Mattias Ekman

Politicians as Media Producers: Current trajectories in the relation between journalists and politicians in the age of social media

The emergence of social media raises new questions concerning the relationship between journalists and politicians and between news media and politics. The increasingly complex media milieu, in which the boundaries between media producers and audiences become partly dissolved, calls for new theoretical approaches in the study of journalism. This article reassesses central theoretical arguments about the relationship between journalism, sources, politics and democracy. Drawing on a pilot study of the printed press, it explores the increased social media use among politicians in Sweden and its implications for political journalism. The article suggests that power relations between journalism and politics can be fruitfully explored from the perspective of mediatized interdependency, a perspective that acknowledges that journalists and politicians have become both actors and sources through mutual interaction in online spaces. Furthermore, it argues that social media use has expanded journalisms interest in the private life of politicians, thereby contributing to a de-politicization of politics.

Online Islamophobia and the politics of fear: manufacturing the green scare

Negative attitudes and explicit racism against Muslims are increasingly visible in public discourse throughout Europe. Right-wing populist parties have strengthened their positions by focusing on the ‘Islamic threat’ to the West. Concurrently, the Internet has facilitated a space where racist attitudes towards Muslims are easily disseminated into the public debate, fuelling animosity against European Muslims. This paper explores part of the online Islamophobic network and scrutinizes the discursive strategies deployed by three ‘prominent’ online actors. By combining social network analysis and critical discourse analysis, the study shows that Islamophobic web pages constitute a dynamic network with ties to different political and geographical milieus. They create a seemingly mainstream political position by framing racist standpoints as a defence of Western values and freedom of speech. The study also shows that Islamophobic discourse is strengthened by xenophobic currents within mass media, and by the legitimization of intellectuals and political actors.

Twitter and the celebritisation of politics

A distinctive feature of our time is the constant circulation of mediated images of celebrities, a process that has taken new directions after the rise of social media platforms such as Twitter, Fa ...

Anti-refugee Mobilization in Social Media: The Case of Soldiers of Odin:

In the wake of the international refugee crisis, racist attitudes are becoming more publicly evident across the European Union. Propelled by the attacks in Köln on New Year’s Eve 2015 and harsher public sentiments on immigration, vigilante gangs have emerged in various European cities. These gangs mobilize through social media networks and claim to protect citizens from alleged violent and sexual attacks by refugees. This article analyzes how racist actors use social media to mobilize and organize street politics targeting refugees/immigrants. The aim is to explore the relation between social media and anti-refugee mobilization in a time of perceived insecurity and forced migration. The study uses the vigilante network Soldiers of Odin as a specific case, looking at (1) how they communicate through social media, (2) how they are represented in the large “alternative” space of right-wing online sites, and (3) how they are represented in traditional mainstream news. Using a critical adaption of Cammaerts’ theory of “mediation opportunity structure,” the article explicates the (inverted) rationale of racist online networks. Using quantitative and qualitative content analysis, both social media content and traditional news media are examined. The results show that although racist actors succeed in utilizing many of the opportunities embedded in social media communication and protest logic, they are also subject to constraints, such as a lack of public support and negative framing in news media. The article calls for more research on the (critical) relationship between uncivil engagement and social media networks.

Performative Intimacies and Political Celebritisation

Mattias Ekman and Andreas Widholm provide fresh insights into an ongoing performative turn in political communication, arguing that the incorporation of selfies into the daily communication strategies of individual politicians entails a popularisation and celebration of political discourse. Against the background of Swedish politicians’ self-imagery on Instagram, they show that ‘performed connectivity’ has become increasingly central for political identity making online, paralleling the celebrity management of actors in the global entertainment industry. This development is problematised in terms of three performative styles that disclose strategic choices in which politicians act and interact across the increasingly blurring boundaries of the professional and the private and where symbolic connections between politicians and citizens are staged through new mediatised performances.

The relevance of Marx's theory of primitive accumulation for media and communication research

The relevance of Marxs theory of primitive accumulation for media and communication research