Mervi Pantti | University of Helsinki (original) (raw)
Papers by Mervi Pantti
Journalism, 2016
War correspondents work within a networked media environment characterised not only by an explosi... more War correspondents work within a networked media environment characterised not only by an explosion of information but also a wide range of actors producing competing narratives and viewpoints. This study examines the ways in which war correspondents enact their professional roles when tweeting from within a conflict zone. The analysis sheds light on the conditions of modern information warfare in the context of reporting from within the Ukraine conflict. It also identifies the emerging social media practices of war correspondents and the different role categories that journalists are adopting on Twitter.
The Handbook of Journalism Studies, 2019
This study is concerned with the memories that Estonians have of watching Finnish television duri... more This study is concerned with the memories that Estonians have of watching Finnish television during the last decades of the Soviet occupation. We will look at the practices of watching Finnish television in Soviet Estonia and the meanings attributed to it. Finnish television took North-Estonians into a colourful world of consumption and entertainment, while educating them about Western values and encouraging them to dream of a better future. We identify four ways that North-Estonians remember Finnish television (and its programmes): as an event, as a means of distinction, as a window to a world of affluence, and as a tool of democratic education.
This study is concerned with the memories that Estonians have of watching Finnish television duri... more This study is concerned with the memories that Estonians have of watching Finnish television during the last decades of the Soviet occupation. We will look at the practices of watching Finnish television in Soviet Estonia and the meanings attributed to it. Finnish television took North-Estonians into a colourful world of consumption and entertainment, while educating them about Western values and encouraging them to dream of a better future. We identify four ways that North-Estonians remember Finnish television (and its programmes): as an event, as a means of distinction, as a window to a world of affluence, and as a tool of democratic education.
This article explores and compares the visual images used by Channel One (Ch1), Russia’s biggest ... more This article explores and compares the visual images used by Channel One (Ch1), Russia’s biggest state-aligned television broadcaster, to justify Russia’s intervention in two major geopolitical conflicts in recent history: the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine and Syria’s civil war. The data reveal that while Ch1’s projection of Ukrainian conflict is anchored in compassion to the Eastern Ukraine population speaking the Russian language, the Syrian war is framed to fuel the feeling of national pride by focusing on the Russian greatness as a political and military superpower. This research, thus, extends the theoretical understanding of media representation of war, especially how the changing political context impacts which identities are represented and made potent through different emotional appeals. The article conceptualises visual images as affective anchors that can be used to reactivate collective memory and dominant discourses and construct emotional relationships between the ...
Anger motivates people to engage in political action, fuelling collective struggles for justice a... more Anger motivates people to engage in political action, fuelling collective struggles for justice and recognition. However, because of its close association with irrationality and aggression, the public expression of anger has been discouraged. This paper focuses on expressions of anger ...
Routledge Handbook of Humanitarian Communication, 2021
European Television Memories, 2013
This study is concerned with the memories of Estonians of watching Finnish television during the ... more This study is concerned with the memories of Estonians of watching Finnish television during the last decades of the Soviet occupation. We will look at the practices of watching Finnish television in Soviet Estonia and the meanings attributed to it. Finnish television took North-Estonians into a colourful world of consumption and entertainment, while at the same time educating them about Western values and encouraging them to dream a better future.
Media, Culture & Society, 2018
Personal stories in news reports serve multiple purposes, but at their core lie efforts at illust... more Personal stories in news reports serve multiple purposes, but at their core lie efforts at illustrating and authenticating a social or political issue through human experience, an illustration that is compelling in its affective appeal. Telling the personal stories of people belonging to minority groups may work as a potent journalistic vehicle in countering negative stereotypes and prejudices against them. This article examines how Finnish journalists incorporate the personal stories of asylum seekers into their coverage of the so-called ‘European refugee crisis’ of 2015–2016. Drawing on qualitative interviews, we inquire into how journalists understand the meaning and purpose of asylum seekers’ personal stories in their news reporting and reflect on the professional values and ethical dilemmas when telling them. Our findings reveal that while journalists tend to sympathise with the vulnerable and see it as important to combat xenophobia and racism, their relationship with asylum s...
Media & viestintä, 2015
Ajatus ”lähelle pääsemisestä” toistuu journalistisissa kolumneissa, juhlapuheissa ja strategiapap... more Ajatus ”lähelle pääsemisestä” toistuu journalistisissa kolumneissa, juhlapuheissa ja strategiapapereissa. Läheisyydestä on tullut journalistinen strategia. Yksi uusista keinoista tuottaa journalismiin läheisyyttä on monenlaisen yleisöaineiston hyödyntäminen. Tässä artikkelissa keskitymme erityisesti kriisi- ja onnettomuusuutisissa julkaistuun kuvalliseen yleisöaineistoon, eli niin sanottuihin amatöörikuviin. Tarkastelemme amatöörikuvien läheisyyteen liittyviä merkityksiä sekä toimittajien että yleisön näkökulmasta. Näissä tulkinnoissa tulee esiin, että amatöörikuvien läheisyys perustuu etenkin niiden ajallis-tilalliseen ja tunteelliseen ulottuvuuteen. Yleisö ottaa kuitenkin toimittajia enemmän etäisyyttä siihen tapaan, jolla näitä ulottuvuuksia on koetettu uutisorganisaatioissa hyödyntää strategisesti.
Javnost - The Public, 2016
International Communication Gazette, 2015
Social media have become important channels for directing humanitarian communication. Aid organiz... more Social media have become important channels for directing humanitarian communication. Aid organizations increasingly use social networks and simultaneously we have seen the emergence of self-organizing volunteers who take on a variety of humanitarian tasks that previously belonged to institutional agents. The focus of this study is on user-created disaster appeal videos on YouTube, which are a type of citizen communication that occurs in the aftermath of a disaster. Appeal videos aim to raise funds for the disaster victims by acting as intermediaries between humanitarian organizations and the public. The study explores how these appeals try to create solidarity with the plight of disaster victims, and how viewers respond to these appeals from ordinary humanitarians. The article argues that this peer-to-peer moral education may help to get round the distrust of humanitarian organizations and may also be able to cultivate the idea of global solidarity within the everyday lives of YouT...
JOMEC Journal, Nov 1, 2013
Television & New Media, 2021
This introduction to the special issue departs from elaborating on the issues explored in a proje... more This introduction to the special issue departs from elaborating on the issues explored in a project examining right-wing politics and “debates” about racism in Finland. It situates the research gathered in the collection in terms of a shared focus on the disparate networks of organised and opportunistic cultural producers that invest time and labour in the production of racialising and othering discourse and aesthetics, and on the modes and forms of cultural and media production that have, in a relatively short space of time, come to be distributed and adapted across divergent socio-political contexts, and integrated to the situated forms of racism and nationalism given exclusionary force across and within them. It underlines the need to understand the motivated circulation of racializing discourse in the wider context of forms of “postracialism,” and the need for research to move past the paradigm of “hate speech” to get to grips with the significance and impacts of intensively cir...
Journalism, 2016
War correspondents work within a networked media environment characterised not only by an explosi... more War correspondents work within a networked media environment characterised not only by an explosion of information but also a wide range of actors producing competing narratives and viewpoints. This study examines the ways in which war correspondents enact their professional roles when tweeting from within a conflict zone. The analysis sheds light on the conditions of modern information warfare in the context of reporting from within the Ukraine conflict. It also identifies the emerging social media practices of war correspondents and the different role categories that journalists are adopting on Twitter.
The Handbook of Journalism Studies, 2019
This study is concerned with the memories that Estonians have of watching Finnish television duri... more This study is concerned with the memories that Estonians have of watching Finnish television during the last decades of the Soviet occupation. We will look at the practices of watching Finnish television in Soviet Estonia and the meanings attributed to it. Finnish television took North-Estonians into a colourful world of consumption and entertainment, while educating them about Western values and encouraging them to dream of a better future. We identify four ways that North-Estonians remember Finnish television (and its programmes): as an event, as a means of distinction, as a window to a world of affluence, and as a tool of democratic education.
This study is concerned with the memories that Estonians have of watching Finnish television duri... more This study is concerned with the memories that Estonians have of watching Finnish television during the last decades of the Soviet occupation. We will look at the practices of watching Finnish television in Soviet Estonia and the meanings attributed to it. Finnish television took North-Estonians into a colourful world of consumption and entertainment, while educating them about Western values and encouraging them to dream of a better future. We identify four ways that North-Estonians remember Finnish television (and its programmes): as an event, as a means of distinction, as a window to a world of affluence, and as a tool of democratic education.
This article explores and compares the visual images used by Channel One (Ch1), Russia’s biggest ... more This article explores and compares the visual images used by Channel One (Ch1), Russia’s biggest state-aligned television broadcaster, to justify Russia’s intervention in two major geopolitical conflicts in recent history: the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine and Syria’s civil war. The data reveal that while Ch1’s projection of Ukrainian conflict is anchored in compassion to the Eastern Ukraine population speaking the Russian language, the Syrian war is framed to fuel the feeling of national pride by focusing on the Russian greatness as a political and military superpower. This research, thus, extends the theoretical understanding of media representation of war, especially how the changing political context impacts which identities are represented and made potent through different emotional appeals. The article conceptualises visual images as affective anchors that can be used to reactivate collective memory and dominant discourses and construct emotional relationships between the ...
Anger motivates people to engage in political action, fuelling collective struggles for justice a... more Anger motivates people to engage in political action, fuelling collective struggles for justice and recognition. However, because of its close association with irrationality and aggression, the public expression of anger has been discouraged. This paper focuses on expressions of anger ...
Routledge Handbook of Humanitarian Communication, 2021
European Television Memories, 2013
This study is concerned with the memories of Estonians of watching Finnish television during the ... more This study is concerned with the memories of Estonians of watching Finnish television during the last decades of the Soviet occupation. We will look at the practices of watching Finnish television in Soviet Estonia and the meanings attributed to it. Finnish television took North-Estonians into a colourful world of consumption and entertainment, while at the same time educating them about Western values and encouraging them to dream a better future.
Media, Culture & Society, 2018
Personal stories in news reports serve multiple purposes, but at their core lie efforts at illust... more Personal stories in news reports serve multiple purposes, but at their core lie efforts at illustrating and authenticating a social or political issue through human experience, an illustration that is compelling in its affective appeal. Telling the personal stories of people belonging to minority groups may work as a potent journalistic vehicle in countering negative stereotypes and prejudices against them. This article examines how Finnish journalists incorporate the personal stories of asylum seekers into their coverage of the so-called ‘European refugee crisis’ of 2015–2016. Drawing on qualitative interviews, we inquire into how journalists understand the meaning and purpose of asylum seekers’ personal stories in their news reporting and reflect on the professional values and ethical dilemmas when telling them. Our findings reveal that while journalists tend to sympathise with the vulnerable and see it as important to combat xenophobia and racism, their relationship with asylum s...
Media & viestintä, 2015
Ajatus ”lähelle pääsemisestä” toistuu journalistisissa kolumneissa, juhlapuheissa ja strategiapap... more Ajatus ”lähelle pääsemisestä” toistuu journalistisissa kolumneissa, juhlapuheissa ja strategiapapereissa. Läheisyydestä on tullut journalistinen strategia. Yksi uusista keinoista tuottaa journalismiin läheisyyttä on monenlaisen yleisöaineiston hyödyntäminen. Tässä artikkelissa keskitymme erityisesti kriisi- ja onnettomuusuutisissa julkaistuun kuvalliseen yleisöaineistoon, eli niin sanottuihin amatöörikuviin. Tarkastelemme amatöörikuvien läheisyyteen liittyviä merkityksiä sekä toimittajien että yleisön näkökulmasta. Näissä tulkinnoissa tulee esiin, että amatöörikuvien läheisyys perustuu etenkin niiden ajallis-tilalliseen ja tunteelliseen ulottuvuuteen. Yleisö ottaa kuitenkin toimittajia enemmän etäisyyttä siihen tapaan, jolla näitä ulottuvuuksia on koetettu uutisorganisaatioissa hyödyntää strategisesti.
Javnost - The Public, 2016
International Communication Gazette, 2015
Social media have become important channels for directing humanitarian communication. Aid organiz... more Social media have become important channels for directing humanitarian communication. Aid organizations increasingly use social networks and simultaneously we have seen the emergence of self-organizing volunteers who take on a variety of humanitarian tasks that previously belonged to institutional agents. The focus of this study is on user-created disaster appeal videos on YouTube, which are a type of citizen communication that occurs in the aftermath of a disaster. Appeal videos aim to raise funds for the disaster victims by acting as intermediaries between humanitarian organizations and the public. The study explores how these appeals try to create solidarity with the plight of disaster victims, and how viewers respond to these appeals from ordinary humanitarians. The article argues that this peer-to-peer moral education may help to get round the distrust of humanitarian organizations and may also be able to cultivate the idea of global solidarity within the everyday lives of YouT...
JOMEC Journal, Nov 1, 2013
Television & New Media, 2021
This introduction to the special issue departs from elaborating on the issues explored in a proje... more This introduction to the special issue departs from elaborating on the issues explored in a project examining right-wing politics and “debates” about racism in Finland. It situates the research gathered in the collection in terms of a shared focus on the disparate networks of organised and opportunistic cultural producers that invest time and labour in the production of racialising and othering discourse and aesthetics, and on the modes and forms of cultural and media production that have, in a relatively short space of time, come to be distributed and adapted across divergent socio-political contexts, and integrated to the situated forms of racism and nationalism given exclusionary force across and within them. It underlines the need to understand the motivated circulation of racializing discourse in the wider context of forms of “postracialism,” and the need for research to move past the paradigm of “hate speech” to get to grips with the significance and impacts of intensively cir...