Political action in reponse to the COVID-19 crisis generated hope for political action on a larger looming crisis, the climate crisis. Articulating climate change in terms of crisis and positioning it in the context of apocalypse can be an effective mobilizer of short-term action. Yet, alarmist discourse risk plunging people into apathy. In this article, we examine imaginaries of the climate crisis invoked by climate activist organizations during the COVID-19 pandemic, as they tried to influence the political agenda on Twitter (now X) and, not least, call for action on the climate crisis. We identify five key activist climate imaginaries and show how an apocalyptic imagery was invoked in response to the pandemic. However, this apocalyptic imaginary was rarely invoked on its own, but in relation to other key climate imaginaries. Our findings contribute to research on agenda setting and the role of political imaginaries in struggles over societal transformations, and especially the role of activist imaginaries when challenging dominant climate imaginaries in attempts to influence the political agenda and generate political action.

This comparative case study of the Freedom Movement in Sweden and the Freedom Convoy in Canada provides insights into the processes of transnationalization involved in the (re)production of far-right narratives around the COVID-19 pandemic. Focusing on the online media of these protest movements we explore the extent to which the political and cultural context shaped far-right meta narratives and more universal concerns around the pandemic. The study finds significant similarities in how protest narratives in the two countries were constructed and appropriated to intersect with far-right extremism and anti-establishment ideas but also that these narratives were repurposed to make sense in two national contexts characterized by stark differences in the level of restrictions imposed and curtailment of civic rights. Unpacking the local/global intricacies of these narratives helps us understand the ubiquity of contemporary anti-government and anti-establishment discourse propelled by the far-right but also its malleability and flexibility in terms of how it is made to fit different political contexts and scenarios across liberal democracies. 

Who is afraid of gender? Judith Butler provocatively asks in her latest book addressing the polarised controversies stirred by the concept of gender in recent years. Her question is posed amid a surge of conservative and far-right movements that have significantly fuelled antagonism around gender debates far beyond the relatively niche circles that have traditionally been preoccupied with its conceptualisation and implications. In these debates, what Butler (2024) dubs “the phantasm of gender” is invoked as a threat to Western civilisation, a denial of nature, an attack on masculinity and “traditional family values”, or an effacement of the differences between sexes. Across Europe, such ideas have been propagated, in particular by actors within the so-called anti-gender ideology movement that leverages various forms of activism to undermine the rights of women and queer and trans people in areas from reproductive justice to protections against gendered violence. But even beyond these highly politicised circles, gender does indeed seem to have become a source of division in public discourse to the extent that the toxicity which increasingly surrounds the notion has been reported to discourage scholars and journalists alike from even engaging with the issue in public debate (Bladini, 2020; Møller Hartley & Askanius, 2021; Paternotte, 2019).

This article explores the discursive linkages between violent misogyny and violent right-wing extremism in the popular Swedish online discussion forum Flashback, which affords anonymous and relatively unmoderated commenting. Empirically, it focuses on the articulations of misogyny and anti-feminism mapped onto extreme right ideology including white supremacism in user comments posted across 16 Flashback threads. To analyze the extensive data set, we first drew on a collocation analysis of user comments (N = 20,359) scraped from a strategic selection of threads. From this sample we chose 36 combinations to be considered for a closer reading. In the second analytical step, critical discourse analysis coupled with the Essex School’s logics approach helped us unpack the logics of conspiracy and male entitlement, as well as the fantasmatic projections of Swedish women as both “race traitors” and “victims” at the heart of extreme right discourse in and beyond Sweden today.

This report takes the 2024 European Parliament elections as an entry point to examine translocal articulations of everyday extremism in and across three European countries and regions: Sweden (northern Europe), Austria (central Europe), and Bulgaria (eastern Europe). Drawing on hybrid ethnographic fieldwork and visual analysis of memes and other visual artefacts, we trace everyday political discussions surrounding the EP election campaigns in each country to examine how extremist narratives occur around contentious issues and how these are negotiated across online and offline spaces. The multi-sited research design allows us to shed light on differences and similarities in how violent rhetoric and political extremism emerge across different European contexts during a significant political event shared by citizens. By offering in-depth insights from three countries, the report contributes to a deeper understanding of the challenges facing European cohesion in a time of rising political extremism and polarization within the European Union.

This paper examines prevalent tropes of sexual violence circulating in contemporary far-right discourse in and around Sweden. Our analysis draws on a data set of memes (n=120) that have been collected over an extended period of time and in the context of several research projects on far-right extremism in Sweden and the online cultures and platforms that undergird the movement. They originate from a wide variety of actors and have been circulated in a range of different online spaces, across the spectrum of mainstream social media to fringe subcultural forums. The common denominator to the motley array of visual ephemera in the data set is that all depict scenes of sexual violence, most often including rape, in a cartoonish, humorous and transgressive manner. By turning our attention to such visual materials, we respond to calls for further research on ‘the role that exploitative sexual images – including child pornography, ‘rape fantasy’ iconography and other misogynistic images – play in far right and white supremacist extremist cultures’ (Miller-Idriss 2020, p. 489).  We explore a series of discursive figures and anthropomorphised representations of Sweden identified across these memes. These include Captain Sweden – a proxy for Sweden as a “cucked“ nation and a way of signaling resentment towards multiculturalism, progressive movements and liberal politics more generally, The Swedish Soyboy as an emblem of a feminized, castrated and perverted state, The Rapefugee invoking the threat of the abject (Muslim) Other and finally the Swedish woman who occurs in contradictory form as both slut, victim and race traitor. Combining Discourse Analysis with techniques from visual analysis of far-right digital cultures, we ask: What is the scene of rape? What are its key memetic tropes enacting in a discursive sense? How can we understand these iterations of sexual violation as key fantasmatic scenes of contemporary fascism? Based on the analysis, we argue that these tropes serve as important instantiations of contemporary far-right ideology, forming nodal points in the articulation of the pervasive narratives surrounding the country’s perceived decline and crisis circulating on the far right Furthermore, beyond the immediate context of Swedish far-right discourse, the gendered and sexualised Sweden-memes articulated around fantasies of perversion and abjection have evolved into emblems of Western moral degeneration, sexual decay, and a loss of male power across liberal democracies more generally.   

The purpose of this report is to provide a comprehensive overview of existing knowledge on contemporary extremist narratives circulating online in three countries across Europe; Austria, Bulgaria and Sweden. To achieve this, the report draws on a review of an extensive body of previous research and secondary data sources, pursuing two primary objectives: firstly, it maps what kind of extremist narratives are on offer across Europe today, and second, it identifies where across the digital mainstream, these are currently in circulation.

Upon reviewing the available evidence, two key topics emerge as central to the proliferation of extremist narratives in Europe. First, extremist narratives continue to predominantly emerge around anti-migration ideas and sentiments. Contemporary anti-immigration narratives echo familiar themes and long-standing ideas that European societies are collapsing under the weight of enforced multiculturalism and/or that European/white populations are being replaced by immigrant communities and in particular Muslim “invaders”.  Such anti-immigration narratives, which continue to take on new forms and tap into shifting conspiratorial beliefs and falsehoods, circulate openly today and in mainstream media.

Second, the Covid19 pandemic gave rise to a host of anti-establishment narratives some of which veered towards illiberal and anti-democratic ideas and behaviours. These narratives peddled widely circulated conspiracy theories suggesting that a malevolent global elite exploited or orchestrated the pandemic to dismantle European societies, infringe upon civil liberties and harm populations through the vaccination programs.  Anti-establishment narratives sparked during the pandemic continue to circulate and take on new forms in online spaces today.

Beyond the key topics outlined by OppAttune - vaccination, migration, silent narratives and protectionism - this report provides evidence that climate change and gender are emerging as key topics around which new extremist narratives and conspiracy theories tend to gravitate in Europe today.

In its efforts to identify the key online spaces in which extremist narratives occur, the report finds that these move across a wide range of online spaces ranging from well-known global social media platforms to more fringe and country-specific sites operating at the margins of the digital mainstream. These range from alternative news sites, websites and blogs to fringe video sharing platforms such as Rumble, BitChute, Odysee; the online messaging services Telegram, Discord and Viber; discussion forums like Reddit and mainstream social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram. Some of the online platforms identified are specific to the national contexts. In the Swedish landscape of online media discussion forums Flashback Forum and Familjeliv along with SwebbTube emerge as prominent conduits for extremist narratives and divisive discourse. Specific to the context of Bulgaria are Spodeli, Kaldata, Dir and BG-Mamma, all of which are online forums affording anonymous and relatively unmoderated discussions.

In addition, focusing on the transnational and multi-language forum Reddit, the report provides preliminary analytical insights into the dynamics of online discussions on migration among ordinary citizens in the three countries. These empirical insights suggest that extremist narratives proliferate across the three subreddits and provide ample evidence of the increasing penetration of exclusionary and stigmatising discourse into the digital mainstream. 

Despite initial suggestions that the COVID-19 pandemic affected everyone equally, it quickly became clear that some were much worse affected than others. Marginalization—including poverty, substandard accommodation, precarious or no employment, reduced access to healthcare and other key public goods—was clearly correlated with higher rates of both contagion and fatality. For Sweden, COVID-19 inequality could be seen along clear racial and socio-economic lines, with some of the first high death rates seen amongst Somali communities, where individuals had contracted the virus through unsafe employment as taxi drivers transporting wealthier Swedes home from their winter holidays. At the same time, actors on the extra parliamentarian far-right in Sweden were quick to blame the country's relatively high per-capita fatality rate on persons born outside Sweden working in the healthcare and care home sector. Media frames affirming racial stereotypes grounded in cultural racism circulated across the ecosystem of alternative media in the country. In both healthcare and the media, we see growing forms of exclusion disproportionately affecting migrants. Such intertwined exclusions in Sweden, as the article argues, are a sign of a wider disintegration of Swedish society in which individuals lose trust in both the core institutions as well as across different parts of society. Drawing on Davina Cooper's understanding of the relationship between the state and other public institutions with individuals as based on “touch,” the article explores how exclusionary practices impact this relationship. Our key argument is that, whilst ostensibly such practices often most materially hurt minority groups (e.g., migrants), they are indicative of—and accelerate—a broader disintegration of society through undermining a logic of “care” necessary to sustain social bonds.

This study examines the social, political, and fantasmatic logics involved in the production of contemporary discourses about Scandinavia as a symbolic site and imagined place of sexual and moral decay and as a gender dysphoric dystopia by actors in the global anti-gender movement. Empirically, we draw on a rich digital archive of multi-modal media texts from an ongoing research project on anti-gender movements in Russia and Germany – two countries which provide particularly poignant examples of sites in which this mode of anti-gender propaganda is currently on the rise. In the analysis, we explore the discursive workings of a particularly prominent node in the material – that of the vulnerable child – and show how this figure is construed and instrumentalised to add urgency and fuel outrage among domestic audiences in Russia and Germany.

En iscensatt föreläsning i gränslandet mellan vetenskap och scenkonst om det våldsbejakande kvinnohatet i digitala miljöer.

Sverige lyfts ofta fram som ett internationellt föregångsland när det gäller jämställdhet och kvinnors lika rättigheter. Men det är inte alla som håller med. Forskaren Tina Askanius tar med oss på en resa djupt ner i internets avkrokar där kvinnohatet frodas och Sverige framställs som ett land styrt av mansföraktspolitik och jämställhetsgalenskap. Här debatteras ”den svenska kvinnan” flitigt. Vem är egentligen ”den svenska kvinnan”? Varför betraktas hon som farlig? Varför var det ett misstag att ge henne rösträtt? Varför förtjänar hon att bli våldtagen? Varför ska hon dö?

I den här föreställningen möts vetenskaplig forskning och scenkonstuttryck som ger nya perspektiv på denna högst aktuella samhällsfråga. Föreläsningen iscensätts av Absurdum Temporary Art som genom bland annat koreografi och musik ramar in olika delar av den digitala sfär som vi alla lever med dagligen, där den svenska kvinnan betraktas både som någon som måste skyddas, och någon som måste utplånas.

This empirical chapter examines the experience of reporting on, and advocating around, the #MeToo movement 2.0 in Denmark and Sweden, two Scandinavian countries that are ranked among the most gender-equal societies in the world. The #MeToo debates developed in different directions in the two countries, as well as over different time trajectories since its revitalization in 2017. Using the metaphor of “voice(s),” what voices were heard or silenced in the years following the initial #MeToo debate? How were the whys and hows of reporting on sexual violence renegotiated in the post-#MeToo era? We use a mixed methods approach that draws on quantitative and qualitative content analysis; in-depth interviews with journalists, nongovernmental organizations, and activists in both countries (n = 20); participant observations from #MeToo events; and our own participation as expert sources in the coverage of the development of #MeToo in Denmark and Sweden. The study shows how the different patterns of silencing and speaking up illustrate a broader renegotiation of boundaries along two axes. The first axis relates to objectivity/subjectivity in journalistic practices, and the second axis links to the structural/individual foci in the reporting on issues related to sexual violence. However, these renegotiations are highly contextual and intertwined with the political context and civil societal structures in Denmark and Sweden.

Extended abstract

This paper explores the influencer practices of an online network of individuals, extra-parliamentary groups, and alternative media on the far-right, promoting content ranging from mainstream conservatism and ethnopluralism all the way to overtly white supremacist ideas. These actors vary in their beliefs and values on the far-right spectrum, but unite in their opposition to feminism, social justice, left-wing politics and mainstream media creating a collaborative ecosystem around these issues that Lewis (2020) dubs the “alternative influence network.” This study identifies central nodes in and maps the composition of the alternative influence network (AIN) on YouTube distinct to the context of Sweden. We ask: How are YouTube channels networked to form an AIN connecting the extra-parliamentarian far-right in Sweden? To what extent does the extra-parliamentarian far-right in Sweden connect across individual influencers, groups/organisations and alternative far-right news media?  How do actors in the network engage in influencers practices combining commercial (self-)branding strategies, marketing and monetization schemes with political propaganda techniques?   

The network analysis is based on a sample of YouTube channels which includes a combination of far-right groups (9), individual far-right influencers (32), and hyper-partisan/far-right alternative news media (11). In a first analytical step, drawing on the results of a network analysis of videos (n=8531), we show how these actors are connected by an interlocking series of connective practices including guest appearances on each other’s YouTube channels as well as a variety of referencing- and hyperlinking practices. We then take a qualitative case study approach to examine the influencer practices of central nodes in the network to provide an in-depth examination of the various ways political influencers on the far-right intersperse business strategies with political propagation techniques.  

The analysis demonstrates how, much like online influencers in any other field, these actors conform to the market logics of attentional economy of the platform society (Van Djick Poell and de Waahl 2018). We may understand these “Political influencers” as content creators repurposing influencer marketing techniques to impart ideological ideas to their audiences (Lewis 2018). Similar to other creators aiming to reach influencer status in the digital sphere, they attempt to self-brand as micro celebrities and build an online following, encouraging listeners to subscribe to their channels, like their content, and engage with it and the creators via the comment field. Creating deeply intimate connections with their followers enables AIN actors to promote far right ideas and conspiracy theories, in ways very similar to how a fashion influencer will promote their clothing style or brand. To boost engagement, AIN actors address timely and controversial events from a unique angle – in their case, often with a shocking/conspiratorial element and strategic use of controversy. This distinctiveness in approach is arguably what attracts their increasingly large follower base, in addition to strategically mixing in misinformation and disinformation which are found to engage with their novelty element, and hence possess a larger spreadability potential than factual information (Vosoughi et al. 2018). However, due to the added challenge of being forced to “dance around” YouTube policies and carefully toe the lines of legality and the platform’s Community Guidelines, AIN creators are required to be creative in their linking and reference practices if they want to stay on the platform.

A variety of different marketing and promotion techniques are at work just as the network of channels provide a window onto the broader commercial market of far-right merchandise in Sweden today. Although mostly unaffiliated with formal groups, actors in the so called “Swedish YouTube family” often stream wearing different forms of merchandise such as caps with AfS’ logo, t-shirts from Medborgerlig Samling or DFS and other attires produced and sold by actors on the extra parliamentarian far-right in Sweden today. Some channel hosts offer others in the network the opportunity to promote their products, events or news (e.g., on upcoming protests) in return for a fee. Others again use their channels as a platform for advertising specific products - anything from self-defense courses and pepper spray to protein powder and fruit juice – and promote brands or companies that either sponsor the channel or that the actors themselves are directly involved in.   

This article examines civil society uses of Twitter to promote the climate crisis as an issue in the 2019 national election campaign in Denmark. Theoretically, we draw on Cammaerts’s notion of the mediation opportunity structure and Wright, Nyberg, De Cock, and Whiteman’s notion of climate imaginaries. Methodologically, we draw on Bennett and Segerberg’s approach to studying networked interactions on Twitter. Our findings show that neither the legacy press nor MP candidates used climate-related hashtags promoted by civil society actors. MP candidates did frequently use climate-related hashtags. Nonetheless, these were mainly center-left candidates who mostly called for climate action to be propelled by green growth and technological solutions, while civil society actors called for climate action to be propelled by solidarity and systemic change. We discuss how these articulations of the climate crisis have implications for climate imaginaries and, ultimately, possibilities to act.

This paper is based on a case study of the online media practices of the neo-Nazi organisation, the Nordic Resistance Movement, conducted in the context of an ongoing project on contemporary forms of violent extremism in Sweden. Focusing on the activities of female “online influencers”, the paper explores the contradictory discourses around the role of women as “race warriors” and “Nordic wives” as this is articulated both by the women in the organisation themselves and in the online universe of the organisation more generally. On the one hand, women’s positions are determined and heavily policed by men in an organisation that openly propagates women’s subordination to men and their natural and biological role in the realm of homemaking. On the other, the discourses produced by these women are saturated by ideas of female empowerment, sisterhood, emancipation and the importance of women in the reproduction of the white race. The content analysis of online propaganda produced by female activists about the role of women positions these contradictory pulls of “White femininity” inherent to the white supremacist movements at the current political juncture in which the extreme right is growing and actively looking to recruit women as part of a broader strategy to “mainstream” in Sweden and mobilise internationally.

This article presents the results of a study examining the self-perceived roles of journalists covering the #MeToo movement in Denmark and Sweden. Drawing on qualitative interviews with journalists, editors and activists (N = 20) and participant observation at various #MeToo events, we examine the professional journalism cultures underpinning differences in the coverage and the broader public debate spurred by the movement in the two countries. The analysis is informed by the theoretical framework of role performance [Mellado, C. 2015. “Professional Roles in News Content: Six Dimensions of Journalistic Role Performance”. Journalism Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2014.922276; Mellado, C., L. Hellmueller, and W. Donsbach. 2016. Journalistic Role Performance Concepts, Contexts, and Methods. Routledge) in combination with Tuchman’s (1972. “Objectivity as Strategic Ritual”. American Journal of Sociology 77 (4): 660–679) seminal work on “Objectivity as Strategic Ritual”. This combined framework enables an analysis of how journalists negotiate ideals of objective reporting and activist imperatives when covering the movement and issues of gender (in)equality more broadly. Our study shows that journalists, to a varying degree, felt torn between ideals of impartiality and objectivity and ideals of active reporting oriented towards action and problem-solving but that these experiences differed between the two countries and between newsrooms. We discuss these findings in light of differences in the political climates around issues related to gender in the two countries and partially diverging normative ideals and professional journalistic cultures regarding the extent to which journalism and activism can and should be combined.

This paper is based on a case study of the media narratives of the neo-Nazi organisation the Nordic Resistance Movement(NRM) which situates this particular actor within the broader landscape of violent extremism in Sweden today.[i] The empirical data consists of a strategic sample of the organisation’s online content (including web-TV, feature articles, and podcasts) all produced by and for members of the NRM and all presented as ‘culture’ and categorised under labels such as ’entertainment’, ‘pleasure’, ‘humour’ and ‘satire’[ii]. Drawing on a qualitative content analysis informed by the conceptual horizon of narrative inquiry, the paper examines various cultural expressions of neo-Nazi ideology in the organisation’s extensive repertoire of online media. Theoretically, it turns to the work of Miller-Idriss (2018) and Teitelbaum (2018) to bring centre stage the role of popular culture and entertainment in the construction of a meaningful narrative of community and belonging built around neo-Nazism in Sweden today. The paper demonstrates how the organisation with their efforts to boost the culture and entertainment-end of their media repertoire seek to add to the ordinariness and normalcy of neo-Nazi discourse and the banalisation and defusing of its underlying ideologies. Further, the analysis of the convergence between different genres, styles and content into new borderline discourses illustrate how contemporary extreme right movements are complicating the traditional binaries with which scholars have operated such as fascist versus liberal, totalitarian versus democratic and mainstream versus extremist.

This paper traces the recent turn to humour, irony and ambiguity embodied in the adaptation of memes into the repertoire of online propaganda of the militant neo-Nazi group the Nordic Resistance Movement; in a process, we dub the ‘memefication’ of white supremacism. Drawing on a combination of quantitative visual content analysis (VCA) and in-depth visual analysis focused on iconography and symbolism, we explore all memes (N = 634) created and circulated by the group around the 2018 general elections in the country. The analysis proceeds in two steps: First, we present the results of the VCA in which we identified five thematic categories of memes crafting white supremacy, xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny and anti-Semitic ideas onto esoteric and popular culture iconography then to map these across a matrix of content and form. We then proceed to the analysis of the cluster of memes coded as violent to explore the iconography and symbolism used to promote violence and death threats and render them banal. We draw on a range of recent scholarship on the entanglement of memes in the rise of the far- right and engage critical perspectives on the necropower of fascism to explore the interplay between ambiguous, playful and jokey imagery on the one hand and the murder fantasies and serious threat of white supremacist violence at the heart of neo- Nazi ideology, on the other.

This article is based on a case study of the online media practices of the militant neo-Nazi organization the Nordic Resistance Movement, currently the biggest and most active extreme-right actor in Scandinavia. I trace a recent turn to humor, irony, and ambiguity in their online communication and the increasing adaptation of stylistic strategies and visual aesthetics of the Alt-Right inspired by online communities such as 4chan, 8chan, Reddit, and Imgur. Drawing on a visual content analysis of memes (N = 634) created and circulated by the organization, the analysis explores the place of humor, irony, and ambiguity across these cultural expressions of neo-Nazism and how ideas, symbols, and layers of meaning travel back and forth between neo-Nazi and Alt-right groups within Sweden today. 

An increasingly organized culture of hate is flourishing in today’s online spaces, posing a serious challenge for democratic societies. Our study seeks to unravel the work-ings of online hate on popular social media and assess the practices, potentialities, and limitations of organized counterspeech to stymie the spread of hate online. This article is based on a case study of an organized “troll army” of online hate speech in Germany, Re-conquista Germanica, and the counterspeech initiative Reconquista Internet. Conducting a qualitative content analysis, we first unpack the strategies and stated intentions behind organized hate speech and counterspeech groups as articulated in their internal strategic documents. We then explore how and to what extent such strategies take shape in online media practices, focusing on the interplay between users spreading hate and users counter-speaking in the comment sections of German news articles on Facebook. The analysis draws on a multi-dimensional framework for studying social media engagement (Uldam & Kaun, 2019) with a focus on practices and discourses and turns to Mouffe’s (2005) con-cepts of political antagonism and agonism to operationalize and deepen the discursive di-mension. The study shows that the interactions between the two opposing camps are high-ly moralized, reflecting a post-political antagonistic battle between “good” and “evil” and showing limited signs of the potentials of counterspeech to foster productive agonism. The empirical data indicates that despite the promising intentions of rule-guided counter-speech, the counter efforts identified and scrutinized in this study predominantly fail to adhere to civic and moral standards and thus only spur on the destructive dynamics of digital hate culture.

Denne artikel præsenterer en undersøgelse af mediedækningen af #MeToo-bevægelsen inabolandene Danmark og Sverige. En komparativ indholdsanalyse viser forskelle i genrer,kilder og temaer på tværs af de to lande. Analysen viser endvidere, at dækningen overvejendeplacerede #MeToo inden for en individuel handlingsramme, der fremstiller seksuelle overgrebsom et personlig snarere end samfundsmæssigt problem i begge lande. Imidlertid var denindivid-orienterede handlings-frame og en de-legitimerende frame fokuseret på kritik af#MeToo mere udbredt i den danske dækning. En framing-analyse viste ydermere, at deroverordnet kunne observeres fire forskellige nyhedsframes i dækningen: #MeToo som 1)en online kampagne, der forbinder individer i et netværk af personlige vidnesbyrd, 2) en delaf en bredere og langvarig historisk social bevægelse for ligestilling mellem kønnene 3) enunødvendig kampagne drevet af politisk korrektheds-kultur og til sidst 4) en heksejagt og enfolkedomstol. Artiklen diskuterer disse resultater i relation til de politiske og kulturelle forholdpå køn- og ligestillingsområdet i de to lande.

This article explores civic engagement with the Danish/Swedish crime series The Bridge (Danmarks Radio/Sveriges Television 2011–) based on qualitative interviews with 113 audience members, and drawing on the notion of cultural citizenship. The perspective of cultural citizenship, as understood and operationalized mainly by Hermes, is married with critical perspectives on the crime drama genre and its audiences, along with cultural analysis of the construction of and engagement with the cross-border region in which the drama is set. The analysis shows that civic engagement with the crime series is prompted through the construction of community and allegiances through which audiences feel connected. This argument unfolds in three main analytical sections, detailing how audiences’ articulations of community are focused around distinct yet overlapping dimensions of community as (1) a national social ritual, (2) a sense of Nordic community, and finally (3) community as regional identity and sense of belonging to a borderless Öresund utopia – the integrated region between Denmark and Sweden. In so doing, the article offers rich insights into how audiences shape civic identities as members of nation states, of historical and cultural regions and as border-crossers between these geo-cultural entities - in dialogue with popular culture and around the boundary-work of the different communities offered by such texts.

This study examines the media coverage of the #metoo movement in neighbouring countries Denmark and Sweden. A comparative content analysis shows differences in genres, sources and themes across the two samples. Further, the analysis shows that the coverage predomi- nantly positioned #metoo within an individual action frame portraying sexual assault as a personal rather than societal problem in both countries. However, the individual action frame and a delegitimising frame focused on critique of #metoo were more prevalent in the Danish coverage. A framing analysis revealed four different news frames in the coverage: #metoo as (1) an online campaign connecting networked individuals, (2) part of a broader and long-standing social movement for gender justice, (3) an unnecessary campaign fuelled by cultures of political correctness and, finally, (4) a witch hunt and “kangaroo court”. Finally, we discuss and relate these findings to the political and cultural contexts of the two countries and their different historical trajectories for the institutionalisation of feminism and implementation of gender equality policies.

This article focuses on production and reception practices for live reality television using critical theory and empirical research to question how producers and audiences co- create and limit live experiences. The concept of care structures is used to make visi- ble hidden labour in the creation of mood, in particular audiences as participants in the management of live experiences. In the case of Got to Dance, there was a play off between the value and meaning of the live events as a temporary experience captured by ratings and social media, and the more enduring collective-social experience of this reality series over time.

Through an analysis of The Act of Killing (2012) and The Look of Silence (2014), this article explores the idea of provocative engagement as a way of extending our understanding of the affective dimensions of documentary and its role in civic engagement. The study draws on qualitative research, based on interviews with the filmmaker, and interviews with 52 viewers in Denmark, Sweden, Japan and Colombia. This data is used to explore the idea of subjectivity in documentary through the performance of memory, power and impunity in both films concerning the perpetrators and victims of the Indonesian genocide of 1965. Overall, our analysis highlights how performance documentary challenges the affective relationships between filmmakers and their audiences, and in this particular case we see a type of raw, provocative engagement with the act of documenting genocide, the act of watching, and what this means to people in the context of their political and lived realities.

This commentary provides critical reflections on a number of challenges related to research methodology and ethics when studying organized racism in online environments. Based on ongoing fieldwork of the Nordic Resistance Movement (NMR) in Sweden, I ask three critical questions about researching the neo-Nazi organization and organized racism more generally: (1) How do we produce valid knowledge of these ‘closed’ groups in their ‘open’ online spaces? What are the limitations of our research on hidden social life when we only have access to what they want us to know? (2) Why and for whom are we producing research on these groups? Or, put another way, what ethical considerations and problems related to intent and research agendas arise in studies of neo-Nazism and other forms of organized racism? (3) What is the emotional labour involved in studying these groups for the researcher and how might it be used in a productive manner?

By situating debates on the virtues and limitations of practice theory in relation to the specific field of video activism, this chapter inscribes itself into the burgeoning area of scholarship on social movement media practices. First, by synthesizing scholarship on historical and contemporary forms of video activism, I identify three distinct foci in this literature, each adding valuable but essentially isolated insights to the phenomenon by considering video as either or primarily technology, text, or testimony. Based on this review, I then demonstrate how a practice-based approach allows us to appreciate this form of citizen media as not one, but all of these, and puts us in a position to ask holistic questions. Rather than repeating conceptual dichotomies such as online/offline, digital/analogue, old/new, mainstream/activist, a practice-based approach addresses the rich ways in which these categories impinge and encroach on each other. For the purpose of developing such a framework, I draw on the concepts of activist media practices (Mattoni, 2012) and citizen media practices (Stephansen, 2016) as theoretical orientations for further developing an understanding of video activism as the things activists do, think, and say in relation to video for social and political change.

Through a case study of the Copenhagen-based activist television channel TV Stop (1987-2005), this chapter examines how social media are used as archives in ways that seek to facilitate connective memory between past, present and future protest movements. Drawing on in-depth key informant interviews and a thematic analysis of the online spaces former activists appropriate to store, organise and reinvigorate the historical video material, the case of TV Stop is used to reflect upon memory, archival activism and media time/temporalities in relation to social media materialities. The chapter is concerned with materiality in the specific context of video and television production and the pre-digital properties of the media landscape in which the channel first operated. It follows a shift in the cultural form that the channel uses to express itself along with a general transition from analogue to digital video materiality, which involve different forms of temporality, storage and memory. The analysis shows how the relaunch of TV Stop in social media can usefully be understood as driven by three interlaced incentives to store and preserve time; to catch up with times and as impelled by the urge to remember times passed and reminding people of the value of remembering and making connections between past and present struggles.

This article focuses on fan experiences of place in the Scandinavian crime series The Bridge (Bron||Broen). It offers four in-depth portraits of fans representing different modes of engaging with geographies of the imagination based on participant observations and qualitative semi-structured interviews with 80 audience members conducted in Denmark, Sweden and the UK. The analysis draws attention to fans’ emotional engagement with the show, and to how the experience of the media location of a drama set in the borderland between Denmark and Sweden induces a ‘sense of place’ in fans’ imagination. Based on the analysis of fans’ experience of place in the drama and the emotional landscapes of Scandinavian crime fiction more broadly, the article engages in a broader discussion of the significance and contingency of place to fans’ emotional experience of television drama. I argue that the relationship between media fandom and sites of media production is best understood in terms of a series of continuities and disjunctures between the materiality/virtuality of media tourism and travelling. These are actualised and shaped by the different dimensions of knowledge – from locality to genericity, embodied to imagined – that fans bring into the playful and affective process of engaging with media. The findings of this kind of longitudinal, empirical research into the lived experiences of place thus add to a nuanced understanding of the relationship between media fandom and sites of media production based on prolonged and in-depth interactions with audiences.

This article examines extreme-right online media as a site of discursive struggle over definitions of the causes, consequences and remedies of the European economic crisis. The authors focus on two Scandinavian countries, Denmark and Sweden, which have seen a rise in extreme-right activities across different arenas and in different media in the turbulent years since the collapse of global financial markets in 2008. Drawing on a discourse-theoretical framework that builds on the work of Laclau and Mouffe, the paper examines how the currently most active and visible extreme-right groups in these two countries understand and respond to the crisis as an opportunity to fuel anti-immigration discourses and prey on sentiments of instability and insecurity in the broader population, using online media to “involve members and supporters in the discursive construction of racism”. The analysis demonstrates how these groups look to Greece, as the “crisis epicentre”, for culturalist explanations for the Eurozone crisis and to the rise there of Golden Dawn as an inspiration for future mobilisations in Nordic and pan-European coalitions.

This article situates contemporary forms of video activism in online environments within a historical trajectory of radical film recruited for Left thinking and action. Focusing on the remix ethos and aesthetics of political mash-up videos, the article suggests how revisiting the analogue precursors of digital video may help contextualise and understand new forms of video activism, and politically committed media practices more generally. In the first part of the analysis, I engage with some of the principal conceptual themes and aesthetics that shape the various hybrid genres of the kind of visual activism we see emerging in YouTube and similar video platforms today. For these purposes, I propose atypology for understanding the motley array of video documentary and documentation available online as a hybrid and diverse range of media forms for political investigation and portrayal. The second part of the analysis demonstrates how such mash-up practices play out on three distinct levels when digital videos are put in circulation online. First, political mash-up is understood as a set of material practices in which online content is mixed and repurposed, second, in terms of a convergence between different styles, genres and modes of address, and finally, the concept of mash-up opens up for an understanding of the blurring of boundaries between different political actors and motives in online media environments.