Techno-cultural opportunities: the anti-immigration movement in the Finnish mediascape

ABSTRACT

Horsti's article analyses how transformations in the media environment shaped the political success of the anti-immigration movement in Finland from 2003 to 2013. The qualitative textual analysis of blogs and mainstream media debates that relate to racism and the national populist Finns Party demonstrates how changes in the mediascape in general and in new media technology in particular have provided opportunities for the emerging anti-immigration movement. These changes facilitated the earlier development of the Finns Party but the fragmentation of online space later hindered the internal coherence of the movement and its integration into the populist party political family. In order to regain unity, the Finns Party performed the public scapegoating of individuals for racist speech, thus distancing itself from racism. Horsti shows that, rather than being isolated and marginal, the anti-immigration movement and the ‘uncivil’ public sphere overlap with traditional politics and the mainstream media.     

“Voices of ordinary citizens”: ban damunhwa and its neoliberal affect of anti-immigration in South Korea

This article looks at the rapid emergence of ban damunhwa (“anti-multiculture”) or the sentiment of anti-immigration in South Korea. Ban damunhwa discourse centers on a variety of issues such as the state's multicultural policy, crimes by foreigners, and problems of the so-called illegal sojourners, and has been most active and visible on the Internet, especially since the mid-2000s. This article focuses on the way ban damunhwa defines the state's multicultural policy as what gives special preferences to migrants, which, in turn, is said to destroy the livelihoods of South Korean citizens. Represented as the “voices of ordinary citizens,” ban damunhwa narratives appeal to a neoliberal idea of fairness and equity, under which migrants emerge as demonic free-riders. Ban damunhwa discourse not only serves as a symptom of a neoliberal ethic but also mirrors the dilemma of the people who struggle within a system of precarity and yet reproduce its main ideologies.