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- Abalo, Ernesto, 1982-
(författare)
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Class as deviance : constructing the support for and opposition against Hugo Chávez
- 2011
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- By applying the methods of Critical Discourse Analysis this paper aims to explore how ideology works within the discursive construction of class, in the representation of the supporters and opponents of the government of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela. News items from New York Times (US), El País (Uruguay) and Dagens Nyheter (Sweden) constitute the analyzed material. The paper argues that class-markers are important in the representation of government supporters, whom many times are constructed as belonging to the poorer sectors of society. Class is however less explicit in the representation of Chávez-opposition, which in fact is lead by elite groups. It is therefore argued that class in this context becomes a marker of deviance, which in turn works ideologically in legitimizing oppositional groups and disqualifying the support for Chávez’ government.
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| 3. |
- Abalo, Ernesto, et al.
(författare)
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Emerging Patterns of Inclusion and Exclusion in the Era of E-government : A Study of Users of ‘Swedish Public Employment Service’ on the Internet
- 2008
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Ingår i: Media and Global Divides. - Stockholm : Organizing Committee for the IAMCR Congress 2008. - 918835430X ; , s. 44-45
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In the area of governmental information for and services to citizens digitalization has certainly become a buzzword. Framed within the discourses on e-government or e-governance – or different mixtures of the two – various analyses have tried to point out, or even anticipate possible consequences of the appropriation of digital technologies, mainly the internet, in governmental services.On the one hand, these analyses have pointed out a great deal of opportunities connected to the incorporation of the internet into governmental information and services. Policy makers have been quick to point to the increased accessibility as a great opportunity for the citizens; in Sweden this vision of accessibility has even been referred to as ‘24:7-governmental agencies’. Academics, among others, have also suggested that the digitalization of information and services opens up new possibilities for citizen control of governments.On the other hand, a number of problems have also been identified. For instance, the digitalization of public registers holding personal information has been interpreted as a threat to the citizens’ integrity: Will digitalization bring a new surveillance society? The most frequently debated problem, however, at least within research, has been the fear of digital divides. Will the internet create digital cleavages between different groups of citizens?So far, however, neither the hopeful nor the dystopian analyses have made enough efforts to critically evaluate their claims. Such evaluations can start from different points of departure, and in this paper the starting point is the citizens as users of governmental information and services through the internet: What patterns of inclusion and exclusion emerge as a governmental agency digitalizes its information and services by making them increasingly internet based?The paper presents statistical data from a survey of 762 unemployed citizens using the Swedish Public Employment Service, a governmental agency that has come to rely specifically heavy on internet based information and service. The initial analysis of data reveals interesting differences between social groups in terms of both perception and use of the internet – in general – and the resources offered by SPES in particular. For instance, the users’ various degrees of education is a strong, determining factor when it comes to use of internet SPES’ services.The paper starts from a conceptual elaboration of various notions of e-government and e-governance. Thereafter, the survey data is described and elaborated on before moving into a discussion of the wider significance of the findings: What does data suggest in terms of patterns of inclusion in and exclusion from a society in which governmental agencies, to an increasing extent, use the internet for their information and services?
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| 4. |
- Abalo, Ernesto
(författare)
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News for global sustainability? : Reifying and othering social inequality in news
- 2016
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper discusses news journalism about inequality from a critical point of view, with the aim of contributing to the critical theorization of the relationship between journalism and sustainability. Sustainability and journalism on social inequality are perceived as intersecting in at least two ways. On one level, journalism can serve sustainable development by providing high-quality content that can help citizens to better understand the causes behind social inequality and how it can be overcome. On another level, journalism would itself gain much from sustainable development on a global level, since that would provide a good ground for a high-quality journalism characterized by its professional and democratic ethics rather than one that is strained by market-logics. The paper focuses on reification and problematizes the ways in which social inequality is reified in news journalism. Basing the argumentation on examples from international journalism, it is argued that although the existence of social inequality in a specific country can be acknowledged in the reporting – for example by the reference to rich and poor people and rich and poor geographic spaces – the social, political and historical causes of this inequality remain abstracted. In this sense, reification provides a rather objectivist account on inequality, which in turn limits the critique of the mechanisms that lie behind it. On the long run such constructions serve the legitimation of social inequality, which indeed ought to be seen as a sustainability problem. The paper also argues that for a more sustainable journalism to take place, a shift in the attitude towards social inequality and sustainable development must take place in the broader sociocultural context that surrounds journalism.
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| 8. |
- Abalo, Ernesto, 1982-
(författare)
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Through an imperialistic gaze? : Journalism, ideology and the notion of democracy
- 2015
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Ingår i: Differences, Inequalities and Sociological Imagination. - Prague : Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences. - 9788073302726 ; , s. 929-930
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Despite that the notion of democracy has a central place in the Western self-image, and also in media studies, research that focuses on how democracy is ideologically loaded in journalistic content is still in its infancy. In recent times, democracy has been used with great enthusiasm by Western political leaders, while the meaning of democracy perhaps is more fuzzy than ever. In times of economic and political crisis, and of a weak Left in most European countries, it is important to examine how journalism constructs notions of democracy, and how such notions reflect specific political positions and interests. This study, which is theoretically rooted in ideology critique, and methodologically inspired by critical discourse analysis, examines how news journalism in the coverage of Venezuela and the Ukraine conflict constructs notions of democracy. The study is specially interested in exploring and discussing the ideological interconnections between imperialism and geopolitical interests, and the journalistic construction of democracy.
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| 10. |
- Abalo, Ernesto, 1982-
(författare)
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Weeds in the Hegemony : Understanding Journalism on the Renegotiation of Cannabis
- 2018
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- We are witnessing the renegotiation of cannabis substances in many parts of the world. After being classified as narcotics and subjected to a worldwide ban for several decades, cannabis has now been legalized in Uruguay and in several US states, and decriminalized in some other countries. This paper aims to study how the ongoing renegotiation of cannabis, which involves the legalization of the substance in different parts of the world, is constructed in Swedish print news journalism. This is done with the purpose of understanding how news journalism in a context of a traditionally strong drug prohibition (de)legitimizes different positions and perspectives in the ongoing renegotiation of cannabis, and to what extent journalism in such a context offers challenges to the reigning prohibitionist hegemony. Although cannabis and the media has been researched extensively, very few studies have been conducted by media and communication or journalism scholars, and contributions have been placed mainly in areas as for example drug policy, drug use and misuse, and public health. The current study, in contrast, wishes to contribute to the critical study of drug journalism. The paper draws on critical theory, understanding the ongoing renegotiation of cannabis as bringing disequilibrium to the hegemonic view of cannabis as dangerous drug that needs to be banned. Journalism is perceived as playing a key role in this context, since journalism is an arena where different discourses on cannabis struggle for prominence. Journalism can in this sense serve the strengthening of counter-hegemonic discourses on cannabis or the reinforcement of the prohibitionist hegemony. The study uses critical discourse analysis as a method to study 49 print newspaper items. The results show that the studied media invites opposed discourses regarding the health risks and the medical benefits of cannabis to be part of the news pages, which creates a somewhat pluralistic view on cannabis. The study also finds that the construction of cannabis legalization as a means to combat organized crime is given significant framing power. These results suggest that the ongoing renegotiation of cannabis in different parts of the world invites Swedish journalism to broaden the debate on the substance and to provide certain legitimacy to positive discourses on cannabis that are otherwise considered deviant in the Swedish drug debate. This serves as an example of how changes in distant political contexts affect the ways in which journalism ascribes legitimacy to specific discourses on drugs.
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