Comfortable conviviality: constructions of unthreatening difference in Finnish media

ABSTRACT

Conviviality has travelled and been taken up in various national socio-political and historical narratives. We aim to add to this by examining conviviality in Finland where discourses of ‘Nordic innocence’ regarding colonial histories and racism has created an illusion of ‘Nordic exceptionalism’ regarding race and racism. Here we position media as a form of societal curriculum and a site of learning that reinforce innocence and exceptionalism. We build on their work by using comfort to attend to the affective underpinnings through which these national discourses are maintained. Finally, we use a media example to show how Finnish media use a comfortable conviviality to create and ideal of unthreatening difference.

KEYWORDS:

• Media
• Finland
• conviviality
• comfort
• Nordic welfare society

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Yle Mix, October 30, 2020, HALLOWEEN: Kauhusirkus vai KUOLLEIDEN KUNNIAKSI? [Halloween: Horror Circus or Honouring the Deceased?].