We wish to invite you to the ERMeCC Lunch Seminar taking place on Tuesday, 11th December in Polak 2-16 from 12:00 to 13:00. Please feel free to bring your lunch and comments! In turn, we will provide intellectual stimulation by presenting the research detailed below.
Cultural Journalism in Brazil and Portugal
By Mariana Müller
Brazil and Portugal share a common cultural heritage, the same language, several migratory waves and a relevant flow of artistic and cultural products. In this presentation I will introduce an overview of my ongoing thesis about representations of Brazil and Portugal in digital culture newspaper coverage. My aim is to discuss how Brazil and Portugal convey representations of each other in local media vehicles. Theoretically, the project is based on a notion of journalism as a social construction and include concepts from Cultural Studies as social representations, stereotypes, and social memory. I will therefore introduce my empirical object, methodological approaches and share some challenges on the development of this research regarding newspapers in digital archives.
Lost in translation: The meanings of racism in Finnish public discourse
By Mervi K. Pantti
Understandings of racism are produced and circulated in contemporary networked media forms, contributing new opportunities to both extend and challenge racializing discourses, images and frameworks. This presentation discusses how the concept of racism is used in Finnish public debate during a particular political and media conjuncture, bookended by significant electoral successes for the populist-nationalist party, the Finns Party, in 2011 and the intense media focus on asylum seeking in 2015. There is a need to examine public understandings of racism in societies dominantly imagined as ‘white’ or which have markedly different histories of racialized oppression than countries like the US or UK. Specifically, the presentation examines public discourses about racism in Finnish news media and in Finland’s largest online discussion forum, ‘Finland24’, using a combination of topic modelling, an automated textual analysis technique, and a qualitative reading. The findings show that discourses about racism are different in legacy media and online platform regarding both their prominence and framings. While social media produce various discourses of ‘reverse racism’, news media connects racism to historical and international contexts. What racism is understood to be, and to what political ends the notion is used, are strongly shaped by the type of media platform, specificities of Finnish-language and national ideological battles.
- More information
If you or someone you know would like to present their research, or if you have any questions about the seminar series, please feel free to contact Daniel Trottier* (trottier@eshcc.eur.nl).