Browsing by study line "Media and Democracy"

Far and wide, multilateral cooperation is championed as a principal response to a volatile global landscape characterized by transnational challenges, complexity, and turbulent great power relations. At the same time, many lament multilateralism to be amidst a paramount crisis of identity. New actors and powers are keen and increasingly capable of challenging the norms underpinning the traditionally Western-led, liberal international order and multilateralism adhering to it. Some argue that an era of unipolarity, and thus U.S. hegemony, is drawing to a close. China has come to depict itself as a fundamentally multilateral actor and is actively envisioning the design of multilateralism from its own normative stances. Rising powers, such as India, are increasingly eager to convey their views on how cooperation ought to be compiled and whom it should benefit. This thesis analyses the strategic narratives on multilateralism and the international order as put forth by China’s and India’s foreign policy statements. Three research questions were posed to direct and frame the analysis: How are the concepts of international order and multilateral cooperation described in foreign policy statements delivered by China and India? What kind of values or norms emerge as salient for China’s and India’s strategic narratives on multilateralism and the international order? How are these values and norms connected to China’s and India’s historical narratives of themselves on the international arena? Strategic narratives (Miskimmon et. al, 2013) provide a lens through which to examine how political actors construct shared meanings of the past, present, and future of international politics, in order to sculpt the behaviour of domestic and international actors. Examining the research questions via the lens of strategic narratives enables scrutiny into the themes of intentionality, communication as persuasive power, and the role strategically reconstructed concepts can exert on reality. In the case of China, three strategic narratives were identified: 1) a narrative of China’s origin story, depicted as a basis for both its future glory and its benevolence as a partner 2) a vision of “true” multilateralism, compiled of the three pillars of the existence of distinct civilizations, hegemony as antithetical to multilateralism, and sovereignty as a key value in multilateralism 3) a narrative of China being “ahead of times” and “on the right side of history”. In the case of India, three strategic narratives were identified, as well: 1) the narrative of insiders and outsiders, entailing an interplay of domestic and foreign policy 2) a vision of “temporal balance”, depicted as unique and inherent to the Indian civilization 3) a vision of the desirability of the diffusion of power, viewed to lead to justice and greater democracy in international relations. While the analysis primarily illuminates upon the strategic narratives on multilateralism and the international order as posed by China’s and India’s foreign policy, the results of this thesis also expand into future research themes such as emerging conceptualizations of democracy on the level of international relations, the persuasive power of fuzzy concepts, as well as the manner in which concepts may travel and assume novel, localized versions.

Populist has become a label thrown at politicians and parties, by media professionals, political opponents or in popular discourse. At the same time, cases like Boris Johnson’s Brexit campaign and Donald Trump’s US presidency have showed a potentially new form of populism, emerging from established political parties, with no discernible populist past and over a century of institutional history. When these two trends are present at the same time, academic enquiry into such cases of labelling established parties as populist is warranted. This study examines such a case. By taking a discursive-ideational approach to populism, I assess what elements of populism are present in the Facebook communication of Norwegian party Senterpartiet leader Trygve Slagsvold Vedum, in the year running up to the September 2021 parliamentary election. The party’s agrarian roots, rural voter base and historical opposition to centralisation and urbanisation means the objective is to specifically establish traits that can be traced to the agrarian populist tradition, where the urban/rural divide and conflict over centralisation and the emergence of urban values sit at the centre. This thesis relies on data material sourced from Trygve Slagsvold Vedum’s public Facebook page in the 12 months running up to the election. Following a constructionist theoretical approach and utilizing a discourse analytical framework to analyse texts and images posted on the page, I establish elements which constitute discourses, in order to assess the political antagonism in the data material for articulations of a populist antagonism. I conclude that there are several elements found within the data that constitute a populist antagonism, establishing meanings and demands which articulate a people and elite in opposition to each other. There are also clear elements which show the frontier between these two groups is predominantly created by conflict along the urban/rural divide, such as centralisation, the emergence of urban values and foreign influence. There is however contrary evidence which suggests the case subject cannot be called a populist movement, even if there are strong elements of populism present in the discourses.

This study aims to analyze the abortion debate in the United States by examining the Senate’s debate over ‘The Women’s Health Protection Act 2022’. The ‘Women’s Health Protection Act. 2022’ pursued to codify Roe v. Wade in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s leaked draft planning to overrule the constitutional right to abortion. This study analyzes the values the Senators use in their arguments for and against abortion, and thus proceeds to identify the worldviews behind their abortion stances. The debate around the ‘Women’s Health Protection Act’ occurred in May 2022 and the focus is on the Republican and Democrat Senators’ rhetoric. This study answers two research question about the values and worldviews represented in the Senators’ speeches during the debate’s first day. New rhetoric, a theory on argumentation and a tool for its analysis serves as the study’s method in identifying the values used by the Senators. The study’s theoretical framework combines Lakoff’s framing theory with theories of political polarization. The theoretical framework allows for critical assessment of the values the analysis identifies. Lakoff’s framing theory pursues understanding of contemporary American politics through the concepts that constitute people’s thoughts and shape their worldviews. Political polarization aims to explain growing fundamentalist political positions and the lack of effective negotiations and compromise in the 21st century. The ‘Women’s Health Protection Act 2022’ debate is the object of the analysis and 35 speeches from the two-day debate’s first day serve as this study’s data. The speeches vary in length from approximately 210 words to 2500 words. The speeches were analyzed according to Perelman and Olbrecths-Tyteca’s new rhetoric by coding the values with ATLAS.ti. The analysis identified 34 different values and the most used values per party were defined as the party’s core values within the debate’s context. For the Republican Senators these values were human life, the rights of healthcare practitioners, safety, legitimacy, the rights of the children and unborn, and science. The core values of the Democrat Senators were women’s rights, freedom, safety, legitimacy, and health. The study found the Senators’ most prominent values to resemble Lakoff’s theory on the Republicans and Democrats’ worldviews. The only contradiction was found in the Republican Senators demonstrating empathy towards women. The application of political polarization to the study’s findings showed signs of a polarized Senate and a polarized debate. The study was able to provide an account of what the Democrat’s rhetoric and frames in abortion debate may look like, as previous research mainly focuses on the Republicans. Furthermore, the study demonstrates the need to study the dynamic between the Senate and the electorate, as the findings suggest the Senate may enforce more extreme abortion legislation than the public wants.

This thesis discusses the use of audiovisual media in film and television criticism, the video essay as a genre within which this may occur, and how artistic and critical elements may intersect in film and television criticism within this genre. The research questions of the thesis concern these topics. The topics discussed in the thesis relate to questions regarding the genre of the video essay, the role of artistic elements in criticism, the implications of criticism of works of art being made through forms of media similar or different to the work of art in question, the role of critics as amateurs or professionals and the concept of professionalism with regards to criticism, and the context of the platform of YouTube. The thesis provides a discussion of audiovisuality, the video essay genre and the use of artistic elements in criticism by analysing an example of criticism being made through the video essay genre. This is done in the form of a genre analysis conducted through a case study of the video series The Starship Troopers Trilogy by Kyle Kallgren, published on the YouTube channel KyleKallgrenBHH in 2021. This analysis involves examining this series of three videos through a discussion of seven key aspects related to genre: structure, style, content, audience, medium, author and communicative purpose. The examination of communicative purpose involves taking into consideration four different communicative purposes: criticism, artistry, autobiography and theorisation. The thesis suggests that there are benefits to the field of film and television criticism in the possibility of expressing criticism audiovisually. It also argues that the video essay is a genre with intriguing possibilities for film and television criticism. Furthermore, it indicates that the integration of artistic and critical elements in this genre may allow for these aspects of a film and television criticism video essay to enhance each other.

Digitalisation has facilitated a global rise of smart city agendas, in which digital technologies are utilised to govern city spaces and services. Smart city initiatives have also been implemented in the city of Helsinki in hopes of improving urban sustainability and quality of life. However, prior smart city development has been widely criticised by scholars for prioritising private, commercial interests over citizen perspectives. Additionally, socio-digital inequalities and citizens' digital agency have not been issues commonly emphasised in the design of smart city initiatives, despite their interconnected nature. This thesis explores digital citizenship at the smart city site of Malmi in Helsinki. With a focus on socio-digital inequalities and digital agency, the thesis approaches smart city development from the perspective of situated knowledge and provides paths towards digital inclusion. The theoretical framework of the thesis explores current constructions of digital agency and socio-digital inequality in light of global power structures related to digital spheres. Furthermore, these issues are explored specifically in the context of smart cities. The thesis uses a qualitative, bottom-up approach to examine Helsinki residents’ lived experiences regarding digital technologies and the smart city. The research material consists of twenty semi-structured interviews with Malmi residents, along with three expert interviews with the City of Helsinki’s officials. Furthermore, interview data is complemented with ethnographic background material. The research material is analysed with qualitative content analysis. The findings of the study bring forward Helsinki residents’ everyday life experiences and concerns about digital technologies and the smart city. In addition, wider smart city development and future smart imaginaries are explored through the context of Malmi and Helsinki’s smart city development. The research material shows that socio-digital inequalities and issues in digital agency are still prevalent in Finland. In order to harness smart city initiatives to better address these issues, the thesis provides grounds and practical recommendations for bridging the current gap between smart city development and socio-digital inequalities. In addition, the thesis may serve as inspiration for creating contextual and citizen-centred approaches to the smart city and digital citizenship elsewhere. The thesis concludes that smart city initiatives should be harnessed to promote diverse forms of digital inclusion, as well as critical and radical forms of digital agency, in which both awareness and novel forms of resistance can be explored by citizens.

The thesis assesses ethical problems pertaining to a scenario of a mandatory vaccination program against SARS-CoV-2 (“Covid-19”) in Finland, as the epidemic situation stood in the early 2022. The initial research question is whether this kind of a program would be ethically justifiable. The conclusion to this question is reached by describing the epidemic situation, presenting basic ethical norms of public healthcare, and making a synthetizing ethical analysis on their basis. The concluding answer no comes as the result of analyzing the Finnish scenario from the perspectives of eight criteria of ethical justification that would need to be adequately met in order for a mandatory vaccination program to be an ethically sound public health measure. The eight criteria are formed by examining literature of public health ethics and vaccination ethics as well as strong ethical arguments in favor and against mandatory vaccinations, and by combining a ground of shared prerequisites guiding ethical considerations on the topic. The analysis reveals numerous ethical problems present in the Finnish scenario. The mere existence of so many unsolved issues makes the potential mandatory Covid-19 vaccination program an unethical option. The thesis calls for better public discussion on public health ethics, so that the ethical imperatives of protecting public health security and protecting individual bodily autonomy are realized also in emergency situations.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 prompted Finland to re-evaluate its national security and led to increased support for NATO membership. This study examines how Finnish news media portrays national security at the time of heightened sense of insecurity. The objective of the study is to explore and expose the nexus of security and gender within the NATO discussion context. Drawing on feminist security studies, this study views security as a gendered concept. It takes an interdisciplinary approach, integrating security studies, gender studies, and media studies. The thesis investigates the gendered nature of security by using traditional masculine and feminine values as tools in discourse analysis. Additionally, the thesis analyses whose voices are heard in the media. This case study focuses on the NATO discussion in Helsingin Sanomat, Iltalehti, and Yle from January to March 2022. The thesis comprises two parts from the perspective of methodology and data. The quantitative content analysis of 671 online news articles examines gender representation in the media, while the qualitative analysis of 70 opinionated online news media articles employs thematisation and Wodak’s approach to critical discourse analysis. The findings of this study imply that the dominant notion of security in the media is narrow and masculine. The hegemonic notion of Finnish national security aligns with traditional masculinity, emphasising militaristic, physical, and rational characteristics. The analysis shows that growing insecurity appears to correspond with decreasing feminine notions of security. The study argues that the prevailing security discourse in the media is exclusive to the performances of militarised masculinity. Additionally, security is predominantly discussed by male voices in the media. Finally, this thesis argues that the dominant narrow, masculine, and militaristic notion of security is not contested in the media, thereby lacking a comprehensive understanding of securities and insecurities as well as inequalities. The study addresses a need for further critical research to examine the interrelation of national security, militarism, and gender in Finland.

In 2020 and 2021, the Finnish news media covered violent youth crime extensively. Not because it had increased significantly, but due to a handful of exceptional cases that shook Finnish society. Several brutal and severe cases that took place in a short period seemed to generate a media narrative around a new crime wave that posed a threat to Finnish society. The theoretical basis for this research focuses on the intersection of media studies, criminology, and sociology. Youth violence is often disproportionately covered in the news. Cases, in which adolescents commit violent crimes, are often written about in more depth and more extensively than those committed by adults since the pairing of the innocence of children with horrendous acts of violence manifests a more newsworthy phenomenon. However, since media portrayals have the power to shape public perceptions, they can create distorted views of the prevalence of crime and spark fear in audiences. This Master’s thesis aims to gain an understanding of the nature of news narratives around violent youth crime in Finland. This study takes on a qualitative and empirical approach. The underlying assumption behind the research is that the concept of youth violence is a social construction and that news narratives play a role in the discursive creation of the phenomenon. This Master’s thesis focuses on the Finnish news coverage of three cases of homicide that happened in 2020 and 2021. In each case the perpetrators were adolescents. The methodological approach of this thesis is a qualitative content analysis of coverage in 137 news articles found online. The research focuses on how adolescent offenders are described, and how the reasons and solutions to youth violence are portrayed in the news. The results of the thesis suggest that violent youth and the threat they pose to society are covered in the news media as a paradox; on the one hand, only evil sadists are capable of such violent acts, yet on the other hand, society has failed its children if they resort to violence. The discussion around youth violence is populated by a plethora of individual actors, such as perpetrators, their peers, child service workers, the police, politicians and ordinary citizens, and everyone plays a role in how the phenomenon of violent youth crime is discursively constructed in the news.

This thesis will investigate how in transnational media outlet Politico Europe Europeanness is framed in relation to LGBT rights. The concept of Europeanness is highly contested and is largely shaped by the framed context in which it is studied. The concept of Europeanness in the context of this thesis is understood as a set of ideas that are relational and temporal. This allows the thesis to investigate how the concept of Europeanness is framed in contemporary settings and in relation to LGBT rights. The theoretical focus of the thesis is how an internal sexual Other is constructed in relation to Europeanness. This Othering process in constructing Europeanness and in relation to LGBT rights is often studied through the notions of Rainbow Europe and Freezer Europe. The case in point for the thesis is what is referred to as the Hungarian anti-LGBT law of 2021 that was adopted by the Hungarian government on the 15th of June 2021. The empirical material consists in total of 18 online newspaper articles of Politico Europe. The data collection method was performed through random sampling. The data is organised and coded using MAXQDA software. The method that is used to analyse the data is qualitative frame analysis method (FA). After analysis of the empirical material, the main frames that create the notions of “Rainbow Europe” and “Freezer Europe” are organised into two categories. “Rainbow Europe” notion is framed through fundamental rights frame, tolerance frame, and backsliding frame. “Freezer Europe” notion is framed through temporality frame, backwardness frame, and intolerance frame. The main results are that Europeanness in relation to LGBT rights is framed in Politico Europe through the notions of Rainbow and Freezer Europe, with the creation of a temporal difference in Hungary post-2010. Europeanness is framed as essentially LGBT friendly, and the framing of Rainbow Europe notion heightens this construction of Europeanness. Hungary is framed through the notion of Freezer Europe, which renders it as not European “enough” to be considered part of Europeanness in relation to LGBT rights. The thesis contributes to the understanding of contemporary framings of Europeanness in relation to LGBT rights in transnational news media.

Media and power dichotomy in Russia present an interesting and multilateral context for research. The global pandemic of COVID-19 which started in 2019, raised the significance of the crisis communication in the media. Crisis communication is essential in regard to constructing and influencing the audience’s perception. The aim of this master’s thesis is to provide an analysis of the news frames used in two Russian newspapers and analyse how they are used in relation to influencing public’s perception. The aim is to identify how the news framing creates narratives and public discussion. Additionally, the analysis involves the question of how the relationship between Russia and the West is framed during this crisis. The research material consists of two different newspapers during the month of April 2021. Research data that involve news about COVID-19 includes all the articles, editorials and opinion pieces from this time. Research material consists of a total of 54 articles. The newspapers selected for the research are “Argumenty I Fakty” which is identified as a pro- government newspaper. The second newspaper is “Nezavisimaja Gazeta” identified as critical towards the Russian government. The framing analysis of research material is conducted. Research also draws from the theories of crisis communication. Results of the analysis indicate, that the political orientation of a newspaper, is significant in terms of the news frames used in them. The news frames construct the public discussion and influence the peoples actions. In “Argymenty I Fakty” was found four news frames and in “Nezavisimaja Gazeta” was found five news frames. Only one news frame was used in both newspapers. The news frames utilized in the pro-government newspaper amplified the political agenda of the Russian government. The narratives created in both newspapers were significantly different. In conclusion, the framing analysis provided an understanding of the news frames used in two different Russian newspapers. It is evident, that the political identity of the newspaper provides a significant impact which news frames are utilized and how crisis communication is conducted. The opposition of Russia and the West is visible in both newspapers and it is created through the news framing.