Challenging Journalistic Authority

Abstract

Over the last decade, a network of far-right alternative online media has emerged globally. At the same time, legacy news media have suffered a decline in trust and revenues. In this context, the present article analyses how journalistic authority is questioned and challenged in far-right alternative media, highlighting how these websites claim authority as media critics. The study rests on a qualitative analysis of 600 news articles published on far-right alternative online sites containing evaluations of legacy news media or journalists; it identifies five different positions of authority employed by far-right media critics, constituted around particular forms of knowledge: (i) the insider position (knowledge of the professional journalistic field); (ii) the expert position (factual legitimacy built on statistics and facts); (iii) the victim position (experiential legitimacy as media victim); (iv) the citizen position (democratic legitimacy/representing the people) and (v) the activist position (street legitimacy through confrontation and active resistance).

KEYWORDS:

• alternative media
• far-right
• immigration
• journalistic authority
• mistrust
• press criticism

ACKNOWLEGEMENTS

We would like to thank Birgitte P. Haanshuus who worked as a research assistant on the project, C-REX—Centre for Research on Extremism at the University of Oslo for support, and the reviewers for thorough and helpful feedback.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Even though the concept ”mainstream media” is somewhat unclear and increasingly contested, we have chosen to use it in the article to indicate editorial-driven news media.

2. However, it is more integrated in the party system than most European right-wing populists and has affected the policy position of other parties, has cooperated with other parties (Jupskås 2013) and has been a government party since September 2013.

3. A number of additional far-right actors were included in the initial mapping conducted by the research assistant but did not meet the sample criteria of having active sites (i.e. Boot Boys (neo-Nazi), Vigrid (neo-Nazi), Soldiers of Odin (vigilante group), Pegida Norway, Norwegian Defense League). Some of these are primarily active on Facebook while others were inactive at the time of sampling. Other influential sites (such as the Fjordman blog) were excluded as personal blogs rather than alternative media. Launched after the data were collected (in August 2017), the online newspaper Resett is currently the leading far-right outlet in the Norwegian context, with 7% weekly readers (15% among those on the political right) (Moe and Sakariassen 2018, 15).

4. Stopp Islamiseringen av Norge

5. Translation: The Free Word

6. Translation: Freedom Fight

7. These include pjmediacom, Breitbart.com, thegatewaypundit, washingtonexaminer.com, the-american-interest.com.

8. These include document.no, rights.no, avpixlat.no. friatider.se, snaphanen.dk, 10news.dk and d-intl.com