Risto Kunelius - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Risto Kunelius

Communication Theory, 2019

This article examines Jürgen Habermas’ concept of communicative power and describes how it transf... more This article examines Jürgen Habermas’ concept of communicative power and describes how it transforms into political power in actual decision-making. For this purpose, the article develops the use of Habermas’ typology of validity claims in communicative action as a framework for analysis. This means analyzing how public performances invoking these validity claims affect actors’ authority, which is then capitalized in policymaking. The article thus integrates Habermas’ procedural view on deliberative politics with the more culturally oriented view on political performances. It also contributes to the discussion about the “mediatization of politics” by introducing a communicative perspective to complement the more common institutional and systems perspectives. This theoretical and analytical approach is illustrated by examples drawn from evidence in 16 semi-structured interviews conducted with participants in the policy networks involved in the 2015 Finnish labor market negotiations.

Journalism And The NSA Revelations, 2017

Traces of Fukushima, 2019

This chapter looks at the Fukushima disaster as a media event from a spatial perspective by raisi... more This chapter looks at the Fukushima disaster as a media event from a spatial perspective by raising the question of how social media activity constructs social distance, and in so doing conditions the dynamics of public discourse. By applying co-retweeted network analysis of retweeting in Japan during three consecutive years, the chapter shows how the ambient sense of community in Twitter feeds about Fukushima moved from an early ‘disaster utopia’ to a more acute political polarization that in the context of national nuclear politics is articulated as a core theme. Polarization of discussions in the aftermath of Fukushima, the general political landscape and the increasingly strategic use of social media lead to a mediated social geography where it is difficult for science and journalism to play a constructive role.

Bibliographische Information der Deutschen Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek verzeichnet diese P... more Bibliographische Information der Deutschen Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliographie; detaillierte bibliogra phi sche Daten sind im Inter net über http://dnb.ddb.de abruf bar.

Traces of Fukushima, 2019

This chapter looks at the tension between the assumed tendencies of journalism and the deep, inhe... more This chapter looks at the tension between the assumed tendencies of journalism and the deep, inherited social and journalistic structures that anchor news coverage to a particular place, to an assumed audience and thus to specific affective dynamics and identities representation. Empirically, this chapter focuses on four levels of mainstream newspaper coverage—the local, the regional, the national and the international—and tracks how the image and meanings related of the disaster was re-negotiated over time, during five years after the event. By applying a computer-assisted modelling and quantitative text analysis of the key vocabularies of journalism at different levels, it highlights the way that mainstream media function as differentiated affective platforms that emphasize alternative sensibilities.

Traces of Fukushima, 2019

This chapter studies temporal aspects of the Fukushima disaster from the perspective of rememberi... more This chapter studies temporal aspects of the Fukushima disaster from the perspective of remembering. This chapter demonstrates how the meanings, interpretations and uses of media events change and develop through time, as narratives and counter-narratives vary and shift. We demonstrate how temporal affordances are dependent on technological affordances and interpretations of a disruptive media event. This chapter contains a social network analysis (SNA) of commemorative tweets from 2016 demonstrating that public actors, such as media operators and NGOs like Greenpeace, gain the most retweets and thus the most visibility. This chapter ends with a qualitative analysis of Greenpeace International tweets 2011-2016 that demonstrate how temporal and technological affordances change the mode of tweeting.

The routledge companion to media and scandal, 2019

The study examines the relationship between the media and power by asking what kind of influence ... more The study examines the relationship between the media and power by asking what kind of influence the media have in the circles of social power. The media's power is not primarily perceived as power to influence public opinion or action. Instead, the study asks how the ...

populism does not hinge on any objectively observable state of emergency so much as it depends on... more populism does not hinge on any objectively observable state of emergency so much as it depends on the creation of an always subjective but shared perception of crisis through performances in the public sphere. Above all, through its detailed examination of how contemporary populism functions through performance, Moffitt’s book thus provides an important and innovative new perspective in a crowded field. If there is a quibble, it is that more could have been made of the book’s interdisciplinary aspiration. Despite a stated ‘interdisciplinary standpoint’ (p. 5), Moffitt’s sourcing remains, with the notable exception of a section drawing on Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle (1967), firmly based in various spheres of political science scholarship. Theories of performance and performativity are absorbed via political scholarship of the ‘constructivist turn’, notably Michael Saward’s work, which tends to engage more directly with theories of performativity as developed by JL Austin, Judith Butler and others. Nevertheless, with the insistence that populism is ‘not a particular entity or “thing” but a political style that is done’, and with the choice to focus on performers, stages and audiences (p. 152, original emphasis), The Global Rise of Populism has pushed populism decisively and usefully into the realm of the performative in a way that is sure to open up many exciting and interdisciplinary avenues for future research.

Nordic Journal of Media Studies, 2021

Traces of Fukushima, 2019

This chapter discusses the temporal aspects of the Fukushima disaster in the immediate aftermath ... more This chapter discusses the temporal aspects of the Fukushima disaster in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. Following the live press conferences of the Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, we trace the temporal trajectory of the development of #edano_nero (‘Get some sleep, Edano!’), a Twitter hashtag that was developed by viewers of the press conferences on their second screens. The reading of live press conferences suggests that a disruptive media event can involve strong emotional dynamics and that it can include somewhat surprising registers. Our empirical findings indicate that in the traumatic situation of an ongoing disaster, social media feeds can serve not only as outlets for feelings, but also as platforms for collective emotion formation that form trajectories in time.

Javnost - The Public, 2019

This article introduces a new approach aimed at capturing three essential action horizons of medi... more This article introduces a new approach aimed at capturing three essential action horizons of mediatised political action. The proposed approach focuses on how institutional, discursive and argumentative horizons come together to form a historically specific and issue-dependent publicity that influences how political actors communicate their power and aims. We argue that by studying the interplay of these three horizons in different times and contexts, we can better understand the media's changing role in politics than by focusing only on the alleged characteristics of media logic (e.g. personalisation and negativism), often proposed in the debates about mediatisation and media interventionism.

Digital Journalism, 2016

This article provides a conceptual and methodological outline for studying the social and politic... more This article provides a conceptual and methodological outline for studying the social and political implications of digital surveillance, as it opens itself to journalists and media researchers. Digital surveillance yields a profound social transition, which can be tentatively called as "structural transformation of privacy". We propose that the empirical analysis on this gradual and abstract process can proceed in two phases. Firstly, attention should be paid key stakeholders and their deeply conflicted positions on the issue of digital surveillance. Secondly, an analytical focus should be set on the dominant discursive principles and justifications that inform the suggested public solutions. This framework is illustrated by some empirical findings from a transnational empirical study that analysed opinionated journalism on Edward Snowden's revelations from June 2013 to the end of 2014.

Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 2014

always been one of the features which made Bourdieu’s original writings particularly stimulating ... more always been one of the features which made Bourdieu’s original writings particularly stimulating as well, and Eagleton-Pierce’s application of his work on symbolic power to issues of trade politics should therefore make for interesting reading among those who are engaged in the study of these matters. The initial chapters of the book, however, are largely engaged in setting out the basic theoretical framework, which is only applied to trade issues throughout the second half of the book. Chapter 1, for instance, describes the aforementioned four approaches to conceptualizing power, and discusses their perceived merits and limitations. Chapter 2 then discusses the importance of incorporating symbolic power into our reflections in a more systematic manner, and introduces the Bourdieusian concepts which are applied to more concrete issues in the second part of the book. This part is focused on the role of symbolic power in two particular cases of WTO-centred disputes over agricultural trade. Concretely, Chapter 4 discusses a group of westand central-African countries which have campaigned for reform of the international cotton regime, while Chapter 5 discusses the initiatives of a group of southern countries which have sought to advance a range of more heterodox ideas about agricultural trade. These chapters focus, in particular, on explicating the ways in which these disputes were framed, how orthodox and heterodox opinions were defined, challenged and imposed, how actors struggled over taxonomies, categories, scripts and tropes, how (some) linguistic frames took on a more objectified form and how groups were formed in response to various types of categorizations. The focus on these issues provides the reader with very clear illustrations of the theoretical argument which Eagleton-Pierce advances in the initial chapters, and very effectively draws our attention to the ways in which representations of the social world are legitimated, disputed and enforced. It should be clear, therefore, that Symbolic Power in the World Trade Organization makes a very significant contribution to discussions about the nature and exercise of power in trade politics. This is, then, a book that should be read widely, even among those who are perhaps less likely to agree with its core claims. All of this is not to say, however, that the approach which Eagleton-Pierce develops is entirely beyond reproach. I suspect, for instance, that his distinction between substantialist and relational approaches to power is untenable. Indeed, the final paragraph of his book appears to indicate that Eagleton-Pierce agrees with this assessment. His advocacy of a relational approach throughout the rest of the book is therefore somewhat curious. Indeed, it seems strangely at odds with the nondualistic orientation which is adopted throughout the rest of this, otherwise excellent, book.

Javnost - The Public, 2012

ABSTRACT In academic and popular discourse, the power of media in current globalised and “postdem... more ABSTRACT In academic and popular discourse, the power of media in current globalised and “postdemocratic” societies is often discussed with the notion of “mediatisation.” It suggests, for example, that media institutions are increasingly influential because they dictate the way issues are framed for public discussion. Consequently, other institutional actors (in politics, science, religion) have had to internalise a “media logic” in order to sustain their power and legitimate their actions. Recent studies of mediatisation largely ignore Jürgen Habermas’ early use of the term “mediatization” in order to analyse the relationship between system imperatives and lifeworlds. While at first this use may seem distant to recent concerns, a return to Habermas can enhance the theorising of mediatisation and media power in two ways. First, by underscoring the importance of a system-theoretic vocabulary it helps to unpack the notion of “media logic” and narrow down the specific power resource of the media (i.e. what is the “medium” of the media). Second, by articulating a fundamental criticism of system-theoretic vocabulary it opens a normative perspective for an evaluation of the media’s democratic function (i.e. the “quality” of mediatisation). This essay highlights, elaborates and illustrates each of these potential contributions by looking at journalism research in general and drawing on a recent empirical study on the mediatisation of political decision-making in Finland.

Communication Theory, 2019

This article examines Jürgen Habermas’ concept of communicative power and describes how it transf... more This article examines Jürgen Habermas’ concept of communicative power and describes how it transforms into political power in actual decision-making. For this purpose, the article develops the use of Habermas’ typology of validity claims in communicative action as a framework for analysis. This means analyzing how public performances invoking these validity claims affect actors’ authority, which is then capitalized in policymaking. The article thus integrates Habermas’ procedural view on deliberative politics with the more culturally oriented view on political performances. It also contributes to the discussion about the “mediatization of politics” by introducing a communicative perspective to complement the more common institutional and systems perspectives. This theoretical and analytical approach is illustrated by examples drawn from evidence in 16 semi-structured interviews conducted with participants in the policy networks involved in the 2015 Finnish labor market negotiations.

Journalism And The NSA Revelations, 2017

Traces of Fukushima, 2019

This chapter looks at the Fukushima disaster as a media event from a spatial perspective by raisi... more This chapter looks at the Fukushima disaster as a media event from a spatial perspective by raising the question of how social media activity constructs social distance, and in so doing conditions the dynamics of public discourse. By applying co-retweeted network analysis of retweeting in Japan during three consecutive years, the chapter shows how the ambient sense of community in Twitter feeds about Fukushima moved from an early ‘disaster utopia’ to a more acute political polarization that in the context of national nuclear politics is articulated as a core theme. Polarization of discussions in the aftermath of Fukushima, the general political landscape and the increasingly strategic use of social media lead to a mediated social geography where it is difficult for science and journalism to play a constructive role.

Bibliographische Information der Deutschen Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek verzeichnet diese P... more Bibliographische Information der Deutschen Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliographie; detaillierte bibliogra phi sche Daten sind im Inter net über http://dnb.ddb.de abruf bar.

Traces of Fukushima, 2019

This chapter looks at the tension between the assumed tendencies of journalism and the deep, inhe... more This chapter looks at the tension between the assumed tendencies of journalism and the deep, inherited social and journalistic structures that anchor news coverage to a particular place, to an assumed audience and thus to specific affective dynamics and identities representation. Empirically, this chapter focuses on four levels of mainstream newspaper coverage—the local, the regional, the national and the international—and tracks how the image and meanings related of the disaster was re-negotiated over time, during five years after the event. By applying a computer-assisted modelling and quantitative text analysis of the key vocabularies of journalism at different levels, it highlights the way that mainstream media function as differentiated affective platforms that emphasize alternative sensibilities.

Traces of Fukushima, 2019

This chapter studies temporal aspects of the Fukushima disaster from the perspective of rememberi... more This chapter studies temporal aspects of the Fukushima disaster from the perspective of remembering. This chapter demonstrates how the meanings, interpretations and uses of media events change and develop through time, as narratives and counter-narratives vary and shift. We demonstrate how temporal affordances are dependent on technological affordances and interpretations of a disruptive media event. This chapter contains a social network analysis (SNA) of commemorative tweets from 2016 demonstrating that public actors, such as media operators and NGOs like Greenpeace, gain the most retweets and thus the most visibility. This chapter ends with a qualitative analysis of Greenpeace International tweets 2011-2016 that demonstrate how temporal and technological affordances change the mode of tweeting.

The routledge companion to media and scandal, 2019

The study examines the relationship between the media and power by asking what kind of influence ... more The study examines the relationship between the media and power by asking what kind of influence the media have in the circles of social power. The media's power is not primarily perceived as power to influence public opinion or action. Instead, the study asks how the ...

populism does not hinge on any objectively observable state of emergency so much as it depends on... more populism does not hinge on any objectively observable state of emergency so much as it depends on the creation of an always subjective but shared perception of crisis through performances in the public sphere. Above all, through its detailed examination of how contemporary populism functions through performance, Moffitt’s book thus provides an important and innovative new perspective in a crowded field. If there is a quibble, it is that more could have been made of the book’s interdisciplinary aspiration. Despite a stated ‘interdisciplinary standpoint’ (p. 5), Moffitt’s sourcing remains, with the notable exception of a section drawing on Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle (1967), firmly based in various spheres of political science scholarship. Theories of performance and performativity are absorbed via political scholarship of the ‘constructivist turn’, notably Michael Saward’s work, which tends to engage more directly with theories of performativity as developed by JL Austin, Judith Butler and others. Nevertheless, with the insistence that populism is ‘not a particular entity or “thing” but a political style that is done’, and with the choice to focus on performers, stages and audiences (p. 152, original emphasis), The Global Rise of Populism has pushed populism decisively and usefully into the realm of the performative in a way that is sure to open up many exciting and interdisciplinary avenues for future research.

Nordic Journal of Media Studies, 2021

Traces of Fukushima, 2019

This chapter discusses the temporal aspects of the Fukushima disaster in the immediate aftermath ... more This chapter discusses the temporal aspects of the Fukushima disaster in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. Following the live press conferences of the Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, we trace the temporal trajectory of the development of #edano_nero (‘Get some sleep, Edano!’), a Twitter hashtag that was developed by viewers of the press conferences on their second screens. The reading of live press conferences suggests that a disruptive media event can involve strong emotional dynamics and that it can include somewhat surprising registers. Our empirical findings indicate that in the traumatic situation of an ongoing disaster, social media feeds can serve not only as outlets for feelings, but also as platforms for collective emotion formation that form trajectories in time.

Javnost - The Public, 2019

This article introduces a new approach aimed at capturing three essential action horizons of medi... more This article introduces a new approach aimed at capturing three essential action horizons of mediatised political action. The proposed approach focuses on how institutional, discursive and argumentative horizons come together to form a historically specific and issue-dependent publicity that influences how political actors communicate their power and aims. We argue that by studying the interplay of these three horizons in different times and contexts, we can better understand the media's changing role in politics than by focusing only on the alleged characteristics of media logic (e.g. personalisation and negativism), often proposed in the debates about mediatisation and media interventionism.

Digital Journalism, 2016

This article provides a conceptual and methodological outline for studying the social and politic... more This article provides a conceptual and methodological outline for studying the social and political implications of digital surveillance, as it opens itself to journalists and media researchers. Digital surveillance yields a profound social transition, which can be tentatively called as "structural transformation of privacy". We propose that the empirical analysis on this gradual and abstract process can proceed in two phases. Firstly, attention should be paid key stakeholders and their deeply conflicted positions on the issue of digital surveillance. Secondly, an analytical focus should be set on the dominant discursive principles and justifications that inform the suggested public solutions. This framework is illustrated by some empirical findings from a transnational empirical study that analysed opinionated journalism on Edward Snowden's revelations from June 2013 to the end of 2014.

Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 2014

always been one of the features which made Bourdieu’s original writings particularly stimulating ... more always been one of the features which made Bourdieu’s original writings particularly stimulating as well, and Eagleton-Pierce’s application of his work on symbolic power to issues of trade politics should therefore make for interesting reading among those who are engaged in the study of these matters. The initial chapters of the book, however, are largely engaged in setting out the basic theoretical framework, which is only applied to trade issues throughout the second half of the book. Chapter 1, for instance, describes the aforementioned four approaches to conceptualizing power, and discusses their perceived merits and limitations. Chapter 2 then discusses the importance of incorporating symbolic power into our reflections in a more systematic manner, and introduces the Bourdieusian concepts which are applied to more concrete issues in the second part of the book. This part is focused on the role of symbolic power in two particular cases of WTO-centred disputes over agricultural trade. Concretely, Chapter 4 discusses a group of westand central-African countries which have campaigned for reform of the international cotton regime, while Chapter 5 discusses the initiatives of a group of southern countries which have sought to advance a range of more heterodox ideas about agricultural trade. These chapters focus, in particular, on explicating the ways in which these disputes were framed, how orthodox and heterodox opinions were defined, challenged and imposed, how actors struggled over taxonomies, categories, scripts and tropes, how (some) linguistic frames took on a more objectified form and how groups were formed in response to various types of categorizations. The focus on these issues provides the reader with very clear illustrations of the theoretical argument which Eagleton-Pierce advances in the initial chapters, and very effectively draws our attention to the ways in which representations of the social world are legitimated, disputed and enforced. It should be clear, therefore, that Symbolic Power in the World Trade Organization makes a very significant contribution to discussions about the nature and exercise of power in trade politics. This is, then, a book that should be read widely, even among those who are perhaps less likely to agree with its core claims. All of this is not to say, however, that the approach which Eagleton-Pierce develops is entirely beyond reproach. I suspect, for instance, that his distinction between substantialist and relational approaches to power is untenable. Indeed, the final paragraph of his book appears to indicate that Eagleton-Pierce agrees with this assessment. His advocacy of a relational approach throughout the rest of the book is therefore somewhat curious. Indeed, it seems strangely at odds with the nondualistic orientation which is adopted throughout the rest of this, otherwise excellent, book.

Javnost - The Public, 2012

ABSTRACT In academic and popular discourse, the power of media in current globalised and “postdem... more ABSTRACT In academic and popular discourse, the power of media in current globalised and “postdemocratic” societies is often discussed with the notion of “mediatisation.” It suggests, for example, that media institutions are increasingly influential because they dictate the way issues are framed for public discussion. Consequently, other institutional actors (in politics, science, religion) have had to internalise a “media logic” in order to sustain their power and legitimate their actions. Recent studies of mediatisation largely ignore Jürgen Habermas’ early use of the term “mediatization” in order to analyse the relationship between system imperatives and lifeworlds. While at first this use may seem distant to recent concerns, a return to Habermas can enhance the theorising of mediatisation and media power in two ways. First, by underscoring the importance of a system-theoretic vocabulary it helps to unpack the notion of “media logic” and narrow down the specific power resource of the media (i.e. what is the “medium” of the media). Second, by articulating a fundamental criticism of system-theoretic vocabulary it opens a normative perspective for an evaluation of the media’s democratic function (i.e. the “quality” of mediatisation). This essay highlights, elaborates and illustrates each of these potential contributions by looking at journalism research in general and drawing on a recent empirical study on the mediatisation of political decision-making in Finland.