Ragnar Lundström

Pirate culture and hacktivist mobilization: The cultural and social protocols of #WikiLeaks on Twitter:

This article uses the case of Twitter activity under the #WikiLeaks hashtag to address issues of social movements online. The aim is to analyze the potential of elusive web spaces as sites of mobilization. Looking at linguistic and social aspects, our main questions were: What are the characteristics of the communication in terms of common discursive codes versus fragmentation? In what respects can social order be distinguished, and to what extent are connections between users simply random? Are there any prominent patterns as regards the commitment of participators over time? With the help of tools from semantic, social network and discourse analysis, we were able to show that common codes, networks of connections and mobilization do exist in this context. These patterns can be seen as part of the elaboration of a ‘cognitive praxis’. In order to organize and mobilize, any movement needs to speak a common language, agree on the definition of the situation and formulate a shared vision. Even though it is global and loosely-knit, Twitter discourse is a space where such processes of meaning-production take place.

Inside victims and outside offenders : dislocations and interventions in the discourse of rape

This article is based on case studies of the reporting of four widely-publicized incidents of rape and/or sexual assault (in one case combined with murder) in the Swedish press. The analysis uses Thompsons theory of ideology, and Laclaus concepts of “dislocation” and “hegemonic intervention”. The main argument is that variations in representational strategies cannot be understood exclusively in terms of actual variations as regards the contexts of these crimes. Rather, stories tend to take on their particular forms as a response to certain discursive “needs”. We want to emphasize that the specific ways in which social problems – such as crimes – are symbolically constructed can be seen as products of which types of victims and offenders are needed by hegemonic discourse for it to be able to sustain itself. The news stories tend to employ a strategy according to which offender images are typically externalized and pushed towards the “outside” while victim images are constructed in terms of inclusion.

Framing fraud: Discourse on benefit cheating in Sweden and the UK

This article analyses discourse on benefit fraud in Swedish and British newspapers. It furthermore compares discourse on fraud in newspapers and political blogs in the two countries. In Sweden, fraud is primarily articulated as a collective social problem in policy discussions related to the health insurance programme. In the UK, it is often articulated employing strategies commonly associated with crime news narratives, and centred on images of individual cheaters. The main result of the analysis presented here is that these observed differences between British and Swedish media representations are related to the ways in which the relationship between the welfare state and the citizens traditionally have been constructed in liberal and social democratic contexts respectively. Political attempts to highlight the issue of benefit fraud, and dominant media representations of such attempts, must therefore be understood not as attempts to combat fraud, but rather as attempts to delegitimize the more general aim and purpose of the welfare state. They challenge the deservingness of welfare recipients in general, not just the ones that cheat, and they thereby transform the conditions for public trust in the welfare state. News discourse on fraud in both countries establishes a neoliberal, financialized and individualized notion of welfare dependency, through which the relationship between social and structural circumstances on the one hand, and poverty, exclusion and inequality on the other, become blurred. The comparison of newspapers and blogs suggests that although dominant media representations are contested through citizen-created journalism in both contexts, they also limit the conditions for discursive struggles over the issue of benefit fraud significantly.

The Space of Civil Society and the Practices of Resistance and Subordination

Abstract We argue that the majority of civil society conceptualizations employ a narrow concept of the state and a narrow concept of civil society. The life history of a Brazilian woman demonstrates that as individuals travel through state institutions and civil society organizations (CSOs), they carry conflicting worldviews with them which bear on the practices of CSOs. With Gramsci we recognize civil society as a space where movements and the state struggle for hegemony; beyond him we conceptualize CSOs as contradictory, being simultaneously of and against the state, while the state is simultaneously outside and within them.

Disconnected spaces: introducing environmental perspectives into the trade union agenda top-down and bottom-up

This article compares how visions for integrating environmental issues into the union agenda are articulated from two different positions in the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (LO). The article is based on an analysis of ‘life history interviews’ and directs attention to the biographical circumstances under which individuals are able to work with environmental issues in unions. The analysis shows that the conditions for integrating environmental issues are weakened by the hierarchical culture of the organisation and by high levels of institutionalisation. LO furthermore lacks routines for mobilising the interests of environmental enthusiasts, and being positioned at headquarters hampers the abilities of union officials to mobilise environmental interests among members. Comparing the experiences from Sweden with the case of Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) in Spain shows that success depends on a relationship between individual engagement and political. Union transformation is contingent on developing issues that connect the immediate interests of workers with their long-term interests as citizens, such that a new workers’ identity can develop and lead to practices that overcome the ‘metabolic rift’.

Between the exceptional and the ordinary: A model for the comparative analysis of moral panics and moral regulation

This article aims to further develop the understanding of the relationship and distinction between moral panics and moral regulation. To this end, a model for the comparative analysis of discursive changes over time, and between different discursive fields, is outlined. The model consists of three steps: (1) mapping general trends in news reporting; (2) analysing thematical relations in full-text news articles; and (3) conducting closer qualitative readings of news articles indicated to be of specific importance in the first two steps. Results from the presented case study – in which news reporting on benefit fraud in Sweden and the United Kingdom is analysed using the outlined model – suggest that there is a close relationship between moral panic discourse and moral regulation discourse. Using different strategies to construct social relations and deviant subjectivities through moralizing articulations, momentary outbursts of moral panics, and the more common, routine, forms of moral regulation, draw and depend upon each other to organize consensus and the management of risks in processes of discursive legitimization.

Going Green—Turning Labor: A Qualitative Analysis of the Approaches of Union Officials Working with Environmental Issues in Sweden and the United Kingdom:

What conditions shape the introduction of climate change issues into trade union organizations? This article analyzes life-history interviews with two union organization leaders working with climate issues—one in Sweden and one in the United Kingdom—discussing how their individual backgrounds, as well as the different organizational and national contexts in which they work, create different conditions and strategies for developing an environmental union agenda. The analysis discusses how the strategies of the Scandinavian leader focus on policy development, and compares this with how the U.K. union leader focuses primarily on the interests of, and conflicts with, members when integrating climate change in their respective organizations.

Greening transport in Sweden: the role of the organic intellectual in changing union climate change policy

ABSTRACT This article engages with the role of the individual in transforming union organizations by discussing the experiences of Ulf Jarnefjord and his efforts to introduce climate change policies into the Swedish Transport Workers’ Union [Transportarbetareförbundet]. Research investigating the integration of climate change policies into the agenda of Swedish trade unions has identified a disconnect between policy development among leaders on the one hand, and engagement among members on the other. Employing the life-history interview method, and the analytical concept of ‘organic intellectual’, this article focusses on the ways in which Ulf, as a regional health and safety officer, has experienced engaging with climate change issues in relation to both members and the leadership of his union. His experiences point to the importance of learning about how climate change and production impact on the everyday lives of members for developing and mobilizing support for climate change policies in unions.

Secondary victimization and the collective identity of crime victims: a qualitative analysis of Swedish crime news discourse

Abstract This article presents an analysis of how secondary victims of murder—in this context, the parents or close family members of a primary murder victim—are represented in Swedish crime news discourse. The study is based on a discourse analysis of media coverage of secondary victims, and statements made by them, in relation to four highly publicized murder cases during the last two decades. The analysis shows that portrayals of secondary victimization reinforce the conflictual character of victim–offender relationships in the news, but also limit the conditions for talking about the significance of social support, mediation and reconciliation for crime victims. News representations of crime victims become less clearly marked by the characteristics of the ‘ideal’ victim as secondary victims, and persons who are explicitly critical toward the legal system, claim victimhood. Furthermore, the identity of the crime victims’ movement as a collective becomes destabilized when the category of the victim is widened to include individuals whose interests are framed as subjective, rather than related to the needs of other crime victims or the general public. In sum, increased media focus on secondary victims may thus undermine the legitimacy of victim claims in public discourse.