manageable. But what I also said to myself is, “Now I am emotionally affected. I have to be more democratic, listen more, and have more meetings than usual, because I cannot trust 100 per cent in my own judgment”. So I just had to admit that I can’t . . . make a decision like “Yes! Let’s do it!” as I can do more easily when things are more distant. So I went for more of a . . . opened it up more, went for a more democratic style. And I hope that does not make me look insecure, but that it was seen as inclusive and . . . that better decisions were made because of it. (News Editor, TV2, 17.08.11)
Another reporter on 22 July went in a different direction and decided to rely on her own instincts and decisions. She was broadcasting live from the hotel where both survivors and their family members were being given shelter. She was among those reporters who were interviewing the people there, and had to decide who could manage it and who could not. She also described a dual role as both a professional journalist and a caring fellow human being.
Yes. Like those people I talked about and what I became the most aware of by being out there was “You have to be an empathic person”. That came quite intuitively to me. Later, I reflected upon the fact that this is part of my regular personality. I am frequently “out to get” politicians. Then, empathy is not part of my job. Then my style is very tough, you know. While the job I did here, it was . . . There was the professional part of me, but I also needed to use that part of my personality which I do not really use at work. It became sort of a dual role – which worked. (TV2 Reporter, TV2 19.08.11)
Unlike the previous informant, who felt that he would not be able to trust himself because he was emotionally affected by what had happened, this informant used emotions such as empathy, warmth and caring as part of her professional work. Compassion was even more important in this example, where the reporter witnessed a survivor in shock who was being surrounded by a horde of journalists:
A girl [survivor from Utøya, our comment] walks out from the hotel. She’s going to the store. Journalists are flocking around her and she is standing up against a fence, that type of iron fence you can find on a pedestrian – you know, a high fence. And journalists are flocking around her […] I am asking her questions as well. […] And I look at her during the interview, and at all of the journalists surrounding her, pressing her up against the fence. And I turn to the photographer and say, “We are cutting this off. I can’t be a part of this”. I can tell that she is in shock. And I can tell from her answers and facial expressions that this is too much. But she . . . she is in a situation she can’t get out of. She gets questions in English and in Norwegian and it is not a good situation. So we pull out and walk away and I say, “Just delete that interview, we’re not sending it home. Remove it from the tape so that it doesn’t . . . so that it won’t come out in any sort of way”. The photographer agrees. He was thinking the same thing almost before I was. Then I see a policeman and I go up to him and say to him: “Listen. You have to prepare these kids who come out here, that there is a lot of press here. Look up there. There is a young girl there. It looks to me as if she is in a situation she does not want to be in. I don’t know for sure but someone should go up there and take responsibility”. (Reporter TV2, 19.08.11)
These examples demonstrate a profound awareness of and ability to reflect on the ways in which subjectivity matters when individuals are confronted with ethical and other dilemmas during a terror situation. During times of terror, it turns out that the “managed” are less managed than usual, and rather find themselves in a position where they must rely on their own interpretation of what constitutes news, and what is in the best interest of the people affected and the audience watching/reading/listening. During terror and crises the “managed” are required to rise to the occasion, grasp the challenge inherent in not being managed and enter into the role of self-managers. As seen above, this requires journalists to be capable of managing their roles as professionals, but also to rely upon their subjective judgements and individual resources. This point is illustrated in the quote above where the reporter stepped out of her role as a professional, even though it risked limiting her task as reporter, and rather used her personal judgement as a human. Interestingly, when the reporter was asked to verify her quote, she worried that she would get criticised for being unprofessional. Back in her everyday professional life she wanted an institutional confirmation to legitimise her behavior, and chose to disclose her identity as informant to the management when asking them to decide whether or not she should permit this quote to be published. Interestingly, when interviewed and reflecting back upon the event, the reporter wondered if that moment of humanity in fact could be viewed as a breach of professionalism. In other words, even if the managed appear to gain autonomy during crises and terror, actions may later be re-evaluated in light of existing journalistic norms and codes.
Many reporters felt that personal and subjective feelings had to be controlled. Journalists’ reflections upon subjectivity versus objectivity, and upon their emotions during their coverage of a terror attack, clearly demonstrate that they remained well aware of their humanity despite the veneer of neutrality. This is especially so during big crises or terror events which affect entire communities, and thus increase the probability that journalists know victims personally. During the 22 July attack, reporters felt the importance of “the job first”. Some reporters were faced with the challenge of how to handle professionally the fact that the attacker was a childhood acquaintance. A journalist who grew up geographically near the terrorist, in the same community, expressed sadness about not having been able to participate in the national grieving process, because he had to put that all aside and work:
I was born and raised in Oslo, and as it turns out, I was the same age and from the same borough as the perpetrator. Childhood friends of mine even remember him from when we were young. Personally, I think it is a shame that you [as a reporter] had to push these things aside. On the other hand, I felt it was rewarding to be able to communicate to hundreds of thousands or more readers. There are mixed emotions. But I . . . for my part the emotions were cast aside. I have considered taking a few moments to myself to go through all of this stuff, but as of now have not bothered to do so. 22 July was first of all work. The tragedy came next (VG Nett Online Reporter 2011).
This autonomy may also be extended to how reporters choose to be sources of information. The NRK reporter who grew up near where the terrorist lived, decided to handle this shock by writing a commentary for BBC online rather than agreeing to any interviews with his peers:
I did not want to be quoted as an interviewee in a talk-show or be “sound-bited” from that. But I understood that the information was going to be published, so I preferred to turn it into a narrative and state that this is my story. This is it! Bam! Here you go! Here it is! Then people can use it if they want, but I have told the story in my own words. […] It was important for me to do it in such a way that I could control the quality, the way the words were uttered. […] There were newspapers in Norway and in Sweden that used parts of it. And that was fine. It was better to do that than to do one hundred interviews with journalists asking trick questions. (Senior Reporter NRK, 9.11.2011)
In this way, this reporter took control of an unexpected finding: he actually knew the terrorist he had speculated about throughout his coverage. Instead of letting himself be turned into an interviewee, and thereby become part of the bigger story, he chose to engage differently with the news in order to protect himself. In other words, he chose his own strategy when it came to handling requests from his colleagues in the media and in the press.
A rising numbers of terror incidents affecting entire communities, including both big and small towns and countries, where reporters are challenged by the proximity of relations illustrate the difficulty for news workers to hold on to a professional role. Rather we see how this forces journalists to look for strategies elsewhere than in their professional role.
This study has looked at whether and how journalists cope with, and reflect upon, subjective and individual choices during their coverage of a terror attack. Through an examination of the roles and perspectives of news personnel from three different institutions, TV2, VG and NRK, we found that journalists working in teams tended to modify their choices according to some overall personal and individual aim or goal of their coverage. Reporters assigned to work in the field had more latitude in making their own choices and decisions — for example, the TV2 news reporter who alerted the police about her concerns for a young victim being crowded by the press demonstrated a high degree of self-awareness in doing so. Yet all of the journalists in the field who were confronted with emotional proximity to this tragedy explicitly emphasised that they retreated to the habits and norms of their professionalism in order to focus solely on their tasks. Later, they would try to dwell more on the event for personal and subjective reasons, though this was not always easy.
Editors and managers seemed better able to handle such situations in tandem with their personal and subjective emotional reactions. One contributing factor might be that the managers and editors stayed within the newsrooms and worked as teams, whereas the reporters in the field were more directly interacting with victims and ordinary people on the streets away from other journalists. On the other hand, some of the interviewed editors also shared the experience of the reporter out in the streets facing despair in terms of emotional upheaval. This raises the question as to whether news editors and managers atop the newsroom hierarchy allow themselves more latitude for their feelings than the regular workers “on the floor”. It is also important to note that journalists in the field are also often senior reporters with a higher status, particularly in television, and they may have more latitude in this regard as well.
Ultimately, it remains uncertain how much awareness journalists have of their personal investment in the news events they cover. While both journalists and managers rise to the occasion decisions often take place intuitively more than reflectively. Since some of the interviews took place several months after the incident, the reporters would have had time to reflect upon the fact that they needed to act and think outside the boundaries of how they on an everyday basis would have defined professionalism, and how this affected them during the coverage. This study finds that reflections on a deeper level turned out to be difficult for the informants. However, this only proves how important it is to aim for a better understanding of how journalists and reporters experience emotion during traumatic events. Moments of terror and tragedy bring such considerations to the fore, and further study would do well to engage with both the workers and the workplace to determine the nature of the negotiations that are required.
The massacre took place on an island, Utøya, in the county of Buskerud, Norway.
On 19 December 2016, Anis Amri became the most wanted man in Europe for a few short days. The young Tunisian had driven a stolen truck into a packed Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 and maiming more than 50 people. Within hours, his face was in every newspaper, on every news web page and on every television screen. His individual physiognomic features were on display for anyone to see. Yet there was something generic about this exposure, as if Amri’s individual features were just a minor modification of the modern terrorist-as-archetype: a young man of Middle Eastern descent. On 23 December, Amri was shot dead by Italian police and his face quickly disappeared from the news.
Amri’s trajectory through life may have ended there, but his face has been added to the steadily building terrorist hall of notoriety. He was not the most famous, his crime not the most cunning. In several respects, he was a nobody, and thus easily forgotten by all who were not directly harmed by his actions. In this chapter, I will nevertheless use his story as a point of departure to discuss and develop Mette Mortensen’s concept of the photographed face as a symbolic battlefield, exposing the often ambiguous fault lines between the individual as a private person and a political citizen (Mortensen,
When the media publishes an ID (or, ID-like) photograph, it may at first glance seem like a case of individual exposure. Yet, the physical shape and form of such photographs contribute to the shaping of a distinct and recognizable terrorist iconography. Regardless of the face filling the frame, and regardless of the origin of the actual photograph, the visual form of the terrorist mugshot has become a familiar and easily understandable image, drawing, as Mortensen points out, on visual references such as the automatically generated ID photo and the police mugshot. It is, of course, not the only way to visualize terrorists, but it may seem as if this particular visual language is reserved for society’s most prominent social outcasts. But why do the media frame terrorists in this particular manner? How do these seemingly authorless portraits perform differently from other photographic portraits in the media? What is the purpose and politics of such apparently straightforward and artistically not very challenging depictions? While Mortensen elaborates the genealogy and multifaceted use of the ID photograph at large, my focus is limited to the terrorist mugshot’s exposure in the news media. As Kress and van Leeuwen pointed out as early as in 1996, the newspaper (or digital web) page is not primarily a stage where the photograph is allowed to perform, but should be considered a semiotic space where numerous entangled relations simultaneously restrict and enable the way it performs. The processes behind such entanglements are sometimes labelled manipulation, but I will consciously avoid such language because it connotes a level of consciousness that is not necessarily relevant. To communicate quickly and efficiently the media play with whatever tropes and conventions that work, or are available to them. It goes without saying that shortcuts and simplifications are part of these processes, still I believe it is interesting to investigate how, and at what expense, a visual convention is formed.
“Every person’s story is written plainly on his face, though not everyone can read it.” This quote is attributed to the German photographer August Sander, one of the founding fathers of modern portrait photography. Sander worked in the 1930’s and his aim was to create a catalogue of the German people in the Weimar republic (Clarke, We know that people are formed by light and air, their inherited traits, and their actions, and that we recognise people and distinguish one from another by their appearance. We can tell from appearance the work someone does or does not do; we can read in his face whether he is happy or troubled, for life unavoidably leaves its trace there (ibid., p. 71).
When Anis Amri ran from the crime scene in Berlin, German police released two ID photos of him that were reproduced by European media (
We do not know very much about Amri’s life, but a compilation of several media sources tell us that he left Tunisia in the aftermath of the Arab spring, in 2011 (e.g.
One of his brothers stated to the media that there were no signs that Anis Amri was about to commit violence. Another brother, however, claimed that prison had changed him. “He went into prison with one mentality and when he came out he had a totally different mentality,” he said to the BBC. Then he denounced his brother: “He doesn’t represent us or our family” (
The family further released their own photograph of Amri to the press (
Even a fourth photograph was circulated (
This image includes more detail and as a case of self-representation it suggests that Amri wished to be remembered as a jihadist. Passport style photographs have a more limited purpose. They only register the physiognomic features, and are supposed to be void of emotions or other signs of personality. Interestingly, the photographs that are supposed to represent our truest self on our most important personal documents reveal very little about us, apart from the most prominent physical features. As Mortensen states (2012, p. 177), the security aspect in passport photographs is based solely on the relation between image and body, and a supposed correspondence between the two. Yet, it is illusory in today’s globalized society to assume that a person’s identity stays fixed when the body is mobile (ibid., p. 178). Actually, it is ancient knowledge that this relation is far from stable. Even Louis Bertillon, one of the founding fathers of physiognomy realised that resemblance is a fluid category somewhere between physical correspondence (the geometry of the face) and physiognomic correspondence (the face as an emblem of the character/type) (ibid., p. 265).
Together, Amri’s faces document a change, from young man to adulthood. They might also document his transition from petty criminal to jihadist, but they do not provide enough information for us to be able to connect the dots. What happened to the young Anis’ dreams and ambitions is, however, a question not only of academic (or human) interest, it may also be considered relevant from a security angle. It makes a significant political difference if we choose to understand Amri as inherently evil, if we blame his Christmas market terror act on potential Islamist radical forces he met in prison or after, or if we bear in mind that the obviously harsh confrontation with the European border regime in Italy may have been a catalyst in this young man’s life.
It should be noted that to be open to such questions is not to relieve Amri or other terrorists of the responsibility for their actions. It is rather to acknowledge that a personality is not something that develops in a vacuum, and that even extreme actions have relational aspects. The media’s choice of imagery, however, signals to the public that we are not going to go down that road.
In this article, I choose to discuss the terrorist mugshot as a portrait, simply because it displays a person’s face. But how does it differ from other portraits in the media? To answer this question it is worth taking a brief look at the history of the portrait. Central to this discussion is the heritage from the physiognomic works of Johann Caspar Lavater and his
As Sigrid Lien points out, the belief in physiognomy as a science in its own right also came to influence the art world, in particular the modernist portrait with its ambition to unravel a person’s authentic self (1998, p. 24). Photography played an influential role in this development, because of the photograph’s ability to record the human body accurately. In art, however, the focus gradually shifted away from this fascination for the surface and was replaced by the idea of the human self as something hidden, something that needed uncovering in a more complex manner. According to photography critic John Tagg: “The portrait is […] a sign whose purpose is both the description of an individual and the inscription of social identity” (1988, p. 37). Little by little, the understanding of the portrait as a representation not only of the object in front of the camera, but also the person behind it, emerged.
Today’s photojournalistic portraits belong to this latter category. We may distinguish between type portraits and psychological portraits (Lien,
With more and more biometric technology available, the days of the ID photo may very well be numbered as a favoured guarantor of a person’s identity. In the media, however, this photographic genre is not likely to become obsolete any time soon. On the contrary, the ID-like photo resembles a so-called “kinder egg”, providing one solution to three different problems. It identifies a perpetrator, it symbolically contains him/her in a visual form that spells deviancy and, as Lashmar (
As a general rule, the role of the (Western) media changes when faced with major dramatic events that may tear society’s fabric apart (e.g. Dayan and Katz,
In the case of terror attacks, visual strategies are particularly interesting as terrorism is usually strongly iconoclastic (e.g. Mitchell,
From this angle, the terrorist mugshot may be read as a symbolic counter attack. In this form and shape, the terrorist is identified, but simultaneously reduced to a poster character. According to Mortensen, this legacy was accentuated in its modern form by the massive suicide attacks on 11 September in 2001 where 19 Al Qaida jihadists crashed two hijacked passenger airplanes into the World Trade Center in New York, a third into the Pentagon and a fourth, meant for targets in Washington DC, ended in a field in Pennsylvania. The media printed their ID photos side by side and, according to Mortensen, there is a certain irony in the fact that the same portraits that secured the terrorists entrance into the US were the ones the media used to distinguish them as outsiders. One by one, each terrorist did not look deviant, and research has shown that they were actually conscious about not drawing any unwanted attention from border authorities. With their shaved chins and short hair, these 19 young men basically corresponded to American authorities’ physiognomic ideas about what a good citizen should look like (Mortensen,
The media did have access to other photographs, but still preferred the ID photos. Mortensen explains this partly with reference to the visual legacy of the “Wanted Dead or Alive” posters in US popular culture, particularly American Western movies, but also to the ID photograph’s many similarities to the police mugshot. The ID photo thus symbolically merged the police’s formal registration of a criminal’s physical appearance with the Wanted Poster’s not very subtle insinuations about the vile criminal personality. One may even argue that the form has become the emblem and thus more important than the content in these cases. In later terror attacks, real ID photos have not always been accessible. In such cases, it has not been uncommon to crop portraits and to adjust their frames so that they look ID-like. In this way, the same effect is accomplished, and a similar visual statement is provided.
We know from the literature that the murderer is the ultimate “other”, and the more horrid the actions, the more the killer must be separated from society’s “us”. As John Taylor notes, “Murder is essentially uncivil” (1998, p. 125). Concerning media images of murderers, it is not new that they are presented in headshots (e.g. police mugshots, entering or leaving a trial or private snapshots). According to Taylor, this is another remnant of the nineteenth century physiognomic fascination for the relation between inner evil and its outward features:
Killers’ faces still stand for “evil”, as if killing is foretold in the shape or tilt of the head, or leaves its mark on brows or eyes. But these photographic revelations appear only after the events of murder detection or conviction (ibid., p. 116).
The terrorist is the worst of criminals. Criminal actions, and in particular terrorism, make the criminal less entitled to a soul, and as a consequence they are less entitled to a true portrait, exploring their personality and psychology. The terrorist mugshot thus becomes part of their symbolic punishment. As pointed out by Foucault, crime, spectacle and punishment are historically interconnected, and public humiliation often constitutes part of the punitive process (Lashmar,
If the media act differently, they risk offending their public. This was the case in Norway in 2011, after the terror attacks in Oslo and Utøya, where the Norwegian right wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people in a few hours. When his identity was known, there was no ID photo of him, apart from an airbrushed version on his Facebook profile. The media had to choose between the staged and idolized images he had left in his so-called political manifesto and a snapshot of him in a police car photographed a few days later. In this photo, he sports a curious Mona Lisa smile and it looks as if he is pleased to be photographed. The Norwegian news media, and in particular the tabloid
The photograph of Breivik’s face was a case of what the iconologist WJT Mitchell calls ‘offending images’ where the image seems to be “transparently and immediately linked to what it represents” (2005, p. 127). According to Mitchell, people often respond to images instinctively rather than rationally and imbue them with magical thinking. When people react physically to an image (like destroying them, mutilating them or turning from them), they react as if the image may experience whatever is done to it, as if it …the image possesses a kind of vital, living character that makes it capable of feeling what is done to it. It is not merely a transparent medium for communicating a message, but something like an animated, living thing, an object with feelings, intentions, desires, and agency (ibid.).
For some, Breivik’s face was thus not properly contained. Whether the classic terrorist mugshot would have been more acceptable is, of course, hard to know. Breivik was Norwegian, blue-eyed and homegrown. He did not fit the established terrorist typology simply because he threatened society from the inside, and not from the outside. An ID photo may not have been enough to symbolically reduce and control him. With immigrant or foreign-born terrorists this process seems much more automatic and tacit.
What, then, is the purpose of the terrorist mugshot? According to art historian Michael Baxandall (
To understand why this is, we have to search within what Baxandall calls Framing […] whether by the theatrical stage or the rectangular boundaries of any photo, marks the work as a special selection of reality that acquires greater intensity than the flow of experience before and after it. As they are framed, photos become marked as special acts of display (Hariman and Lucaites,
Hariman and Lucaites study photography as icons of public culture and thus as a means to define the relationship between citizens and the state. Their focus is on photojournalistic images, but I would suggest that even the apparently authorless terrorist mugshots are interesting in this respect. According to what I suggested above, that the terrorist mugshot is a way to symbolically punish, reduce and contain the terrorist, it is the frame, not the face, that is the active agent. It is the frame that creates the theatrical effect and the frame is not without an author; it is an editorial tool of high efficiency.
As a telling example, let’s look at a Norwegian front page showing the so-called “terror brothers” Said and Cherif Kouachi, responsible for the massacre of 12 cartoonists and journalists at the French satirical newspaper
Both images have been highlighted with a thick, black frame, much thicker than the ordinary picture frame. This accentuates the images’ status as terrorist mugshots and is confirmed by the headline (“The Terror Brothers”). What is particularly interesting in this case is that the sub-headings underneath the images invite us to read about the men’s childhood, their youth and radicalisation. The photographs, on the other hand, have already locked them into one particular interpretation that will affect whatever the text may tell us. This is theoretically interesting because it turns Roland Barthes’ observation about how the rational, unilinear text anchors the multivocal and polysemic image upside down (Barthes,
Another theoretically interesting point is that it is the frame that imbues the image with a kind of “repressive” agency. The frame has robbed the original photograph of its potential polysemy, and the image is left with repeating only one thing: “Look, these are terrorist faces.”
Maybe the terrorist mugshot should rather be seen as an anti-portrait than a portrait. The mugshot, whatever its origin, invokes, through the frame, the aesthetics of the photo booth image. It is a response to what Mortensen calls “a portrait hunger” that develops in the wake of a dramatic event, because we need to know who did it. Yet, the preferred iconography is reductionist, stripping the perpetrator of individuality. As mentioned above, this is an understandable response, but it comes at a price.
Even if they may share some commonalities, every crime is unique. There is no evidence to suggest that Anis Amri carried any personal grudge against anyone present at the market he crashed into in Berlin. The target must thus be understood symbolically, as an act of iconoclasm, linking him to other acts of terrorism. But he was also a person, and it would have been interesting to know how Amri interpreted the Berlin Christmas market as a symbol. His act may be interpreted in religious terms, since Christmas is a Christian holiday and Amri was a Muslim, or sociologically, as an attack on a society that explicitly did not want him. Or it might have been a combination. We may never know the full story, yet it does matter why people do what they do. In any court case, motive is vital to understanding the logic behind a crime. Understanding the “why” is not to excuse, but it may serve to prevent further criminal activity of the same kind. To do so, we need more images, not less.
In this article, I have tried to untangle some of the codes and paradoxes that become apparent when we begin to investigate the terrorist mugshot, the way it is used and its aesthetic genealogies. It is a portrait, yet not. It denotes a fellow human being, yet not. As mentioned in the introduction, the ID-like mugshot has become a favoured iconography for depicting modern terrorists. It has become a visual convention, a trope, and maybe a cliché. It does not tell us much about the terrorist as a person. We, the society, need it for other purposes.
News photography is supposed to talk to the public as citizens, and to provide us with relevant visual information (e.g. Hariman and Lucaites,
Lange’s photo was a photojournalistic piece, openly and unambiguously published as a political commentary. The terrorist mugshot has no identifiable author and its political tendency is tacit, as expressions of power often are. To compare these photographs may thus seem like a case of apples and pears, but the point here is not the content of the images, but the politics of how and why photographs are put on display. It is to remind us that ultimately, news journalism relates to ideas regarding “the greater good”, democracy and the needs of society.
To return to the framing of Anis Amri, we see that the ID photographs minimize empathy with the perpetrator as an affective option. We may be interested in his motives, but not in his individual psychology. It is always easier to seek refuge in stereotypes (e.g. “the foreign villain in Europe”) than to embark on the more complicated journey of analysing whether or not his character was shaped in relation to his experiences in Europe. As argued above, the modern terrorist iconography not only identifies a criminal, it helps us to symbolically contain evil. As such it contributes to dodging the epistemological claims on news journalism; the who’s, what’s, when’s and why’s. However, in today’s complex and entangled reality, there might be a need to address the terrorist mugshot as an epistemological problem: When we visually group a multitude of individuals within the same frame, we symbolically make Tunisian migrants (Amri), frustrated young men from Europe’s urban centre’s suburbs (the Paris perpetrators in 2015) and upper middle class Saudis (Mohammed Atta and his September 11th co-terrorists) one and the same. The problem is that even if the mugshot corresponds to the immediate need of the public in the direct aftermath of an abrupt crisis, this politics of the visual may also easily develop into intellectual laziness. It is not wrong for the news media to use rapidly understandable forms, but we need to follow up with more complex material to better investigate the underlying causes of the problem. More challenging imagery should be part of this process.
In this collection, we have presented examples of individual focus and exposure in journalism in a number of topics and genres, from political journalism via sports journalism to health journalism, from news and features to the use of photos. When we set out to study these complex phenomena, it was because we understand them both as relatively new,
Understanding complexity also often requires an attempt to understand the various historical circumstances that precede a present-day phenomenon. As all case studies in this book are of a synchronic nature, we will round off with a short outline of a few historical developments that we know, or have reason to believe, were the precursors to today’s modes, genres and discussions.
The history of many of today’s discussions is at the same time a history of tensions. Tensions between commercialisation and democratisation, between different journalistic ideals, between the ideals of the press and the needs of the audience, etc.
Since one danger with today’s rather ethnocentric, Anglo-American view of journalism is that one risks losing sight of all other local traditions, I will use examples from both “general” media history and from the Nordic countries. They often point in the same direction, but can also contribute towards filling in some gaps in the picture.
The first area of tension is about who should be heard in the public space, and in particular,
An important point to remember is that early newspapers were full of so-called user-generated content. The audience was not only present, the audience
History has taught us that the press first arose as an answer to the public’s need to exchange information, mainly about economic affairs. The journalist did not even exist, news as we know it had not been invented, and the newspaper was most often a minor business in which the printer, the editor and the writer were one and the same man. The space that was not filled with ads, was mostly open to the audience, and this contributed to creating a public sphere (Chalaby,
Furthermore, genres were quite different from what we regard as newspaper content today – they could be poems, letters, travelogues, short reflections, essays, debates. Most of these were both personal and subjective genres – and at times even private.
The early attempts at giving the public the right to free speech, however, revealed the fact that debaters did not know how to differentiate between an identity as a private or public person (Eide,
In the regular press, political debate became ever more important as pervasive political changes in both America and many European countries laid down the principles of democracy and freedom of the press in the 18th and 19th centuries. These currents eventually reached the outskirts of Europe, e.g. Norway, which in the mid-19th century embarked on the road to parliamentarism. But even the political debate of those days could be quite personalised and subjective – not only in the sense that debaters were subjective on their own behalf, but also in the way that private circumstances and details of opponents’ lives were heavily criticised. Political arguments could often be accompanied by mutual personal abuse (e.g. Eide,
In England and America newspaper journalism started to resemble the press of today from the middle of the 19th century, when news became the paramount genre (Chalaby,
The institutionalisation of the press and the professionalisation of journalism contributed to narrowing down the space open to the audience. For one thing, this happened because professional newspaper writers outnumbered the debaters, so that “news” replaced “views”. But it also helped to limit
Of course, these frames were not decided once and for all. The same struggle over the power to define what themes and what kind of language a public space could contain, has returned at each moment when new groups – labour, ethnic, gender – entered this sphere. The many publications that arose out of e.g. the labour movement gave much room to readers’ letters (Chalaby,
A second area of tension concerns the form of newspaper content – whether it should be “fact” or “narrative”. One reason why broader parts of the audience gained access to public space was quite simply because more commercial newspapers emerged. In the Anglo-American world, one can speak about at least two traditions from as early as the 1850s on: the “quality” newspaper for the upper echelons of society on the one hand, and the predecessors of modern tabloid journalism on the other (Schudson,
In some kinds of publications, gossip and crime had been among the elements even as far back as the 18th century, but these genres started to proliferate when different kinds of cheaper publications started to emerge in the middle of the 19th century.
There are many theories about the rise of the so-called boulevard and penny papers. For one thing, new printing technology simply made them affordable to more people. But as cities grew, the relevant public grew as well. In traditional societies, most people knew their neighbours and their roles. In new urban societies, everyday life consisted of seeing a stream of strangers passing by. Who were they, how did they live, what happened in other parts of the city? With the new popular press, this led to the introduction of a hitherto unknown kind of surveillance of ordinary lives. In the US
The rise of “tabloid” journalism sparked a controversy that points directly towards current discussions about individualisation of the media: The new public that emerged during the 19th century had the money necessary to make the newspaper industry grow (and particularly, the collective buying power to make business find it worthwhile to advertise in the papers). But they were also despised by the traditional upper and middle classes, as they had neither the same education nor were believed to have the same rationality. “Instead they liked banner headlines, large drawings and photographs, snappy and spicy writing” – and human interest, as Schudson (
A third area of tension is a “sub-tension” when it comes to narratives – it is about how real people should be represented in media narratives. Although tabloid-like journalism introduced more human interest, it does not necessarily follow that more people’s voices were actually taken seriously. Crime and tragedy were still the surest ways most ordinary people had of making it to the news, and a mixture of considerable social inequality and poor press ethics did not always do much for the way they were represented. Chalaby (
In fact, news stories about crime, tragedies and other sensations bore with them an inherent risk – the risk of
Many have pointed to the reportage as a more fruitful way of representing individuals, often even with an ambition to leave the realm of the high and mighty and capture reality as it “really” is. And there is some truth to this: Even in times when the audience’s access to the media was limited, reportage was a genre where individuals could be more than one-dimensional walk-ons in the stories. One classic example is the Swedish dramatist August Strindberg’s article series in the Danish newspaper
The featuring of ordinary people’s plight in reportage from this period ranges from the rather low-key portrait of the people in the French countryside to the both angry and sad account of child labour in John Spargo’s
The examples of great reportage in journalism history are many, from the works of the social reformers of the British 19th century via the muckraking tradition in turn-of-the century America, to Martha Gellhorn’s war reportages in the first half of the 20st century (for a brilliant overview of reportage, from pre-journalistic times as well as from the 19th and 20th centuries, se John Carey’s edited collection
The next area of tension relates to whether or not the personal voice of the journalist should be heard – and whether it is really possible for the journalist, who is as much a part of society as are their sources, to be solely a spectator?
This tension is of a rather new date, stemming from the introduction of the objectivity ideal in the beginning of the 20st century. Although many journalists still adhere to it, there has been no lack of debate about this ideal. The tension between subjectivity and objectivity in journalistic practice creates a considerable paradox, as some of the most prestigeous journalistic reportages were historically permeated with participation and a personal voice (Coward,
The subjectivity-objectivity dimension is elaborated in more detail in
Spargo’s and Bly’s actions were efficient ways of showing the realities of the milieus they described, but were also acts of empathy. Gellhorn’s journalism is another well-known example – she is said to have introduced a new kind of subjective reporting both during the Spanish Civil War and later about the Holocaust. The new element was that she focused on the civilians as well as on leaders and military strategy – and also included her own reactions to the atrocities the civilians were subjected to (Coward,
There is also a long-standing tension between enlightenment or public education and mere trivialities, which is particularly applicable to the individualisation debate. Among other things, the 19th century saw a wide range of – often quite non-commercial – magazines and journals that first and foremost attempted to contribute to public enlightenment. Høyer (
One interesting thing about 18th and 19th century public enlightenment publications is, however, probably that this is where we find the origins of what Fairclough (
There is quite simply a tradition alongside the regular press where one finds many examples of the features that today are often described as reader-oriented. What the editor of
Eide and Knight (
The last aspect of individual focus and exposure which we will try put into a historical context – and which is also rife with tension – is the personalisation of people with power.
In modern times different kinds of personalisation of powerful people, most notably politicians, have been criticised for taking the political out of politics and replacing it with prying into other people’s private lives, or confusing a politician’s personal qualities with the qualities of his or her political party – which has certainly often been the case. But personalisation has also been a powerful tool to make power accountable – of bringing people with power down from their pedestal.
Challenging the power elites became common in the 19th century, and thereby began the first real instances of personalisation of power in the way we recognise it today. Accountability is to an extent dependent on some kind of communication with the public, that people with power appear as real persons of “flesh and blood”. It is interesting to note Michael Schudson’s account (1994, see also 1978, p. 66) of the introduction of the interview in American journalism in the 19th century (whereupon it spread to Europe). One hundred and fifty years ago the interview was still not in common use. According to Schudson, American journalists could use interviewing as a method of collecting information as early as during Abraham Lincoln’s presidency, but making politicians accountable by actually quoting what they say, did not become common until late in the century.
Pre-interview personalisation of the powerful can however be found at least as early as in the 1830s in Norwegian press history. The first known Norwegian investigative journalist was Peder Soelvold, who edited the newspaper
By the first decades of the 20th century, press researchers can find various examples of “confrontational” interviews in Norway, but on the other hand fewer exampes of investigative journalism (Ottosen,
Another parallel, and to an extent intertwined, tradition stems from – again – the spreading of the news paradigm in the 19th century. News meant a focus on the timely – and as the word implies – the new. Politics however was – and is – a continuous process. As Chalaby (
What was lost as a result of this development? Before personalisation, major British newspapers published, among other things, parliamentary proceedings from beginning to end. On one hand, it is easy to see that this was a genre that did not appeal to everyman. But Chalaby argues that with the replacement of parliamentary proceedings by news (including what one must assume was increased use of interviews with politicians), some of the accountability disappeared, as the public no longer had direct access to political negotiations (Chalaby,
The affluent years of post-war society saw the rise of a new consumer society, securing wealth and welfare for new groups. The question of whether the developments described above meant “dumbing down or reaching out” (Sparks,
At the same time, the tendency in journalism to put more weight on the individual and personal was strengthened, as a result of more influential tabloid newspapers, more use of photography, the introduction of television etc. – and subsequently also what Sparks (
Each new step in media development has led to new ways of presenting people, addressing sources and the audience, and even new ways of presenting and staging the journalist. Each new step has also led to deepened tensions and renewed concern for where journalism is heading: As Zelizer (
The social changes of the 1960s and 70s in particular introduced new topics and new ways of talking in the public sphere. The freedom revolution associated with this period entailed a myriad of liberty movements where new groups claimed public attention, but one important and distinct feature was the focus on women’s personal experiences under the motto “the personal is political”. This movement did not initially strike a particularly strong chord either with quality or tabloid journalism, since this large group of readers was still often confined to the women’s pages. Within a decade, these ideas had however spilled over into journalism in many ways (helped by a surge in female journalists). Topics formerly thought of as female – and thereby marginal – were increasingly reflected in news media, with papers and magazines advocating feminist issues like women’s health, workplace equality, abortion rights etc. The former “female” journalism has probably influenced contemporary journalism greatly, as it brought health as well as a broad range of other formerly “private” issues – regardless of gender – into the public sphere (Coward,
A more affluent society and more focus on everyday life also led to an explosion in consumer news. Edifying articles from the 19th century turned into what is today called service journalism, reader-oriented “more use than news” journalism or how-to journalism, often with the use of “synthetic personalisation”. The tension between enlightenment and triviality still prevails – there is an ongoing discussion about whether journalism has now reached the uttermost borders of triviality, and the fact that the relative new-comer
With the increased focus on the market and the rise of economic and business news directed at a broader public from the 1980s on, another inherent tension can also be noted: between reader-directed news that is useful to all the individuals it pretends to address, and news that in reality both requires and enhances a kind of competition among the readers. Stock market advice, and advice on market trends relating to buying or selling homes are typical examples (Fonn,
The – preliminary – peak of journalism’s crusade for accountability must be said to have been reached when an American president had to leave office after the Watergate scandal in 1973. This important event in modern journalism history
Individual exposure, however, has its limitations where accountability is concerned, as it often means that one person is sacrificed, whereas the problems or misdeeds the press wanted to address continue as before. The advances that, after all, have been made in making power accountable during the last century or so also do not necessarily mean that all journalism about people with power has become especially irreverent. After more than a century in which accountability has been a driving force behind the journalistic watchdog ideal, a considerable part of the increased focus on powerful individuals still consists of mostly uncritical celebrity news. There is widespread curiosity on the part of both the media and the public about who these people who run the country (or make a lot of money in business) are, and there sometimes seems to be as much interest in how political and other leaders live, as in how they work. But even this tendency may be attributed to some kind of democratisation – it can be seen as the preliminary last stage in closing the gap between the elite and the “people”, the gap between those who govern and the governed, but it is also based on a need and a wish for authenticity in contemporary culture (Coward,
This outline has given some historical context to the currents of individual focus and exposure that we see in the media of today: the history of the audience as media makers, the tension between “facts” and narratives, the tension between tabloid-style human interest and more in-depth reportage, the possible connection between public enlightenment and “reader-oriented” journalism, and the background for the personalisation of politics. All this can hopefully contribute to an understanding of what kinds of individual focus, individual exposure and subjectivity we are dealing with when we study the media – and why there are so many differing opinions on putting a face on journalism.
This chapter is built on the author’s paper presented at ICA 2017 (Fonn
Aftenposten 12 and 13 November 1915:
Watergate was much less of an impressive journalistic masterpiece than the myth will have it, but on the other hand, the myth has played a particularly important part in legitimising journalism’s role as a public watchdog (e.g. Zelizer,