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African journalism practice presents unique opportunities and challenges that require journalists to be equipped with the necessary skills, knowledge, and values to engage in sustainable journalism. Training institutions play a critical role in ensuring that journalists are not only professionally-ready to execute their mandate but also that they can safeguard and promote ethical values in their everyday work. Some of these values include “truth telling, independence, objectivity, fairness, inclusivity and social justice” (Gade, Nduka, and Dastger 2017, 10). Africa, like other regions of the Global South, has several journalism training institutions that provide an opportunity to challenge “hegemonic epistemologies and ontologies of Western-centric journalism studies” (Mutsvairo et al. 2021, 993). In the context of this submission, the present study investigates the current state of sustainable journalism in Africa. We examined data based on a syllabi analysis of journalism programs in Kenya, South Africa and Ghana to appraise what role sustainable journalism education and training could play in Africa. Findings show that efforts are already in place across select learning and training institutions but also point to profound gaps in the curriculum, pedagogy and resources needed to prepare journalists for sustainable journalism., Bibliografiskt granskad

Syftet med projektet Young citizens and the quality of news: Construals, Emotions and Strategies har varit att utforska nya sätt att undersöka hur unga betraktar nyheter, hur de interagerar med nyhetsinnehåll och hur känsloreaktioner inverkar på bedömningen av kvalitet. Studien är gjord med hjälp av ett flertal metoder, både kvantitativa, kvalitativa och laborativa. Genom att be unga mellan 18 och 25 år att själva leta upp nyheter på sin mobil och samtidigt mäta deras ögonrörelser, genom att visa dem ett antal nyhetsklipp och mäta deras reaktioner samt genom att göra djupintervjuer med de unga om vad de sett och hur de upplevt det, har forskargruppen kunnat dra flera slutsatser kring hur unga definierar och reagerar på nyheter. Nu finns rapporten som sammanfattar projektet att läsa och ladda ner på Medier & demokratis hemsida. Studien visar bland annat att kvalitet för unga mediekonsumenter är intimt sammankopplat med upplevd relevans och att nyheters förmåga att beröra emotionellt beskrivs som väldigt viktigt för hur de unga i studien bedömer kvalitet. Hur de unga gör för att hitta nyheter varierar, men ett tydligt mönster bland studiens deltagare är att de föredrar textbaserade nyhetsartiklar. I rapporten ger forskarna flera tips på vad redaktioner bör göra för att lyckas nå de unga läsarna.

At the heart of academic theorising about media and their political role in modern democratic society, there has always been concern for the power that is possible to wield through mass-mediated symbolic representation (Thompson, 1995). This power is expressed through various processes, such as, normalising viewpoints and preferences, while ostracizing others (Ramasubramanian & Yadlin-Segal, 2017), focus attention to specific issues, while ignoring others, representing acceptability and anathemizing otherness. Ultimately, the spectrum of various expressions and exercises of media power laid bare by media scholarship so far, has to some extent always rested upon the notion of there being a few highly influential and dominant media outlets in a given context, which form the basis for an infrastructure of dissemination, that distribute news-content to a mass-audience, thereby constituting a framework for the formation of a shared frame of reference among citizens. Although terminology is still debated, these are commonly referred to as “mainstream media” or alternatively as “legacy media”. Discussion about the power of media in relation to political life, has therefore been related to the concentration of ownership, distributive reach and capacity for production among a few actors who will be centrally placed and therefore play key roles in the shaping of political discussions, information and the conditions for participation. The internet, and the social media, “web 2.0” (O´Reilly, 2005) revolution added a new layer to this, since it opened up possibilities for participation and visibility in a new way, partly tearing down a long held, and well established power-concentration among the influential media operations

In order to better understand alternative news media, we need to focus more centrally on the audiences that regularly consume them. This special issue, entitled “Contesting the Mainstream: Understanding Alternative News Media,” advances such an audience turn. In the introduction, we outline how scholars have understood and characterized alternative news audiences. These have ranged from seeing them as (i) ideal participants and activists; as (ii) being misinformed and manipulated; and as (iii) being critical users. Drawing on studies published in this special issue, we highlight how these studies provide new and revealing empirical insights that advance all three perspectives. Taken together, the articles make a strong argument to move beyond binary ideations of normatively “good” or “bad” alternative news audiences. In our view, they signal the need to better understand the complexity behind audience engagement not just with alternative news media but mainstream journalism more generally. Based on this argument, we identify several starting points for moving the field forward with such an audience turn in mind.

As we were writing this chapter, the 2020 election campaign in the US was entering its last week before the elections. There are probably few more news-intensive events in the world than the American presidential elections. The smallest and, in other settings, seemingly irrelevant details of a candidate’s behaviour and appearance (a slip of the tongue, the way that they laugh or their temporary memory losses) are immediately picked up by cameras and microphones and publicized across news networks and commented on and shared throughout social media networks in a matter of seconds and minutes, possibly affecting people’s attitudes towards particular politicians and parties (directly or indirectly).

Ett nytillkommet inslag i den svenska alternativmediefloran inför valet 2022 är Riks (riks.se), som drivs av Sverigedemokratiska Samtid & Framtid AB och främst producerar innehåll i videoformat, ämnat för spridning via sociala medier. Riks YouTube-kanal startades i januari 2021 och har sedan dess publicerat 4173 videos som sammantaget fått 77 777 592 visningar och har idag över 95 000 prenumeranter (15 sept., 2022). Detta innebär i genomsnitt 47 filmer i veckan, och över 18 000 visningar i snitt per video. Det är uppenbart att Riks måste ses som en viktig del av Sverigedemokraternas valkampanj. Bara under sista veckan fram till valdagen publicerades 85 filmer och dagen efter valet tog Riks paus. Detta är en ambitiös mediesatsning av ett politiskt parti som saknar motstycke i svensk politik. Övriga partier bleknar i jämförelse. I ljuset av Sverigedemokraternas framgång i valet (från rikets tredje största parti i valet 2018 med 17,5% av rösterna i riksdagsvalet till andra största parti 2022 med 20,5%) är frågan i vilken utsträckning denna satsning har bidragit till det ökade stödet från allmänheten, Kapitel i rapport

Young adult citizens (18-30 years) tend to turn away from traditional news media and migrate to media where emotions occupy a more central place and where journalistic standards are not self-evident, thus challenging public discourse and the notion of quality associated with established news media (Schwaiger et al., 2022; Backholm et al., 2021; Baek et al., 2019; Berthelsen & Hameleers, 2021). In this paper, we test possibilities of investigating how young adult citizens construe (perceive, comprehend and interpret) and experience quality of news content in a high choice, hybrid media landscape (Chadwick et al., 2015), characterized by multimodal and intermedial possibilities offered in social media (Holt & Schirrmacher, 2021). In particular, we explore if there is a possible link between emotional reactions to news items, and subsequent quality rating. In media and journalism research, the importance of emotions evoked by news-content has been pointed out in recent years (Wahl-Jørgensen, 2020). Researchers have studied emotional aspects of different types of content (e. g. Uribe & Gunter, 2007), polarization (e. g. Marozzo & Bessi, 2017), and affective responses to political messages (Bakker et al., 2021). Lacking is, however, in depth analysis of how emotional reactions to news might interact with quality assessments. Since young citizens differ from older generations in media use (Boczkowski et al., 2018), it is especially important to understand the notion of quality from the perspective of this age group. Here, biometric data offer promising possibilities, since it allows for measuring emotional response as well as eye-movments during exposure to news. At the same time, methodology for journalism scholars is still at a developmental stage. Therefore, in this paper we present the results from a small-sample pilot study, using GSR and eye-tracking in combination with semi-structured interviews with young citizens about quality in news. Our finding, Young Citizens and the Quality of News

In this introduction to the special issue Contesting the Mainstream: Understanding Alternative News Media, we discuss how and to what extent alternative news media contribute to news diversity. We elaborate on the concept of diversity, the democratic role of media, and the normative implications of alternative media in the wider media sphere. Based on the articles published in this special issue, that offer new and revealing empirical insights into a wide range of alternative media sites and their practices, from Europe, Asia, the Middle East, North America, and Latin America, we argue that it becomes increasingly clear that awareness about normative positions within alternative media research is imperative. This is because an appreciation of the normative purpose of alternative media guides our ability to understand their role in society. The necessity for thinking through such positions is particularly exemplified by the most radical alternative media actors, and how they are debated and studied in different political systems.

Ej belagd

In this paper I discuss alternative media-outlets and platforms in relation to qualities such as truth and falsity. In the wake of the current preoccupation among politicians, Big Tech, news-providers and researchers with “fake news”, “alternative facts” and online propaganda, a growing body of research has identified the existence of alternative and hyper-partisan media as a source of concern, especially in the cases where they manage to reach large audiences with narratives that go against the narratives of more established outlets for news and views – and especially in cases where such claims fuels calls for violence. This development is in particular highlighted by social media platforms such as Parler and Gab, more open to allowing the dissemination of content that is deemed too controversial for established social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Such developments need to be taken seriously and studied closely. However, some reactions from mainstream politicians, scholars, Big Tech and journalists to such phenomena, raises questions about the adequacy of attributing qualities such as “true” or “false” to media outlets and platforms in themselves. While acknowledging that there is indeed a rampant problem of false claims and malicious content in today’s stormy world of media, the paper problematizes tendencies to oversimplify the task of navigating the high seas of competing truth claims.

Det finns få fenomen i dagens medievärld som omhöljs av en sådan mystik som Silicon Valley. Det var här allt började, det var här vår samtids mest legendariska och omvälvande projekt föddes och de medel med vilka berättelserna om dem spreds uppfanns. Samtidigt finns det något gåtfullt över denna mytiska dal. Få kan till exempel på rak arm definiera exakt vad Silicon Valley är – en specifik plats, ett geografiskt område, en idé eller en metafor? Vi är alla överens om att något extraordinärt pågår i Silicon Valley, och att det som händer där påverkar våra liv, samhällen och inte minst vår kulturella miljö på genomgripande sätt. När företaget Facebook, till exempel, byter namn till Meta, är det inte bara ett nytt namn – det är en trumpetsignal som annonserar en ny kommande verklighet, en (o)skön ny värld av immersiva 3D-upplevelser som både lovar att förverkliga våra innersta fantasier och drömmar och samtidigt effektiviserar våra liv. Det signalerar också en värld fylld av töntiga gaming-headset som alla måste köpa för att kunna interagera med omvärlden. Men samtidigt som vi alla vet att sådana saker riskerar att påverka våra liv på fundamentala sätt, är vi nog många som går och bär på en känsla av att inte riktigt ha begripit vad det är som faktiskt händer i Silicon Valley, varför allt kommer just därifrån, och vad det i sin tur innebär...

This introduction to the thematic issue Freedom of Expression, Democratic Discourse and the Social Media discusses the state of the debate surrounding freedom of expression in the field of communication studies and presents four original articles dealing with freedom of speech in contemporary media from different perspectives.

The number of studies on right-wing alternative media on the internet have increased in the last years. Many right-wing alternative sites claim that they present alternative interpretations of political and societal events and the necessity of relational analyses it has been stressed to understand the success of these pages. This paper presents a media historical approach in studying how alternative online media define themselves today in the German context. Looking at older works, some distinct features of left-wing alternative media and journalism in the 1970s and 80s are especially prominent revealed: 1) Criticism of the mainstream media in the respective countries, 2) the establishment of counter-hegemonic structures, 3) non-commerciality and 4) elements of participatory journalism. This paper hypothesizes that right-wing media in the present adopted these left-wing journalistic and ideologically infused tropes to frame themselves as alternatives to “mainstream media”. Empirical examples are analysed and discussed to get an explorative insight into the self-conceptions of rightist online media. The paper also discusses arguments of democracy and communication theory to evaluate effects of the rising numbers of right-wing alternative media., Ej belagd 210201

This book offers a fresh perspective on central questions related to right-wing alternative media: Can right-wing media be alternative? Why do they exist? Are they a threat to the existing order and what have the reactions been from mainstream politicians and media actors? The rise and success of right-wing populism in the political life of many western countries, along with several new and apparently successful alternative media operations on the right, has caused surprise and confusion among researchers and debaters. How should this challenge to mainstream politics and media be understood? Journalistic, political and academic discourse has struggled to explain these tendencies and tend to focus on sensational and extreme examples, with little attention directed towards other aspects. This book critically discusses existing theoretical frameworks related to alternative media in general, analysing a wide scope of cases to illustrate the diversity of voices in alternative media on the right and highlighting the importance of intellectual coolness and common sense in discussions about this important but ideologically and politically charged area. An important addition to the current discourse of contemporary media, Right-Wing Alternative Mediais ideal for researchers, students and anyone interested in politics and public discourse.

The articles in this thematic issue, each in their own way, provide relevant and original contributions to the ongoing debate. Ricknell (2020) provides a constructive framework that allows for a structured discussion of the possible scenarios. Glazunova’s (2020) analysis of a Russian case is original since the current research trend within media and populism is to focus on the rise of populist politicians in democratic Western countries (Krämer & Holtz-Bacha, 2020). Glazunova’s analysis shows that alternative media platforms can serve important political and ideological purposes in certain media landscapes, while at the same time being a channel for populist messages, targeting a Media and Communication, 2020, Volume 8, Issue 4, Pages 107–109 108 corrupt elite. Latif’s (2020) contribution also addresses a complex and sensitive question from an unusual perspective for media scholars: What public positions are realistically available for Muslim intellectuals in America today? It describes the dynamics of cancel culture that should be taken more seriously by the community of media scholars. Wegner et al. (2020) emphasize the fact that it is not only journalists who are put in harm’s way, the silencing of other voices is indeed a reality and is equally harmful and problematic. As an area of interest to media scholars, issues such as these deserve further attention., Editor of journal special issue

One of the areas that has been researched quite extensively during recent years is the relationship between media and populism (Aalberg et al., 2016; Krämer 2018). Controversial populist politicians like Jair Bolsonaro, Nigel Farage and Donald Trump, and their special relationship with the news-media often serve as examples, due to the mainstream media’s fascination with their doings and because they never seem to cease to feed the media’s appetite for scandals and sensations. There has been less work done on the connection between populism and alternative media. It is clear that populist politicians receive substantial support from various alternative media outlets, like Breitbart News Network in the USA or through organizations working through social media, like the Non-Partisan School Movement in Brazil (Escola Sem Partido) (Romancini & Castilho, 2019). Most research, however, tends to focus on the relationship between the mainstream mass-media and populist politicians, and how the news-media plays an important part in laying the ground for populist rhetoric to be successful (Aalberg et al., 2016; Krämer, 2017; 2018). There is less research on the link between populism and alternative media, though the link is quite clear in some cases. This chapter explores this link.

This article proposes a definition of alternative news media and suggests routes for further research. It complements and extends previous conceptualizations in research on alternative media and outlines an umbrella definition of this phenomenon aimed to inspire contemporary research and scholarly debate. Previous research has been guided by a “progressive” perspective as a form of resistance against “bourgeois” hegemonic discourse. Such normative evaluations have in turn limited how the phenomenon has been studied empirically, by limiting the scope of research so that important contemporary phenomena fall outside the theoretical map. Conceptualizing alternative news media in the present hybrid and polarized media environment, we first propose a non-normative, multilevel relational definition: Alternative news media position themselves as correctives of the mainstream news media, as expressed in editorial agendas or statements and/or are perceived as such by their audiences or third-parties. This counter-hegemonic alternativeness can emerge on the macro-level of societal function, the meso-level of organizations and/or the micro-level of news content and producers. Second, demonstrating why this umbrella definition is fruitful in the changing media environment characterized by boundary struggles, crisis in legacy news media and mushrooming of alternative news outlets, we highlight research gaps and propose future research.

This special issue of the Journal of Alternative and Community Media presents five articles that examine right-wing alternative media from different countries and contexts: Brazil, the United States, Germany and Finland. They focus on different aspects of a phenomenon that has come to the forefront of public debate in recent years, due to the many apparently successful alternative media enterprises that can be characterised as conservative, libertarian, populist or far to extreme right wing on a political scale. While there has been much (and often heated) public debate about this, researchers tend to lag behind when it comes to new trends, and a transient and rapidly changing media landscape. The articles in this special issue are therefore especially valuable, since they all provide empirically grounded perspectives on specific cases that illustrate different parts of a large puzzle that is in much need of illumination. This special issue is of use not just to communication research, but also to the public debate on disinformation on the internet.

The distrust of mainstream media expressed in the slogan ‘the liar press’ (‘Lügenpresse’) is often used as an example of a populist, anti-establishment attitude that is currently winning terrain throughout the Western world. In combination with the rise of alternative media (especially online), it poses a serious challenge for ‘old media’. But how do those who are most suspicious and critical relate to the mainstream media in their own media channels? In this article, we have compared the official Facebook pages of the PEGIDA movement in Germany and Austria, in order to describe their use of references to traditional/mainstream and alternative media. The results indicate that references to mainstream and alternative media are distributed almost equally. Furthermore, when there are references to mainstream media, they are generally of an affirmative nature. These findings are relevant for the debate about cyberbalcanization, echo chambers, filter bubbles and the impact of alternative media on public discourse., Immigration critical alternative media

This book is not a litany of the many terrorist attacks that have occurred over the last five years, nor is it a value judgement on how the media have reported on these events. Its ambition is to question the issues at stake in emerging journalistic practices and to raise a number of subsequent ethical questions. In 2017 Linnaeus University took the initiative to organize an international conference focusing on journalism in a world of terrorism – terrorism in the world of journalism. Our aim was to understand what it means in 2018 to report on terrorism in different national contexts. The conference (held 9-10 May, Kalmar) offered a unique opportunity for academics and journalists to come together in order to share experiences, discuss and reflect on the numerous dilemmas journalism in the world of terrorism has to cope with. Accordingly, this book depicts the wide diversity of approaches as well as reports the richness of the dialogue between practitioners and researchers – which constitutes the overall originality of this joint venture project between the Department of Media and Journalism and the Media Institute Fojo. Indeed, conflicts and terrorism nowadays constitute a field of study particularly conducive to assessing the role of media in contemporary democratic societies. The same also applies for societies engaged in transition and democratic consolidation processes, which are simultaneously facing the threat of terrorism (as is, for example, the case of Tunisia, Niger, Algeria and Morocco – countries from which some of the participants came). Some key issues were particularly under scrutiny: How does terrorism affect the media and their coverage of these events? Are the media an integral part of the strategy of terror deployed by the main actors (lately almost exclusively from Islamist extremist groups)? To answer these crucial questions, academics and professionals certainly had to examine all facets of the existing links and interrelations between the te

A range of alternative media outlets focusing on criticizing immigration politics and mainstream media have emerged in Sweden in recent years. Although they have quite different ideological profiles, they share a clear and critical focus on immigration and mainstream journalistic representations of reality. Their message is that mainstream media conceal or distort information about negative societal and cultural consequences of immigration and that mainstream journalists have teamed up with the political elites and engage in witch-hunts of critics, while ignoring abuses by those in power. Such media outlets (especially online participatory media) need to be analyzed in the light of their position as self-perceived correctives of traditional media. There has been a remarkable surge of alternative media in Sweden with these traits in common during the past few years, and it is important to be able to discuss these media together as a phenomenon, while at the same time taking their differences into account. In relation to this, I argue that the notion of anti-systemness is useful in discussions of the impact these alternative media may (or may not) have on public discourse. In the article, I present a matrix that distinguishes between different types of anti-systemness: ideological anti-systemness and relational anti-systemness. The article therefore mainly presents a theoretical argument, rather than empirical findings, with the aim of pointing to a way forward for research about alternative media.

In Sweden, as in many other european countries, alternative media with immigration-critical profiles have managed to establish themselves as new players in the media landscape in a way that challenges mainstream media (MSM) because their message is that MSM, seen as an integrated part of the political system, conceal or distort information that does not fit the “politically correct” agenda and/or that media discourse is constrained due to taboos upheld by journalists, especially in relation to anything related to immigration. Research on these immigration-critical alternative media (ICAM) is scarce and this paper presents results of a comparative quantitative content analysis, where articles from the most important ICAM is compared to articles from MSM. Through this comparison it is possible to characterize ICAM through the key points where they differ from MSM. The results suggest that they have a much narrower scope of topics (mainly politics, social issues, crime, war and conflicts) compared to MSM. They are also characterized by a much more negative tonality and critical perspective. Furthermore, the relationship between ICAM and MSM is studied through an analysis of how often ICAM refers and links to content in MSM. Over sixty precent of the ICAM articles contained references to MSM, suggesting a relationship of dependence, rather than just one of opposition. The results are discussed in relation to notions of filter bubbles, echo-chambers and cyberbalkanization., Ej belagd 170627, Immigration critical alternative media and public discourse. Comparing Sweden, France and Germany

In recent years a range of new alternative media outlets with a special focus on criticizing immigration politics and mainstream media, have emerged. The blog Avpixlat†, the online newspaper Fria†Tider†and the paper weekly Nya†Tider†are examples of media with quite different ideological profiles, but a clear and critical focus on immigration and mainstream journalistic representations of reality in common. Their message is that mainstream medi conceal or distort information about negative societal and cultural consequences of immigration and that mainstream journalists have teamed up with the political elites and engage in wichhunts of ordinary people who are critical, while ignoring abuses by those in power. Such media outlets (especially online participatory media) need to be analysed in the light of its position as perceived corrective of traditional media. Even though they have this in common, it is important to be able to discuss them together while at the same time take their differences into account. In the paper, the aim is to develop a theoretical framework for understanding the rationality behind this kind of criticism, building on interviews with people who are active in the most important immigration critical alternative media (ICAM) in Sweden about their perception of mainstream media and their view of participation in democratic society. The findings will shed light on how people active in Swedish ICAM perceive and position themselves in relation to mainstream media - and to each other. Based on these insights, it is possible to distinguish differences between them as well as common traits and to take the question of their influence on public discourse further., Immigration critical alternative media and public discourse. Comparing Sweden, France and Germany

In this article, we analyze the protest movement PEGIDA’s criticism of the press (i. e. ‘Lügenpresse’, the ‘liar press’) on Facebook. What are the main points of criticism of the press and what are the reasons expressed for this criticism, and how do they refer to traditional media in the postings? We conduct a qualitative content analysis of PEGIDA’s Facebook pages in Germany, Austria, Sweden, and Norway. The study shows that there are two main types of references: affirmative references to prove one’s own positions and contesting references which comprise media criticism.

Au cours des dernières années, une série de nouveaux médias alternatifs sont apparus qui se sont particulièrement intéressés à la critique des politiques d'immigration et des médias traditionnels. Le blog Avpixlat (maintenant: samnytt.se), le journal en ligne Fria Tider et l'hebdomadaire de presse Nya Tider sont des exemples de médias avec: profils idéologiques assez différents, mais un accent clair et critique sur l'immigration et les représentations journalistiques dominantes de la réalité en commun. Leur message est que les médias traditionnels dissimulent ou faussent l'information sur les conséquences sociétales et culturelles négatives de l'immigration et que les principaux journalistes ont fait équipe avec les élites politiques et se livrent à la chasse de gens ordinaires sans tenir compte des abus commis par ceux qui sont au pouvoir. Ces médias (en particulier les médias participatifs en ligne) doivent être analysés à la lumière de leur position de correcteurs perçus des médias traditionnels. Même s'ils ont beaucoup en commun, il est important de pouvoir en discuter de l’ensemble tout en tenant compte de leurs différences. Le but de ce document est de développer un cadre théorique pour comprendre la rationalité de ce type de critique et de discuter de leur impact sur le discours public de manière plus nuancée. En s'appuyant sur des entretiens avec des personnes actives dans les médias alternatifs critiques vis-à-vis de l’immigration (ICAM) les plus importants en Suède, sur leur perception des grands médias et leur vision de la participation à la société démocratique.

A common denominator among politicians who tend be called right wing populists is that their narratives often contain a high dose of criticism against the “mainstream media” (MSM), often described as biased in favour of leftist perspectives, uncritical of those in power and out of touch with ordinary people. Parallelly, a host of new “alternative media”, often with a focus on criticism of liberal immigartion politics and a harsh tone against MSM, has become an important factor in public discourse in many western countries. But is this sort of criticism really a new phenomenon? Historically, the phrase “mainstream media” has been used mostly by left-wing debaters, such as Noam Chomsky and by media scholars, “alternative media” has long been considered one of the dearest embodiments of the dream about giving ordinary citizens a way of “speaking back to power”. When looking into the rhetoric of anti MSM messages in alternative media today, it is striking how much the discourse resembles a Gramscian analysis of society and the media’s role in it. In this paper, I argue that it is crucial to distinguish between “media distrust” and “media criticism” in order to distinguish between ideological culture struggle or metapolitics on the one hand, and the sincere question if the MSM are really doing a good job in describing relevant problems.

In the early 21st century, almost everyone takes journalism on the web for granted. However, it was not many years ago that journalism moved online and a distinct form of journalism began to develop. Ranging from online doubles of the paper editions to publications exclusively produced for the web, the evolvement of web journalism has entailed both dramatic and not-so-dramatic changes in the way that journalistic products are produced, disseminated, and received. Online journalism has usually been demarcated from traditional journalism by four traits: interactivity, immediacy, hypertextuality, and multimodality. These characteristics are generally identified by scholars as points where journalism on the web brings added value in comparison to the old print newspapers. Interactivity involves various aspects of user activity and participation in the processes of consuming, contributing to, and disseminating news afforded by the web. Immediacy refers to the nature and consequences of the faster pace of publication in web news. Hypertextuality has to do with the possibilities of linking journalistic texts to other texts, which makes the text more transparent and open.Multimodality denotes the telling of news with the use of many different modes at the same time. When studying research about these aspects of web journalism, three general observations can be made. First, researchers have approached these characteristics unevenly in terms of scope and interest. The interactive aspects of web journalism are by far the most investigated. Second, the four characteristics have been studied through the lenses of different theoretical frameworks. Third, empirical research shows that change in journalism is slow and not always as radical as many predicted when journalism on the web was in its infancy.

Citizen journalism must be understood in relation to the context in which it occurs. In some parts of the world there might be a more directly felt need for a form of journalism, produced by non-journalists, than in other parts – much depending on the quality, freedom and general trustworthiness of traditional journalism. In Sweden, citizen journalism online has not yet risen to prominence – at least not to the extent that many hoped from a country with a high level of internet access and general good level of computer skills. This might be interpreted as a sign that Swedish traditional media so far has managed to provide journalism in a (comparably) satisfactory manner, whereas the rise of citizen journalism in other parts might be related to greater needs for alternative sources of information. What is becoming a new factor though is a plethora of alternative media channels with a distinctly right wing, populist or even more radical right wing signature. Many of these alternative media place themselves, as the blog Motpol’s motto read: “to the right of the corridor of opinion”. Swedish mainstream media has been accused of promoting an extremely narrow “corridor of opinion”, and of deliberately covering up facts that do not fit a “politically correct” agenda. In response, alternative platforms for news and views have boomed in Sweden and also reach significant audiences. Many of these also describe themselves as citizen journalists. This development needs scholarly attention and it challenges established notions about how citizen journalism has been construed by scholars in the past – and what might come in the future. In the paper I present results from studies about citizen journalism in general in Sweden and also from an ongoing study about immigration critical and right-wing alternative media in Sweden (both interviews and content analysis). These results are then discussed in relation to existing definitions of citizen journalism.

This paper deals with media criticism and mistrust among people active in immigration critical alternative media in Sweden. Characteristic of many far-right movements is a widespread skepticism and suspiciousness towards mainstream media. The message is that mainstream media conceal or distort information that does not fit the “politically correct” agenda. In Sweden anti-immigration movements exhibit the same attitude. Media channels (especially online participatory media) used by these movements (“alternative media”) need to be analysed in the light of its position as a perceived corrective of traditional media. In the project, the aim is to understand the rationality behind radical right media criticism by interviewing activists about their perception of mainstream media and their view of participation in democratic society. The findings will shed light on how people active in far-right counter-public spheres perceive and position themselves in relation to mainstream media.

In the end of 2014 a protest movement called “Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the Occident” (German abbreviation: PEGIDA) caused public conflicts (Kepplinger, 2009) about Islamization as well as about the question if PEGIDA is a racist organization. Though PEGIDA was a major issue in German media coverage, there was only one official media appearance of a PEGIDA spokesperson in the TV talk show Günther Jauch on January the 18th 2015 (Das Erste, 2015). Since its founding PEGIDA officially refused to talk to journalists as the movement denounced all established media as “lying press” (German: “Lügenpresse”). Branches of PEGIDA in other countries follow the same pattern and communicate with members and the public mainly through their official facebook pages. This basically means that PEGIDA leaders do not focus on mass media communication, for example by using press statements or organizing press conferences. Tsfati & Cohen (2003) define media skepticism as a sense of “alienation and mistrust toward the mainstream media” which involves the “feeling that journalists are not fair or objective in their reports about society and that they do not always tell the whole story” (p. 67) and that mainstream journalists “will sacrifice accuracy and precision for personal and commercial gains” (p. 67). Media criticism of a skeptic brand is therefore quite different from other types of criticism, where the focus is primarily on criticising for the sake of “improving” the quality of various aspects of media work or products. However, if certain groups in society choose to abstain from participation in the mainstream platforms of public discourse (the “agora”) and instead entrench themselves in “counter-public spheres” (Downey & Fenton, 2003) where discourses of alienation and mistrust in conventional democratic channels are fostered and amplified, it can be deeply problematic from a democratic perspective. (Sunstein, 2007). Against this background we interpre

In this study, the results from a content analysis of four Swedish online citizen journalism outlets are presented and discussed. The analysis focuses on new digital venues for news-making in theory and the question of the political relevance of citizen journalism in reality. This broad question is operationalized by asking more specifically how citizen journalists tell the news, according to established distinctions between variations in topic dimensions, focus, and presentational style. Our results show that citizen journalists tend to tell soft news. They rarely report on policy issues, local authorities, or people affected by decisions being made by them. Furthermore, the news focuses on individual relevance and is mostly episodic in nature. The style of writing is predominantly impersonal and unemotional. In sum, our results suggest that citizen journalism in Sweden is not yet at a stage where it can be considered a plausible alternative to traditional journalism.

In this paper, the notion of metapolitical participation is presented and discussed in relation to a case study of the online identitarian dictionary Metapedia.org. While political participation traditionally entails activities such as voting, demonstrating, petitioning etc., metapolitics, as a concept used by identitarians, excludes such expressions of political participation. Instead, metapolitics, as visible in Metapedia’s slogan “Countering semantic distortion worldwide”, is defined as a way of influencing culture and societal discourse through cultural activities, such as compiling online dictionaries. Metapolitical participation describes a form of online participation that is not compatible with traditional notions of democratic participation. As the aim of Metapedia is to provide alternative (identitarian) constructions of reality, the mainstream media naturally becomes the main antagonist in their cultural battle. Due to this tension between mainstream media and the metapolitical agenda, a qualitative content analysis of the media criticism at Metapedia was performed. The empirical material consists of all articles (231 in total) in the category “massmedia” at the Swedish branch of Metapedia.org. In the articles we identified five main themes of media criticism: erroneous reporting, criticism of ownership and influence, “naming and shaming”, discursive contestations, alternative phraseology, as well as an additional theme dealing with promotion of other media outlets within the counter-public sphere. Our findings reveal that the authors at Metapedia express a deep anxiety, uneasiness, discontent and cynicism about mediated public discourse which is seen as deliberately marginalizing certain perspectives, covering up uncomfortable facts and is guided by a general principle of conformity to “political correctness”., Ej belagd, 20150929

In this paper S. ren Kierkegaard’s “Two ages” is analysed as an example of early modern media criticism. Existentialist thinkers have dealt with the authenticity of the self, and the ideal of staying true to the uniqueness of one’s own being in spite of societal or cultural obstacles. Media has often been seen as a part of the increasingly artificial landscape of modern society. For Kierkegaard, however, the criticism of media had a clearly religious dimension. There is an intimate link between his objections to the Christianityof his time and his criticism of the emerging mediascape of the nineteenth century. Kierkegaard disliked the press because it offered a shortcut to forming own opinions by presenting readymade thoughts and shallow entertainment instead of helping people in facing reality. The media offered escape from reality into fiction, from personal experiences into someone else’s and as a consequence, was a threat to religious life. He saw media as an intervening agency, blocking people’s way to true experiences, authenticity and, ultimately, God.