scholarly journals A lesson from ‘Cologne’ on intersectionality: strengthening feminist arguments against right-wing co-option

2020 ◽  
pp. 146470012092107
Author(s):  
Julia Schuster

Analysing feminist responses to the (mainstream) media coverage of the sexual assaults of New Year’s Eve 2015 in Cologne, this article shows how a theoretical concept that is used to frame feminist arguments can influence the strength of those arguments. German-speaking media extensively reported on the large number of sexual assaults against women that happened during that night in Cologne. The dominant narrative in those media reports dwells on the circumstance that the arrested suspects all had a refugee or migrant background, which assisted right-wing politics in re-creating a racist stereotype about male refugees and migrants being a threat to western women. Feminist responses to that media discourse insisted that rape culture was a cross-cultural phenomenon and that media as well as political analyses of the assaults need to take into account an understanding of intersectionality. Based on a content analysis of twenty-five feminist texts about the events of ‘Cologne’, I argue that the application of the concept of intersectionality created contradictions and argumentative voids within the – otherwise strong – feminist arguments because it conflated sexist and racist dynamics, which were both present in the context of ‘Cologne’ but not always intersecting. I further argue that these contradictions unintentionally aided the right-wing co-option of feminist demands concerning ‘Cologne’ and I suggest that the theoretical concept of femonationalism is better equipped to analyse events like ‘Cologne’.

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerret von Nordheim ◽  
Henrik Mller ◽  
Michael Scheppe

Right-wing media have been growing in terms of readership and impact in recent years. However, comparative analyses that gauge linkages between mainstream and right-wing media in Europe are virtually missing. We pursued an algorithm-based topic-modelling analysis of 11,420 articles concerning the question of whether reporting of the leading German right-wing newspaper Junge Freiheit differed from that of mainstream media outlets in the context of the refugee crisis of 201516. The results strongly support this notion. They show a clear-cut dichotomy with mainstream media on one side and Junge Freiheit on the other. A time lag could be found, pointing to a reporting pattern that positioned Junge Freiheit relative to the journalistic and political mainstream. Thus, Junge Freiheit can be characterised as a reactive alternative media outlet that is prone to populism: it stresses the national dimension of the crisis, embraces the positions of the right-wing party Alternative fr Deutschland (AfD) and largely neglects complex international, and particularly European, implications.


Author(s):  
Uwe Backes

This chapter analyzes and compares political developments in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. It highlights the common ground between groups on the right-wing fringe of each country’s party system. To an extent the differences between the way right-wing groups developed in each of these countries is due to the different histories of the respective states. Recently however, they have moved closer to each other in the face of very similar problems. To a degree Switzerland is a special case because of its multilingual cantons and the early development of a pluralist civic culture that sustains an extraordinarily dynamic democratic constitutional state. This is particularly true given the autocratic relapses toward right-wing politics in neighboring German-speaking countries.


2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-154
Author(s):  
Tatiana Riabova ◽  
Oleg Riabov

The article deals with the Russian media coverage of sexual assaults against women during the 2016 New Year's Eve celebrations in Cologne. The authors examine it in the frame of discourse of “Gayropa” that represents the EU via changes in gender order of the West European societies. The pro-Kremlin media coverage of the “Rape of Europe” contributes to positioning Russia in the world, maintaining power legitimacy in the country, and supporting gender order in Russian society. The media discourse treats it as an evidence of decline of the European civilization.


Author(s):  
Edward Rock Davis ◽  
Rachel Wilson ◽  
John Robert Evans

AbstractThis research explores media reporting of Indigenous students’ Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results in two national and 11 metropolitan Australian newspapers from 2001 to 2015. Of almost 300 articles on PISA, only 10 focused on reporting of Indigenous PISA results. While general or non-Indigenous PISA results featured in media reports, especially at the time of the publication of PISA results, there was overwhelming neglect of Indigenous results and the performance gap. A thematic analysis of articles showed mainstream PISA reporting had critical commentary which is not found in the Indigenous PISA articles. The three themes identified include: a lack of teacher quality in remote and rural schools; the debate on Gonski funding recommendations and the PISA achievement gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. This study concluded the overwhelming neglect is linked to media bias, which continues to drive mainstream media coverage of Indigenous Australians.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 237802312110287
Author(s):  
Bernhard Clemm von Hohenberg ◽  
Paul C. Bauer

A trusted media is crucial for a politically informed citizenry, yet media trust has become fragile in many Western countries. An underexplored aspect is the link between media (dis)trust and populism. The authors visualize media trust across news outlets and partisanship in Germany, for both mainstream and “alternative” news sources. For each source, average trust is grouped by partisanship and sorted from left to right, allowing within-source comparisons. The authors find an intriguing horseshoe pattern for mainstream media sources, for which voters of both populist left-wing and right-wing parties express lower levels of trust. The underlying distribution of individual responses reveals that voters of the right-wing populist party are especially likely to “not at all” trust the mainstream outlets that otherwise enjoy high levels of trust. The media trust gap between populist and centrist voters disappears for alternative sources, for which trust is generally low.


1998 ◽  
Vol 88 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Griffiths

Metropolitan media coverage moved beyond reporting the alleged abduction of Moe toddler Jaidyn Leskie to describe the social ‘tragedy’ of Victoria's La Trobe Valley, attributing the collapse of country-town innocence and a perceived growth of anti-social behaviour to state-driven ‘dirty’ industry restructuring, unemployment and the collapse of the local small business economy. The representation of Moe as ‘rotten’ offended local readers, sparking a series of mainstream and tactical ‘rewritings’ of Moe's social, moral and physical landscapes. The most effective and noteworthy local response was a special edition of the regional non-daily community paper, The La Trobe Valley Express. In ‘Moe under the microscope’, ‘ordinary citizens’ were given a platform for their views on the ‘hostile’ mainstream media reports, the region and the civic ‘truths’ of Moe. The incident provides a site for the consideration of some of the issues involved in compliance with the new code of ethics for journalists.


2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Stürmer ◽  
Anette Rohmann ◽  
Laura Froehlich ◽  
Jolanda van der Noll

This article uses an interactionist perspective to understand the role of media framings of critical events in catalyzing Western citizens’ support for radical responses to Muslim immigration (e.g., armed self-defense). A multi-method series of three studies tested this perspective in the context of the 2015/2016 Cologne New Year’s Eve sexual assaults on women. Study 1, a content analysis of 163 online newspaper articles, revealed that mass media attributed the assaults to the suspects’ Muslim culture. Study 2, a correlational study ( N = 487) conducted at the peak of the media coverage, confirmed that the degree to which participants accepted the veracity of the culture-focused media representation strengthened the relation between their feelings of symbolic threat as a result of Muslim immigration and their approval of radical responses. Study 3, an experiment with pre-registered hypotheses ( N = 91), replicated and extended these interaction effects. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 458-474 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxim I. Sigachev ◽  
Ernest S. Sleptsov ◽  
Eduard V. Fadeev

The article reveals the relationship between the political crises that affected the European Union from 2015 to 2020, and the growing sympathy of voters for populist-Eurosceptic parties. Particular attention is paid to the political situation in Austria, where in 2017-2019. The government included right-wing populists, as well as the results of the European Parliament elections in May 2019, which testify to the strengthening of the position of a new populism, especially the right-wing one, represented by the Eurosceptics group Identity and Democracy. The purpose of the article is to analyze the current state of the right-wing populist parties and to describe the current patterns of their development in terms of political prospects and the impact on the internal politics of the EU member states. The following research questions are formulated: 1. Has the influence of right-wing populist parties intensified or waned during the migration crisis? 2. Do right-wing populists constitute a coherent pan-European political force? 3. What is the specificity of Italian, Austrian and German right-wing populists?. To answer these questions, a quantitative (first of all, thematic literature and publications in the media) and quantitative analysis (dynamics of relevant statistical information was evaluated). As a result of the study, the authors come to the following conclusions: 1. The entry of the Austrian right-wing populists (APS) into a coalition with S. Kurtz in 2017-2019. - This is part of the regular fluctuations in the balance of power between the three political camps inside Austria, and not a sharp turnaround in established political models (right turn). 2. The German right-wing populists, on the contrary, despite local and really sudden successes (AdG), are in systemic isolation. 3. In Italy, right-wing populists have made significant progress, but the prospects for their unity with other European new right-wingers remain controversial. 4. With some caution, it can be stated that the period 2017-2019, was successful for right-wing populists. The recognition of the right-wing populist parties, their media coverage and presence in government has increased markedly. The perception of the importance of migration themes and cultural identity has increased in comparison with the first half of the 2010s. Moreover, in 2020. this trend is beginning to decline, the themes of culture and migration are gradually giving way to topics of safety, health and the environment.


2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pooja Basnett

The research is on Coverage of Northeast India in the Indian Mainstream Media: A Study of the Perception of Northeast Indians Living in Bangalore. Northeast 'refers to the eastern most region of India consisting of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim. By media the focus here is not just on the printed press but also on news channels. Mainstream media refers to national newspapers and news channels in either Hindi or English language that circulates or is available for viewing across the country. This study used a quantitative method and data was collected with the help of the research tool, questionnaire. The study was conducted in Bangalore in the year 2009 - 2010. Since this is a public perception of Northeast people residing in Bangalore on the coverage of Northeast India, it is subjective with respect to people's opinion.The motivation to conduct this research came from a viewable communication gap about the Northeast public in the mainstream or the national media. Irrespective of the varied socio-politico-economic dynamics of all northeastern states, this is one of the common problems faced by each of the northeastern states. The hypothesis for this paper was media is not successful in giving the right picture of Northeast India to the rest of the country thereby making people from the Northeast unsatisfied with the amount of media coverage or the kind of media coverage they receive.


2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 367-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Downing

The post-Brexit, post-Trump climate in the EU has seen a series of challenges from the right wing of politics to the liberal consensus of recent years (e.g. the rise of Gert Wilders in the Netherlands and the increased support for Alternativ für Deutschland in the 2017 German election). This article examines the gendering and embodiment of the new far right in France and the UK. It offers a comparative focus on two recent political challengers from the right who are female: Marine Le Pen (born 1968), the leader of the Front national in France since 2011, and Anne Marie Waters (born 1977), the Islam-critical candidate who was runner-up for the UK Independence Party (UKIP) leadership in the UK in 2017, and who has since started her own political party, For Britain. The article focuses on media coverage of, and self-representation by, these two figures. It argues that the discourse of the ‘right’ and ‘left’ wings has, historically, been gendered on the basis of assumptions that women are naturally more inclined towards consensus-building, collectivity and compassion (and therefore left-wing politics), by dint of their biological function as child-bearers and traditional gender role as care-givers. Right-leaning women have been treated as anomalies, by both feminist political analysts and the mainstream media. Feminist concerns over the very existence of right-wing women is suggested by books such as second-wave feminist Andrea Dworkin’s Right-Wing Women (1983), the more recent edited collection by Paola Bacchetta and Margaret Power, also called Right-Wing Women (2013) and, in the French context, Claudie Lesselier and Fiametta Venner’s L’Extrême Droite et les femmes (1997). Le Pen and Waters appear as doubly aberrant, doubly exceptional figures – firstly as (far-)right-wing women and secondly as (far-)right-wing female leaders. The article considers the stakes of our categorical understandings of (gendered and political) identity more broadly. Specifically, by introducing the original critical concept of ‘identity category violation’, it analyses the ways in which the recent trend for identity politics on the left in the West, often under the banner of ‘intersectionality’, leads to over-simplified understandings of how categories of gendered, sexual, class and race-based identities are assumed to determine political affiliation.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document