The Boy, Who Wanted Broccoli: Alternative News and Acts of Citizenship within New Mediascapes

Abstract

This article explores how acts of citizenship are negotiated across populist, political, and networked mediascapes. This is done through a discursive analysis of rights-claims originating in a YouTube video depicting a young boy, who is denied broccoli at a refugee detainment and repatriation centre in Denmark. Besides the video the data consists of digital views and comments, texts sourced from citizen media publications, social media sites, digitally born and mainstream media. We make a distinction between alternative/citizen media, digitally born and mainstream media to examine how different types of media play a role in discursively constructing populist logics. Our key findings show that alternative/citizen media forward political acts and rights-claims for the people by the people, whereas mainstream media generally invite elite sources to speak for the people. Finally, digitally born media encompass elements of both, thus questioning journalistic boundaries. The networked media thereby produce the discursive construction of “the rights of the people” as an empty signifier.

KEYWORDS:

• Acts of citizenship
• citizen media
• discourse
• networked mediascape
• populism
• refugee policy

Disclosure Statement

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

Notes

1 https://thecorrespondent.com/

2 https://www.zetland.dk/. All citations are translated from Danish to English by the authors.

3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1wiFucF1K8. Accessed 24.11.20.

4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5dAiEY-9xs. Accessed 24.11.20.

5 The father is referred to as Siraq by Sjælsmarks Venner in the text accompanying the video uploaded to YouTube. In an article published in Politiken 9 January 2019, however, the father is said to be named Mohamed Amin. The son is consistently called Amin.

6 https://www.facebook.com/marronagejournal/photos/a.133622723741832/599822263788540. Accessed 24.11.20.

7 https://konfront.dk/stop-faengsling-af-flygtninge/?fbclid=IwAR3bW2FKjDeAjEveRP0O3wzPCknBC6Kg0eocDh7_UFHMMeD4LMimcqnX24Q. Accessed 24.11.20

8 https://konfront.dk/om-konfront/. Accessed 24.11.20.

9 https://www.facebook.com/responsmedie/. Accessed 24.11.20.

10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1wiFucF1K8. Accessed 24.11.20; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5dAiEY-9xs. Accessed 24.11.20.

11 Ibid.

12 The article is produced by a sister-company of Mandag Morgen, Tjekdet (Check it), which since July 2020 has been an independent medium according to their website: https://www.tjekdet.dk/om-os accessed 25112020. Mandag Morgen is a hybrid between weekly printed reports and daily news online.

13 https://piopio.dk/sjaelsmark-broccoli-historie-holder-ikke?fbclid=IwAR1cR6f53j3rP5SDXD7f5V9zjr3Zowb68oUszZ5YD1v5F8Wt43UEd1Qnv2U. Accessed 25.11.20.

14 Zetland, 06.03.19.

15 Information, 05.01.19.

16 Berlingske, 06.01.19.

17 Politiken, 08.01.19.

18 Berlingske, 06.01.19.

19 Information, 05.01.19.

20 Politiken, 08.01.19.

21 Berlingske, 12.01.19a.

22 Berlingske, 13.01.19.

23 Berlingske, 12.01.19b.

24 Jyllandsposten, 07.01.19; Information, 09.01.19.

25 Politiken, 09.01.19a.

26 Berlingske, 12.01.19a.

27 Berlingske, 06.01.19.

28 Politiken, 04.01.19.

29 Politiken, 09.01.19b.

30 Berlingske, 12.01.19b.

31 Politiken, 04.01.19; Politiken, 09.01.19b.