| 1. |
- Abalo, Ernesto, 1982-, et al.
(författare)
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An environmental problem in the making : how media logic molds scientific uncertainty in the production of news about artificial turf in Sweden
- 2023
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Ingår i: Journal of Science Communication. - : SISSA Medialab. - 1824-2049. ; 22:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study aims to contribute knowledge about how an environmental issue is discursively forged notwithstanding the prevalence of significant scientific uncertainty. This is done by studying the production of news about artificial turf as a microplastic pollutant in Sweden. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 journalists and editors, public officials, politicians, industry representatives and experts, all involved in the issue of artificial turf. The study shows how media logic, among other factors, informs the interpretations of the uncertainties surrounding artificial turf as an environmental problem and concludes that the power of media logic needs to be considered also in the construction of other scientifically charged issues.
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| 2. |
- Abalo, Ernesto, 1982-
(författare)
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Between facts and ambiguity : Discourses on medical cannabis in Swedish newspapers
- 2021
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Ingår i: Nordic Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. - : Sage Publications. - 1455-0725 .- 1458-6126. ; 38:4, s. 345-360
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Aim: This study examines the discursive construction of medical cannabis in Swedish newspapers, with the aim of understanding how the news media recontextualise the medical potential of cannabis.Design: The study is centred on the concept of recontextualisation, which focuses on how discourses are reinterpreted and reshaped when moving from one context to another, with a special focus on recontextualisation in relation to the media. Methodologically, the study uses critical discourse analysis to qualitatively analyse 134 articles of different subgenres, published in four Swedish newspapers between 2015 and 2020.Results: The study shows that medical cannabis is constructed around myriad topics and contexts, ranging from news that focuses on the medical potential of cannabis to articles where medical cannabis is mentioned in passing and constructed in a more abstract form. The media have difficulties retaining a conceptual boundary between medical and recreational cannabis. Moreover, the study shows that the medical potential of cannabis is discursively constructed using three different discourses: patient discourse, strong science discourse, and weak science discourse.Conclusions: The study suggests that there is a widening of the debate on cannabis in the Swedish public sphere, giving more recognition to the potential medical use of cannabis. The media, however, show difficulties in refining discourses on medical cannabis, which results in an altering between constructions that are strongly connected to science, and those that are not.
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| 3. |
- Abalo, Ernesto, 1982-, et al.
(författare)
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Class struggle in the era of post-politics : Representing the Swedish port conflict in the news media
- 2021
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Ingår i: Nordicom Review. - : Walter de Gruyter. - 1403-1108 .- 2001-5119. ; 42:3, s. 20-34
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article addresses how class as a category of conflict and struggle is understood and shaped discursively in mainstream media today. We utilise a case study of how Swedish news media represents the long-lasting conflict in the Swedish labour market between the Swedish Dockworkers’ Union and the employer organisation, Sweden's Ports. Using critical discourse analysis, we show two ways in which class relations are recontextualised in three Swedish newspapers. One is through obscuring class and centring the conflict around business and nationalist discourses, which in the end legitimise a corporate perspective. The other, more marginalised, way is through the critique of class relations that appears in subjective discourse types. This handling of class, we argue, serves the reproduction of a post-political condition.
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| 4. |
- Abalo, Ernesto, 1982-
(författare)
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Constructing (Il)Legitimate Democracy : Populism and Power Concentration in Newspaper Discourse on Venezuela
- 2014
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Ingår i: tripleC. - 1726-670X. ; 12:2, s. 802-821
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Despite scholarly consensus about the importance of the media for democracy, scant attention has been paid to what democracy means to journalistic discourse and how discourses on democracy are interrelated with legitimacy. The aim of this paper is to explore how (il)legitimate democracy is constructed in newspaper discourse. By using critical discourse analysis (CDA), this paper examines foreign news items about Venezuela, a country that under the presidency of Hugo Chávez has challenged the dominant global political and economic orders. The analysis section focuses on two discourses about the Venezuelan government: the constructions of populism and power concentration, which serve to mark deviance from what is perceived as a legitimate democracy. This paper argues that a liberal perception of democracy constitutes a central framework for the construction of (il)legitimate democracy, which is revealed not least by news discourse’s focus on what is morally unacceptable political conduct according to liberal democratic norms. In this respect, the media discourse serves to denounce potential abuses of governmental power but fail to recognize democracy in the context of a social struggle against the effects of neoliberalism and capitalism. In this case, the news media is hegemonic in the Gramscian sense, because it provides a framework of democracy that remains within the dominant economic and political structures.
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| 5. |
- Abalo, Ernesto, 1982-
(författare)
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First hegemony, then democracy : on ideology and the media discourse on the coup against Hugo Chávez
- 2012
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Ingår i: Observatorio (OBS*). - : Obercom. - 1646-5954. ; 6:3, s. 105-128
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study examines the media discourse on the 2002 coup d’état against the government of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, with the aim of exploring how ideology in media discourse helps construct democracy in a Latin American political context. Critical discourse analysis is used to examine written pieces from Dagens Nyheter (Sweden), El País (Uruguay), and the New York Times (US). The study finds that the discourse on the overthrow and the events preceding it constructs the coup as a potential victory for democracy and as the definitive end of Chávez. However, after the failure of the coup and the reinstallation of Chávez one can perceive discursive renegotiations, such as the publishing of non-fundamental criticism of the overthrow. The study argues that the media discourse on the coup displays a highly relativistic attitude towards democracy, which serves the interests of the elite classes in Venezuela and of US hegemony in global politics. The article also argues that the flexibility of the discourse at hand shows the need for a detailed analysis of how ideology is (re)formed in media discourse.
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| 6. |
- Abalo, Ernesto, 1982-, et al.
(författare)
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Fostering the truthful individual Communicating media literacy in the comic Bamse
- 2021
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Ingår i: Nordicom Review. - : Nordicom. - 1403-1108 .- 2001-5119. ; 42:1, s. 109-123
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study examines the construction of media literacy in a special issue on source criticism of the Swedish children's comic Bamse - Varldens Starkaste Bjorn [Bamse - The World's Strongest Bear]. This is done with the purpose of understanding what values, perspectives, and practices are promoted when media literacy is communicated via children's edutainment media. Using narrative and discourse analysis, we problematise how notions of truth (such as post-truth) guide much of the discourse on digital media in today's post-political society, and how that and individualisation shape notions of media literacy. This is visible in the analysed case in how source criticism is constructed in relation to notions of truth and falsehood, and as moral lessons aimed at the individual media user. We argue that such an individualised, decontextualised, and depoliticised take on media literacy is problematic and an expression of neoliberalism and a middle-class gaze.
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| 7. |
- Abalo, Ernesto, 1982-
(författare)
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Meeting the Good Other : Proper distance and the representation of José Mujica in Swedish feature journalism
- 2019
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Ingår i: Iberoamericana: Nordic Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies. - : Stockholm University Press. - 2002-4509. ; 48:1, s. 150-160
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper examines the representation of the then president of Uruguay, José Mujica, in a long-read feature story published in the Saturday supplement of the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter. This is done with the aim of contributing to the understanding of how international journalism constructs distance and proximity in the reporting of distant subjects, and more specifically, how such constructions connect the Swedish audience to (or disconnect it from) political processes and relations in Latin America. In this way, the study contributes to the field of media representation in general, as well as to research on the representation of Latin America, more specifically. Critical discourse analysis is used to analyze the text and visuals. Three result topics are presented. The first comprises discourses that construct difference, such as those highlighting personal characteristics that make Mujica different from other presidents. The second centers on discourses that construct proximity between Mujica and the audience, such as those addressing sustainability and the connections between Sweden, Uruguay and Mujica. The third highlights discourses that distance or downplay difference and revolve around constructions about Mujica’s political past. The paper ends with a discussion of how this representation is able to construct Mujica as a close other without, in the process, abandoning key tenets of contemporary capitalist ideology.
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| 8. |
- Abalo, Ernesto, 1982-
(författare)
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Rifts in the hegemony : Swedish news journalism on cannabis legalization
- 2019
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Ingår i: Journalism Studies. - : Taylor & Francis. - 1461-670X .- 1469-9699. ; 20:11, s. 1617-1634
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study analyzes the journalistic construction of the ongoing international renegotiation of cannabis, with the aim of contributing to the theorization of how journalism mediates between hegemonic and counter-hegemonic positions at times of crisis of hegemonic values. The study perceives the many ongoing attempts of legalizing and decriminalizing cannabis for recreational use as providing a disequilibrium to the hegemonic view of the substance as a dangerous narcotic that is rightly banned, and as intensifying a hegemonic struggle over the meaning of cannabis. Swedish print news journalism about cannabis legalization in different countries and contexts is studied, using critical discourse analysis. The analysis shows that journalism allows for debate between positive and skeptic discourses about the effects of recreational cannabis consumption and its medical benefits, and that voices that argue for cannabis legalization to combat organized crime are given important framing power. This means that a measure of legitimacy is given to discourses that counter the prohibitionist hegemony in Sweden, which means that mainstream journalism in this specific case serves as an arena for challenging hegemonic values that are in crisis.
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| 9. |
- Abalo, Ernesto, 1982-
(författare)
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Struck by the Potentials of Cannabusiness : Exploring the Relationship Between Neoliberal Ideology and Journalism in the Reporting on Legal Cannabis
- 2019
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Ingår i: tripleC. - : Unified Theory of Information Research Group. - 1726-670X. ; 17:1, s. 86-100
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study examines the reporting on legal cannabis in order to explore the operation of neoliberal ideology in journalistic discourse. Cannabis legalisation is here understood as a way for capitalism to create new market opportunities, besides being a turn away from the so-called ‘war on drugs’. The study understands neoliberalism as operating via market-based logics that are interrelated with other social logics, such as those pertaining to journalism (Phelan 2014). Critical discourse analysis is used for studying Swedish newspaper reporting on legal cannabis between 2013 and 2018. The study shows that a struggle between market-based logics and journalistic practices is visible, where journalism has difficulties in challenging core tenets of neoliberal ideology. The article concludes with a discussion of how the current conditions of journalism limit its ability to challenge neoliberal perspectives.
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| 10. |
- Abalo, Ernesto, 1982-
(författare)
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Through Eurocentric logics : The construction of difference in foreign news discourse on Venezuela
- 2016
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Ingår i: Journal of Language and Politics. - : John Benjamins Publishing Company. - 1569-2159 .- 1569-9862. ; 15:1, s. 94-115
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study aims to explore the construction of difference in foreign news discourse on culturally similar but politically different non-Western subjects. Applying critical discourse analysis (CDA) together with a critique of Eurocentrism, the study examines difference in newspaper constructions of government supporters and oppositional groups in Venezuela. Discursive differences are evident in the strategies used for constructing the two groups with regard to political rationality and violence. Government supporters are associated with social justice, Venezuela's poor, dogmatic behavior, and the use of political violence. The opposition, in contrast, is constructed as following a Western democratic rationale that stresses anti-authoritarianism. This group is primarily associated with victims of violence. While the opposition is conveyed as being compatible with Eurocentric values and practices, government supporters to great extent deviate from these norms. Such constructions serve to legitimize politico-ideological undercurrents of Eurocentrism, as the defense of liberalism.
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