When Art Becomes Explosive

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When Art Becomes Explosive

Two examples from modern European societies of controversies related to

artistic representations as they were constructed in Swedish press

Home University: Uppsala Universitet, Sweden

Host University: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen,The Netherlands Euroculture, August 2013

Home University Thesis Supervisor: Dr.Mia Lövheim

Host University Thesis Supervisor: Dr. Margriet van der Waal

Inger Alestig 1955.12.20, student number S2134195

Ingeralestig@hotmail.com

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2 Declaration

I, Inger Alestig, hereby declare that this thesis, entitled “When Art Becomes Explosive”, submitted as partial requirement for the MA Programme Euroculture, is my own origi-nal work and expressed in my own words. Any use made within this text of works of other authors in any form (e.g. ideas, figures, texts, tables, etc.) are properly acknowl-edged in the text as well as in the bibliography.

I hereby also acknowledge that I was informed about the regulations pertaining to the assessment of the MA thesis Euroculture and about the general completion rules for the Master of Arts Programme Euroculture.

Signed Inger Alestig……… Date 9.10.2013………

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Abstract

Controversies concerning artistic representation have been part of the artistic arena and the public debate for centuries. With the introduction of mass media as a means of communication, the debate on how to understand or interpret artistic conflicts is being widely spread. The mediated controversies are symbols of what is being discussed, they are part of a struggling to assert particular structuring between discourses.

For the purpose of analyzing the construction of media discourse, two me-diated controversies pertaining to art have been chosen, the controversy on the Ecce Homo exhibition 1998), and the controversy on the Muhammad cartoons (2005-2006). The two controversies share some basic characteristics: in both cases, religion, politics, mass media and art came to be discussed.

Media is seen as simultaneously reflecting and constructing discourses. The thesis argues that mediated controversies related to artistic representations can be seen as texts within a culture, places where tendencies to discursive change appears. Working with this assumption – art as text within a culture – it will be important to study works of art that have been in the center of conflicts, breaks, or controversies that have created new understandings, or, which could be the case, have made clear different endeavors to limit some interpretations or understandings.

The thesis focuses on discourse analysis as it is conducted by Norman Fairclough. Critical discourse analyses will be used in the study of media texts from four daily newspapers in Sweden, covering a six months period. The result points to a tendency in both mediated controversies to articulate religious discourses of religious in configurations with political discourses. Creative discourse practices were found, but discourses strengthening existing orders of discourse were more frequent.

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Charts

Chart 1. Articles per month and newspaper, Ecce Homo ... 39

Chart 2. Shares of total amount of artcles per newspaper, Ecce Homo ... 39

Chart 3. Numbers of articles in total per month, Ecce Homo ... 40

Chart 4. Articles per month and newspper, Muhammad cartoons ... 48

Chart 5. Shares of total amount of articles per newspaper, Muhammad cartoons ... 49

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Chapter 1. Introduction

1. Introduction

Controversies concerning artistic representation have been part of the artistic arena and the public debate for centuries. With the introduction of mass media as a means of communication, the debate on the role of art in society as well as the discussion on how to understand or interpret artistic conflicts is being widely spread.1_{The speed of} infor-mation and the globalization of the media, constantly accelerating through new forms of media, make, at times, the controversies concerning artistic work explosive. The works of art can seem to generate or fuel social and political tensions, and the artists have of-ten been seen as causing these of-tensions. However, the opposite could be at hand: artistic products could be used by political or religious leaders who claim that certain readings or understandings of the works of art are relevant, while others are not. In both cases, it is my belief that every controversy pertaining to artistic work deals with, expresses or opposes values that can be found in a particular society at a particular time. The mediat-ed controversies are symbols of what is being discussmediat-ed, rejectmediat-ed or revealmediat-ed.

1.1. Purpose

For the purpose of investigating how artistic controversies are represented and con-structed in the press, two recent controversies were chosen – the controversy surround-ing the Ecce Homo photo exhibition in Sweden (1998) and that surroundsurround-ing the Mu-hammad cartoons in Denmark (2005-2006).

1_{I will use the term mass media as it is defined with a wide scope by John A. Walker: “The expression}

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6 The two conflicts share some basic characteristics: in both cases, religion, politics, mass media and art came to be discussed. However, they also differ in many senses. In a qualitative in-depth discourse analysis the two controversies will be studied. Samples have been chosen from four newspapers in Sweden during a six month period, starting from the first time the actual artistic product was mentioned in the press. For the pur-pose of analyzing art controversies as they are described in mass media, inspiration has been found in Stephen Greenblatt’s and Catherine Gallagher’s definition of the wider concept of “culture” – they look at culture as a kind of text. I believe it to be fruitful to also see the artistic controversies as a text within the text of culture.

Stephen Greenblatt is the founder of New Historicism, where the context in which texts appear is more emphasized than within semiotics. In a similar way, it might be possible to look at art as one of the communicated “texts” within a culture. This “text” cannot be understood other than by relating it to society. Working on this assumption – art as a text within a culture – it will be important to study works of art that have been in the center of conflicts, breaks, or controversies that have created new understandings, or, which could be the case, have made clear different endeavors to limit some interpretations or understandings.

Greenblatt and Gallagher says: “Similarly, we ask ourselves how we can identify, out of the vast array of textual traces in a culture, which are the significant ones, either for us or for them, the ones most worth pursuing”.2_{The textual traces in the} form of the media discourse on art controversies will then, as a consequence, say some-thing important about tendencies in a society, power struggles, and the relation between opinions/worldviews expressed by majority groups and those expressed by minority groups (or, as it could be, the silence of those groups).

As several questions are being put forward and are being lively discussed for a short period of time, often very intensively over a couple of months, it is possible to isolate one controversy and study it closely. However, I do not consider these mediat-ed controversies as merely saying something about that particular time of the year or about that particular place or text writer, but rather see them as symbols of what have been going on for some time, regarding negotiations of meaning and/or power relations within society.

2_{Greenblatt and Gallagher, Practicing New Historicism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009),}

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7 One might say that controversies highlight tendencies within a society, and this partic-ular feature makes them suitable for research projects. My understanding of the concept “discourse” is inspired by Stuart Hall3_{and Marianne Jörgensen and Louise Phillips}4_, among others. It is my intention to describe the discourse at hand regarding two widely discussed and debated controversies related to art. The two controversies were chosen as they both are related to religion, politics, and society, as well as to the art world.

The two controversies also deal with the secularization process in Scandi-navian countries, described by Grace Davie5_{, among others, as well as reactions towards} this process from participants in the mediated debate. Central to the analysis is the as-sumption that controversies expose power relations within a society.

1.2. Short description of the two controversies

The Ecce Homo exhibition, Sweden 1998

The Ecce Homo exhibition, by Elisabeth Ohlson6_{, was first shown in Stockholm in July} 1998. It consists of twelve photographs, depicting the life of Jesus in both a biblical and modern framing. The exhibition was shown during the Pride Festival in Stockholm, a festival that focuses on the life and the rights of homosexual, bi-sexual and transsexual persons, but the festival is also a cultural festival in a broad sense. The festival is often well covered by the press, which was also the case in 1998, described by Gabriella Ahl-ström in a book on the exhibition, Ecce Homo. Berättelsen om en utställning.7

In some newspapers, the exhibition was, to start with, only mentioned in a few lines in a day-to-day calendar on the festival (Aftonbladet, July 1998). The exhibi-tion got more attenexhibi-tion in other newspapers, notably in Göteborg- Posten (July 1998). This newspaper had chosen to write more extensively about the exhibition, giving it one whole page in the feature-section. In September, the exhibition was shown in the Cathe-dral of Uppsala (19.9), and from this point onwards, there were an increasing number of articles in the press about the exhibition. The support for the exhibition from

3_{Stuart Hall, “Coding and decoding”. In Samtidskultur. Karaoke, karnevaler och kulturella koder (Falun:}

Nya Doxa, 1999), 227. (Translation Inger Alestig).

4_{Marianne Jörgensen and Louise Phillips, Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method (London: Sage}

Publications, 2008).

5_{Grace Davie, A Memory Mutates (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2000).}

6_{Elisabeth Ohlson has since the exhibition changed her name to Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin. I will use the}

former name, Elisabeth Ohlson.

7_{Gabriella Ahlström, Ecce Homo. Berättelsen om en utställning (Värnamo: Albert Bonniers Förlag}

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8 op KG Hammar was widely discussed and also criticized. The peak in the number of articles was in October 1998.8

The twelve photographs are all connected to quotes from the Bible, notably (in se-quence)9_:

1. Luke 1:30-31 – the Annunciation 2. Luke 2:7 – the Crib

3. Luke 3:21-22 – the baptizing of Jesus 4. Luke 23:13 – Lamentations

5. Luke 19:37-40 – the march into Jerusalem 6. Matthew 26:26-28 – the Communion 7. Matthew 26:45-48 – the kiss of Judas 8. Mark 15:17-20 – Jesus carrying the crucifix 9. Matthew 27:45-46 – the Crucifixion 10. John 19:26 – the Pietà

11. Matthew 28:9-10 – Jesus shows himself to the women 12. Matthew 18:18 – Heaven

In the press, those critical of the exhibition and/or to the support from the Archbishop were to be found particularly among evangelical churches that were at the time labeled “Free churches” so as to distinguish them from the Swedish church, connected to the state (later, in 1999-2000 the Swedish church and the state were formally separated), and within Catholic and Orthodox churches.

Art historian Björn Fritz describes Christians critical to the exhibition as “conservative elements” within the Church in an article focusing on the debate in the press on the Ecce Homo exhibition and the exhibition “Soft Core”, comparing the two debates.10_{There was harsh debating about the fact that the exhibition was shown in the} Cathedral of Uppsala, as well as in other church buildings of the Church of Sweden (Norrköping, Göteborg), and there were claims that the Archbishop should resign. Dur-ing the debate, only a few homosexual voices were to be heard in the press (defined, in this case, as self-described homosexuals). The exhibition did not only cause debate in

8_{Number of articles in the press in Sweden (from four daily newspapers): July 11, August 8, September}

18, October 77, November 38 and December 4.

9_{“Ecce Homo (utställning)”, accessed July 2, 2013,}

http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecce_Homo_(utst%C3%A4llning)

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9 the press. Bomb threats were announced11_{before the opening of the exhibition in} Uppsa-la, as well as in Norrköping, and the artist, Elisabeth Ohlson, was threatened at the opening in Norrköping. In Norrköping, a mob threw pebbles at her, shouting obscene words. She also received a death threat. Since 1998, the exhibition has been shown in several European cities, among others Rome in 2000 during the Europride festival and Riga, Latvia in autumn 2012.

The Muhammad cartoons, Denmark, 2005-2006

The twelve satirical drawings on the prophet Muhammad were first published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on 30 September 2005, most of them depicting the Prophet. The cartoons were made by a selected number of well-known Danish cartoon-ists. The selection was made by the cultural editor of the newspaper, Flemming Rose. Three cartoonists, among them Kurt Westergaard, belonged to the editorial staff.12

The pre-history of the publication is a discussion between the writer Kåre Bluitgen and Flemming Rose, in which Bluitgen complained about the difficulty in finding a cartoonist willing to illustrate his book on the life of the Prophet, Koranen og

profeten Muhammeds liv (The Qur´an and the life of the Prophet Muhammad). The

dis-cussion resulted in Flemming Rose’s attempt to contribute to the debate on Islam and self-censorship. Rose’s opinion was that there was strong self-censorship regarding Is-lam in Denmark at the time.

However, it is important to note that the pre-history is much debated, and some scholars claim that the story begins much earlier, and that the topic was highly politicized in Denmark long before the discussion between Bluitgen and Rose.13_The twelve drawings published in Jyllands-Posten on 30 September were a result of the invi-tation from Flemming Rose to Danish cartoonists to illustrate the life of the Prophet, and the drawings were accompanied by a text by Flemming Rose. The headline was: Muhammeds ansigt (The face of Muhammad). Four of the cartoons have Danish texts. One of the cartoons involves a Danish politician. The cartoons do not have subtitles, and the names of the cartoonists are sometimes stated in initials only. One of the cartoonists, Kurt Westergaard, has frequently been giving interviews on this topic, but the other

11_{“Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin”, accessed July 2, 2013, http://www.ohlson.se/?page_id=163}

12_{Peter Hervik, Current Themes in IMER Research: The Danish Muhammad cartoon conflict, no 13}

(Malmö: Holmbergs 2012), 45.

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10 cartoonists are relatively unknown outside Denmark, and their names have not been frequently mentioned in the following debate. Their names cannot be found without extensive research, which might be explained by the number of threats and violent at-tacks on those persons willing to talk to the press (mainly Flemming Rose and Kurt Westergaard). The majority of the cartoons depict the Prophet in various situations and framings.

The drawings depict (in sequence)14_:

1. Muhammad in the desert, accompanied by a donkey.

2. Muhammad’s face in the form of the Islamic star and a crescent Moon. 3. Muhammad with a halo in the shape of a crescent moon.

4. Muhammad as a suicidal bomber, resembling Ayatollah Khomeini, and having a Muslim creed written on his turban.

5. A nervous cartoon-writer depicting Muhammad.

6. A cartoon depicting the writer Kåre Bluitgen in a turban. The writer is holding a paper with a drawing of the Prophet Muhammad. On the turban of the Prophet is written “PR-stunt” on an or-ange. The picture of an orange in this Danish context connotes to the Danish expression “get an orange in one´s turban”, which means that something positive and unexpected has happened to you.

7. A young boy, accompanied by a text saying that his name is Muhammad and that he is a pupil of Valbyskolan, a school in Copenhagen. The text on the black board behind the boy says, in Per-sian, that “The editorial staff of Jyllands-Posten is a pack of reactionary provocateurs”.

8. Muhammad with a sword in front of two women in niquab. His eyes are covered with a black box.

9. Muhammad in heaven, trying to stop suicidal bombers from entering by saying: “Stop! Stop! We are out of virgins”.

10. Angry men, with Arabic appearance, are being stopped by another Arab man saying: “Take it easy friends, after all it is just a picture made by an infidel from the south of Jylland” (Jylland is one of the Danish islands).

11. Caricatures depicting a crescent moon and the Star of David and a poem, saying that the Prophet is old and crazy and that he oppresses women.

12. A witness viewing a lineup at a police station. The text says: “Hmm, I sort of cannot recognize him…” The choice is to be made from persons who look like the writer Kåre Bluitgen, the politi-cal leader Pia Kjaersgaard, a hippie, and some persons who could be identified as being Jesus, Buddha, and Muhammad.

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“Muhammad cartoons controversy”, accessed July 2, 2013,

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11 The first response to the drawings was in the form of protests from Muslim groups in Denmark. However, the large-scale protests that were seen around the world did not take place until January and February 200615_{. The controversy escalated during autumn} 2005. 16_{Muslim groups in Denmark filed a judicial complaint to the newspaper about the} publishing of the cartoons, but the complaint was dismissed (January 2006)17_.

A group of representatives from the Islamic countries proposed a meeting with governmental representatives (October 2005)18_{, but the Danish government refused} to intervene in the matter19_{. At this point, representatives from Muslim organizations in} Denmark decided to go to Middle East countries (December 2005) to raise awareness of the publication, or, as Peter Hervik describes it, the “lack of dialogue” on the matter.20 As a result of this trip, riots and demonstrations took place in several countries. The media played a very important role in this controversy as, firstly, it carried the contro-versial content and, secondly, it instigated and carried the ensuing debates about this content21_{. The cartoons were published in more than 50 countries.}22

In many countries, the publication, or the refusal to publish, came to be more or less a political and cultural statement by the newspaper in question. The voices critical to the publication of the cartoons saw them as racist, islamophobic or blasphe-mous. There were also arguments in that the cartoons targeted a vulnerable minority in Denmark, the Muslim community. Undercurrents of racial tensions between the main-stream society and the immigrants have been pointed to by among others Alok Rashmi Mukhopadhyay.23_{The pro-publication voices claimed the publication to be necessary to} foster a healthy debate on Islam and to protect the freedom of speech. Muslim voices in the debate were rare in the Swedish context. The debate in the press was followed by

16

Süleyman IRVAN, “Cartoon Crisis and Freedom of the Press”, Akdeniz Iletisim Dergisi, sayi 7 (2007): 3.

17_{“Muhammad cartoons controversy”, accessed July 2, 2013,}

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy.

18

Peter Hervik, Current Themes in IMER Research:The Danish Muhammad cartoon conflict, no 13 (Malmö: Holmbergs 2012), 8.

19_{“Muhammad cartoons controversy”, accessed July 2, 2013,}

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy.

20

Peter Hervik, Current Themes in IMER Research: The Danish Muhammad cartoon conflict, no 13 (Malmö: Holmbergs 2012), 107.

22

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12 political implications and by attacks, violence and demonstrations in mainly Muslim countries, for example Lebanon, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Somalia.

However, there were also Muslim organizations protesting against the vio-lence. According to the New York Times, the cartoon affair resulted in more than 200 deaths globally. Danish and Austrian Embassies in Lebanon were attacked, as well as Danish representatives in Syria. One of the cartoonists, Kurt Westergaard, received death threats and was also the victim of an attack in his own home, of which he sur-vived. Cultural Editor, Flemming Rose, received threats, as did the rest of the staff at Jyllands-Posten. A boycott of Danish products was launched in Saudi Arabia and other countries24_{. The boycott also affected the Swedish-Danish company Arla Foods. As late} as 2010, there was a terror plot against Jyllands-Posten, which was detected in advance by the police and stopped. Five persons were arrested, among whom were four

Swedes25_.

1.3. Choice of samples and delimitations

Choice of samples

The data consists of all articles in Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, Aftonbladet and

Göteborgs-Posten, mentioning the two controversies within a period of six months from

the first time the cultural product that was to be discussed first was mentioned in a press article in the actual newspaper. ”Article” denotes every text having a separate headline, or bold style in calendars. Four Swedish daily newspapers were chosen, with considera-tion to owner structures, political orientaconsidera-tion and geographical representaconsidera-tion. The key-words used to find articles were “Ecce Homo”, with or without the appendix “photo exhibition/exhibition/photos” (“fotoutställning/utställning”) regarding the controversy on the Ecce Homo exhibition, and “Muhammad” +“cartoons/caricatures/images” (hammedkarikatyrerna/ bilderna/teckningarna) regarding the controversy on the Mu-hammad cartoons. Altogether, the data consists of 156 articles on the Ecce homo exhibi-tion, and 441 articles on the Muhammad cartoons.

23

Alok Rashmi Mukhopadhyay,”Danish Caricatures: Freedom of Provocation”, Strategic Analysis 30, no.1 (2006): 242.

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Delimitations

As the focus is on the discourse analysis as it is presented in the text, the thesis will not present an analysis of the works of art, but will concentrate on the mediated discourse. Also, the chosen illustrations to the texts will only be briefly analyzed, as the analysis of pictures/images/photos goes beyond the scope of the thesis and would, in my opinion, demand a background in art studies, of which I do not possess. The study is limited to the Swedish press, in order to be able to detect possible differences in the way the con-troversies were constructed in the press. Attention will be paid to possible common fea-tures or differences in the way media discourse is constructed.

1.4 Research question

The main focus of the thesis will be an in-depth analysis of eight chosen samples from each controversy. My research question is: How is the discourse on the two controver-sies constructed in and by the media? The thesis will focus on how different discourses are articulated and in which configurations, and on detecting creative discourse practic-es as well as practicpractic-es, strengthening existing media order of discourse. Related qupractic-es- ques-tions will be: How are majority views expressed within the discourse, and how do the minority groups express themselves (if they have the possibility to express themselves)? Who are the main parties elected in the press? What metaphors and styles are used? My objective will be to detect how discourses are articulated and in which confgurations, and to detect creative discourse practices, which will be of importance regarding the media order of discourse and wider sociocultural practices, such as social conditions and rights regarding minority groups in Sweden. I agree with Norman Fair-cloughs statement: “changes in language use are an important part of wider social and cultural changes”. 26_{In Discourse and Social change he describes three major} tenden-cies of change in orders of discourse in modern society: democratization, commodifica-tion and technologizacommodifica-tion of discourse. 27_{Fairclough state that changes in the discursive}

25_{Kristina Olsson,”Fyra män döms till 12 års fängelse efter terrorbrott”, accessed July 2, 2013,Svenska}

Dagbladet on the Web, June 29, 2012, http://www.svd.se/nyheter/utrikes/fyra-falls-for-terrorbrott-i-danmark_7252491.svd

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14 event often appears as a consequence of problematization and contradiction. People face “dilemmas” (Billig et al 1988)28. Fairclough says: “They often try to resolve these dilemmas by being innovative and creative, by adapting existing conventions in new ways, and so contributing to discursive change”.

Tendencies to changes within media order of discourse will be seen, I will argue, in the discourse presented on cultural conflicts, as these conflicts present contra-dictions and problematization. Henrik Bödker has, among others, described the con-struction of the media discourse on Muslims, focusing on the Danish Cartoon Contro-versy. He points to the importance of media events as nodes of cultural conflict. He says29: “media become events because of a range of people outside the media have strong and diverging interest in the issues at stake”. The approach in the thesis is inter-disciplinary.

1.5 Chosen theoretical approach

The theoretical framework of the study will be found in cultural sociology, semiotics, critical discourse analysis and New Historicism. Cultural studies have been an inspira-tion to the thesis. Victoria D. Alexander, sociologist, presents a model to help under-stand the relations between art, society, creators and consumers. Alexander´s model is a modified version of Wendy Griswold´s “cultural diamond”. Griswold´s model involves creators, consumers, art and society. Alexander has added to her model the distributors (person, organization, or network) as she stresses the communicative features of art. The definition of “art” will be inspired by the definition made by Alexander.30_{She sets up a} number of categories involved concerning art: Art requires an artistic product. It com-municates, it is experienced for enjoyment, it is an expressive form and it is defined by a context. In my view, there are weaknesses to the definition, notably in the category Al-exander calls “enjoyment category”. She says: “It is experienced for enjoyment. Enjoy-ment can take many forms. Art might be consumed for aesthetic pleasure, for sociability

28_{M.Billig et al., Ideological Dilemmas: a social psychology of everyday thinking (London: SAGE1988).} 29_{Henrik Bödker, “Muslims in Print, or Media Events as Nodes of Cultural Conflict”, in Lee Marsden}

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15 and fun, for mental stimulation, or for escape. Sometimes, however, people are exposed to art because ´it´s good for them´, as in a school trip to a museum.”31

Some art is produced with the intention to provoke, and by this provoca-tion enlighten or challenge, a challenge that is either rejected or approved. It is my be-lief that art consumers can fully engage with and acknowledge provocative art, but “en-joyment”, a category that in Alexander´s model should always be present, seems to not fully cover this aspect. For my purpose, Alexander´s model has provided a useful back-ground on how to understand the role of art in society, but her findings have simultane-ously been a challenge to my study: how and why does it happen that some artistic work seem to provoke? How is the provocation constructed in media discourse?

In the controversies on art, the art world meets the media world, which has a system similar to the “cultural diamond” – a system of senders, receivers, society, media creators and distributors. Earlier models within communication studies stressed the process of communication as a linear process from sender to receiver. Here, the analysis will rather be inspired by the semiotic school. The founder of the semiotic school, logician and philosopher C. S. Pierce, describes communication as a triangular relationship between the sign, the user, and external reality, stressing the importance of the content – that a sign means something to somebody. The model is suitable for the thesis, as it focuses on the communication of values, as John Fiske, a media scholar, describes it:32_{“The focus is on the role of communication in establishing and} maintain-ing values and on how those values enable communication to have meanmaintain-ing.”

It is important to note that controversies in general are central to the world of mass media. Another aspect of the world of mass communication is the importance of time. Certain understandings or interpretations of a controversy will often appear as a comment or a complement to a former interpretation. As Henrik Bödker concludes in his study on the Muhammad cartoons controversy: “A great deal of the media content making up the cartoon affair was thus also covering the coverage”.33

For the purpose of analyzing the construction of the media discourse, inspiration has been found in cultural theorist Stuart Hall’s and Marianne Jörgensen and Louise

30_{Victoria D. Alexander, Sociology of the Arts – exploring fine and popular forms (USA: Blackwell}

Pub-lishing, 2003), 3.

31_{Victoria D. Alexander, Sociology of the Arts – exploring fine and popular forms (USA: Blackwell}

Pub-lishing, 2003), 3.

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16 lips’ understanding of the concept “discourse” within communication and discourse analyses studies.34_{However, the more precise definition of linguist Norman Fairclough} will be used in this context. He describes “discourse” as closely related to the concept “parole” as it is used by linguist De Saussure, but “discourse” is not, as “parole”, a pure-ly personal activity, but a social practice35_.

As mentioned above, the thesis is inspired by the founder of New Historicism, Stephen Greenblatt36_{. New Historicism adds, to my understanding, to Michel Foucault’s} re-search, the context of a text, the cultural practices that it depends on and takes into con-sideration the way a text is produced and disseminated.

Summary:

Cultural sociology and semiotics has provided a useful background to the thesis, regard-ing how to understand the role of art in society, and how to understand and describe mediated controversies related to cultural artifacts. However, the thesis focuses on dis-course analysis as it is conducted by Norman Fairclough. Critical disdis-course analysis will be used in the analysis of chosen media texts. New Historicism has been an inspiration to the discussion of results.

33_{Henrik Bödker, “Muslims in Print, or Media Events as Nodes of Cultural Conflict”, in Lee Marsden}

and Heather Savigny ed., Media, Religion and Conflict (Farnham, Burlington: Ashgate Publishing 2009), 86.

34_{Marianne Jörgensen and Louise Phillips, Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method (London: Sage}

Publications, 2008).

35_{Norman Fairclough, Discourse and Social change (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012), 63.}

36_{Catherine Gallagher and Stephen Greenblatt, ed.,Practicing New Historicism (London, Chicago: The}

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Chapter 2. Previous research and theoretical framework

2.1. Previous research

Much research has been done on the Muhammad cartoon controversy, especially on the issue of the construction of Islam in western societies. Islamophobia and stereotypes, the role of caricatures and cartoons in the press and the cartoon crisis from a migration studies perspective can also be found. The press and the construction and framing of the controversy is covered in a number of studies, for example a study of the press in Ma-laysia, Danish and British press in a comparative study, the cartoons affair in Arabic press, the affair in Norwegian press, in Swiss press, and in Finnish press. Some of the studies are conducted from a comparative perspective, and those studies will be of less interest than the research conducted on the construction of the media discourse or fram-ing, which is covered in other studies.

One of the problems regarding the description of the Muhammad cartoons controversy regards the chosen time-frame to denote when the controversy started, and why. Peter Hervik, professor in migration studies, claims that the pre-history of the car-toon conflict has not been evaluated enough: “Many commentators treat the carcar-toon story as a single event that in itself “caused” the crisis”.37_{The role of the media is} anoth-er often debated issue. Hanoth-ervik claims that the conflict is “entirely media-instigated”. 38 Bülent Evre and ‘Yzmet Parlak agree on this view of media: “news media are tools of constitution rather than tools of representation”. 39

In their study, they find that anti-westernism is the most prominent theme in the six Turkish newspapers studied. Their study is based on press articles between 28

38_{Peter Hervik, Current Themes in IMER Research: The Danish Muhammad cartoon conflict, no 13,}

39_{Bülent Evre and Ýsmet Parlak: “The Otherization of the West in the Turkish Press: A discursive}

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18 February and 3 March, 2006. The framing of the controversy has been the main focus for other studies. A study of the framing in Malaysian mainstream newspapers, Dafrizal, Faridah Ibrahim and Fauziah Ahmad has selected 109 news articles from February 2006. They conclude that: “From the point of view of media relations concerning the controversial caricature of Prophet Muhammad, this study found that Malaysian main-stream newspapers generally defined the problem of the controversial caricature from the frame of ´religious sensitivity´and ´press control´.”40

Süleyman Irvan has studied the framing of the cartoon crisis with regard to the freedom of the press, based on editorials and commentaries in the online versions of newspapers around the world, but does not specify from which period. He finds three different framings: “The newspapers that supported the publishing of the infamous car-toons basically employed three major frames to justify their positions: challenging self-censorship imposed on issues related to Islam; freedom of expression is a western ideal and the newsworthiness of the cartoons”.41_{His conclusion from the study is that: “In} terms of consequences, those cartoons helped increase hatred against Muslim minorities in the West, and also caused violent demonstrations in the Muslim world”.42

Most studies concentrate on the mediated controversy, and the period fol-lowing the publication of the cartoons in September 2005, however it is important to be aware of the pre-history of the publications, referred to by Peter Hervik, and also com-mented on by many others, for example Alok Rashmi Mukhopadhyay43: “In this com-plex dynamics the mainstream societies have to confront their own stereotypes and im-ages about non-European and non-Christian societies as well as to review their tradi-tions. In fact the publication of the Danish caricatures should be seen against this back-drop.”

Jesper Strömbäck, Adam Shehata and Daniela W. Dimitrova have studied the framing of the Muhammad cartoon controversy in a cross-cultural comparison of Swedish and US press. They study three main frames: the freedom of speech frame, the

40

Dafrizal, Faridah Ibrahim and Fauziah Ahmad: “Framing of controversial Caricatures of Prophet Mu-hammad: A study of two Malaysian mainstream newspapers”, Malaysian Journal of Communication,

Jilid 27, no.2 (2011): 90.

41

Süleyman IRVAN, “Cartoon Crisis and Freedom of the Press”, Akdeniz Iletisim Akdeniz Dergisi, sayi

7 (2007): 1.

42

Süleyman IRVAN, Cartoon Crisis and Freedom of the Press, Akdeniz Iletisim Dergisi, sayi 7 (2007): 15.

43

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19 clash of civilization frame, and the intolerance frame, finding that the freedom of speech frame was more common in the New York Times than in Dagens Nyheter.44

This study will concentrate on the discourse presented in the Swedish newspapers and will focus on a detailed analysis of the chosen articles. Peter Hervik points to the importance of the choice of label for the Muhammad cartoon crisis and the importance of chosen headlines. Those are two significant textual traces that will be studied. However, I do not fully agree with Peter Hervik, Bülent Evre and Yzmet Parlak regarding the role of the media. I will rather adopt the view on the role of the media presented by Henrik Bödker in his study of the controversy45: “media events become media events because of a range of people outside the media have strong and diverging interests in the issues at stake”.46_{Media is thus simultaneously constituting and} reflect-ing.

Less research can be found on the Ecce Homo controversy. Gabriella Ahl-ström has written a book about the exhibition and the debate in the press: Ecce Homo.

Berättelsen om en utställning47_{. The book gives a comprehensive and detailed} descrip-tion of events, but it does not provide analysis. Further, the controversy is mendescrip-tioned within studies on masculinity and Christian faith, studies on sexuality and Christianity, inspired by Judith Butler, and in a study about the construction of images of Christ in modern times. Judith Samson´s study Reading Images of Christ: Masculinity and

Ho-mosexuality as Sites of Struggle in Popular Religious Images of Jesus is interesting, in

that it describes the “struggle over homosexuality” within contemporary Christianity as “one of the central issues”.48

Her article is an analysis of the representation of Jesus focusing on mascu-linity as it is expressed in the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. One of the conclusions is that central to the construction of a hegemonic masculinity is the separation from women and from the feminine traits within men. But this separation often “stands in

44_{Jesper Strömbäck, Adam Shehata and Daniela W. Dimitrova, “Framing the Mohammad cartoons issue:}

A cross-cultural comparison of Swedish and US. Press”, Global Media and Communication 4:117, (2008):117- 138, doi 10.1177/1742766508091516

and Heather Savigny ed.,Media, Religion and Conflict (Farnham, Burlington: Ashgate Publishing 2009).

and Heather Savigny ed., Media, Religion and Conflict (Farnham, Burlington: Ashgate Publishing 2009), 85.

47_{Gabriella Ahlström, Ecce Homo. Berättelsen om en utställning (Värnamo: Albert Bonniers Förlag}

1999).

48_{Judith Samson,”Reading Images of Christ: Masculinity and Homosexuality as Sites of Struggle in}

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20 contrast to the way Jesus is often presented as an androgynous person.” 49_Valdis

Teraudkalns, a historian, mentions the photos of Ecce Homo in a study concentrating on the construction of masculinities in contemporary Christianity. He sees the exhibition as an example of an imaginary opposed to essentialist gender identity, where men are re-ferred to as “strong” and non-senstive.50

Björn Fritz, art historian, has written an article about the Ecce Homo exhi-bition and the exhiexhi-bition “Soft Core”. 51_{He points to the confusion in the debate in the} press regarding the relation between the representation and the represented: “The imag-es are ascribed a direct and living relation to what they are depicting.”52_{His conclusion} is a warning towards a situation where the possibilities to publish images might be lim-ited in the future.

2.2. Theoretical framework

The theoretical framework is situated in critical discourse analysis. Inspiration has also been found in cultural sociology, cultural studies, semiotics, and New Historicism. Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer describe the four core concepts always involved when using CDA: “The common ground: discourse, critique, power and ideology”53_{. In this} chapter, I will discuss the concepts “discourse” and “critical”, to define more precisely how I understand and intend to use those two core concepts.

I will also briefly remark on the production and the reception of media discourse – these parts will not be the main focus of the thesis, but as those conditions to some extent belong to the theoretical framework set out by Norman Fairclough, Ruth Wodak, Michael Meyer and other scholars using CDA, there will be some comments on the construction of readers and ownership/ political affiliation of the media

49_{Judith Samson,”Reading Images of Christ: Masculinity and Homosexuality as Sites of Struggle in}

Pop-ular Religious Images of Jesus”, Religion and Gender 2, no.2 (2012): 288.

50_{Valdis Teraudkalns,”Construction of Masculinities in Contemporary Christianity”, Religion and}

politi-cal Change in Europe: Past and Present, Pisa: Edizioni Plus-Universitį di Pisa (2003): 223-232.

51

Björn Fritz, “Den korrekta dumheten om avbilden”, Res Publica 43 (1999): 106-118. http://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/o.o.i.s?id=12683&postid=1038120

52_{Björn Fritz, “Den korrekta dumheten om avbilden”, Res Publica 43 (1999): 108. (translation IA)}

http://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/o.o.i.s?id=12683&postid=1038120

53

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21 tions in question. I will also briefly discuss New Historicism, which has been an inspira-tion to the thesis.

“Discourse” and the different interpretations of the concept

A basic approach in the thesis is structuralism, with its focus on the internal structure of languages (De Saussure)54_{. Structural linguistics have described language as a system of} signs, and pointed to the arbitrary relation between form and content (“signifiant” and “signifié”). De Saussure detected two levels of language, “langue” and “parole”.

Whereas “langue” is seen as a fixed and stable entity, “parole” is language use in specif-ic situations.

The sharp distinction between the two levels was criticized by post-structuralists, who claimed the relation between the two levels to be more fluent, changeable and interdependent (if the use of “parole” changes, then also the structures of “langue” changes). Philosopher Michel Foucault has complemented the structural approach by the research on discursive formations. Foucault is described as one of the theoretical “godfathers” of CDA, by Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyers 55_{. The concept} “discourse” has proved to be a very useful concept, 56_{but interpreted differently by} dif-ferent scholars. Sometimes discourse is described as social action and interaction57_, sometimes it is described as a knowledge, something “well-known”. Linguist Norman Fairclough brings the two concepts together, but in his media text analyses often focuses on the linguistic aspects of texts.

In Discourse and social change he describes his understanding of the con-cept as: “a combination of this more social-theoretical sense of ´discourse´ with the ´text –and-interaction´ sense in linguistically-oriented discourse analysis”.58_Marianne Jör-gensen and Louise Phillips, social scientist, take the position of discourse as a

knowledge, or something taken-for-granted59_{, and they describe discourse analysis as} “often concerned with the unmasking of the taken-for-granted and, as such, it has the

54_{Ferdinand de Saussure, Cours de linguistique générale (Paris: Payot 1995).}

55_{Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer, Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis (London, Thousand Oaks,}

New Delhi, Singapore: SAGE 2009), 10.

56_{On Google scholar, one will find 12 000 matches on scientific work containing ´discourse´ in the title}

(Feb.6, 2013)

57_{Norman Fairclough, Media Discourse (London, New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2011), 18.} 58_{Norman Fairclough, Discourse and Social change (Cambridge, Malden: Polity Press 2012), 4.}

59_{Marianne W Jörgensen and Louise J Phillips, Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method (SAGE: 2002),}

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22 ambition of ´getting behind´ people´s everyday understandings”.60_{However, sometimes} they define the concept as a “language” without explaining if they mean spoken or writ-ten language or social acts in a more general sense. Researchers in the field of discur-sive psychology claims that discourse research should also consider categories such as emotions, attitudes and memory.

Scholars from other fields have widened the concept, for example Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, both political scientists, often spoken of as “post-Marxists”. Jörgensen & Phillips describe the view of Laclau and Mouffe´s discourse theory as fol-lows: “Laclau and Moffe´s discourse theory generalizes this position, seeing all reality as discursively constituted and, thus, making legitimate the use, in principle, of dis-course analytical tools to analyze all aspects of the world including the body and the material world”.61_{The idea that discourse research could cover entities such as feelings} and memories is interesting, but will be of very limited use when studying media texts. Jörgensen and Phillips point, however, to an important common feature of all different views on “discourse”: all understandings see “discourse” as constitutive of the social. They say: “All the approaches view discourse as (at least partly) constitutive of the social, but that the social is constitutive does not mean that it is not real”.62

For the purpose of analyzing printed texts it seems that the understanding of the concept “discourse” as it has been described and used by Fairclough, particularly in Media discourse63_{, can provide with the best tools, as a major part of the thesis will} focus on texts and the linguistic features, voices, genre and intertextuality. Fairclough is to a large extent engaged with written texts, which makes his findings relevant and in-fluential with regard to the research on discourse as it is elaborated and constructed in the press. He sees the texts as both constructive and constructed, which is, I believe, a fruitful starting point. Gestures and other semiotic systems can belong (and to some extent do) to his field of research, but to him, not all social practices are included in the concept discourse (which means that there are, according to Fairclough, also non-discursive practices).64

210.

177.

62_{Marianne W Jörgensen and Louise J Phllips, Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method (SAGE: 2002),}

178.

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23

A “critical” view and how the concept is understood

The interpretation of “critical” varies a lot among researchers. The historical roots of critical research are found in Marxism and the ideology critique within Marxism, with economy as the determining factor regarding societal activities. According to Jörgensen and Phillips, “power relations in society are accompanied by a hegemonic language that systematically masks reality”65_{. A critique towards this view is that it assumes the} cate-gory of “truth”, namely the researcher´s truth, opposed to the “false” image of reality that the researcher should reveal. But a researcher is also a product of a society and a discourse, and power relations are to be seen not only in a society “out there”, power relations can take place in the world of science as well.

Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyers point to the problem, when discussing power and the researcher: “This raises the question of how CDA researchers understand power and what moral standards allow them to differentiate between power use and abuse – a question which so far had to remain unanswered (Billig, 2008).” 66_Social constructivists have criticized ideology critique, especially as it was formulated in the 1970s by Marxist influenced researchers. In the critical discourse analysis proposed by Fairclough we find instead a “modified version” of ideology critique, according to Jör-gensen and Phillips. They say: “In this, we hear the echo of ideology critique: discourse analysis should reveal ideological representations and attempt to replace them with more adequate representations of reality”.67_{The “more adequate representations” are} still seen as in a sense more relevant, more true than the false representations the re-searcher studies.

Norman Fairclough´s own words in Media discourse seem a little more modest. He describes the roots of the element “critical” as belonging to “critical linguis-tics”, developed at the University of East Anglia by among others Fowler, Hodge and Kress. The “critical” part is described as: “Discourse is seen as ´a field of both ideologi-cal processes and linguistic processes, and… there is a determinate relation between these two kinds of process ´(Trew 1979) ; specifically, the linguistic choices that are

64_{Norman Fairclough, Discourse and Social Change (Cambridge, Malden: Polity Press 2012).}

179.

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24 made in texts can carry ideological meaning”.68_{In Discourse and Social change} Fair-clough describes critical linguistics and how it differs from other critical research meth-ods. Here, he points to the importance critical linguistics give to grammar and vocabu-lary: “Critical linguistics differs from other approaches in the attention it gives to the grammar and vocabulary of texts”.69_{Vocabulary, grammar, and also other features of} the text, for example what Fairclough calls “transformation” in texts (one example of this is passivization, the conversion of an active clause into a passive) may be “ideolog-ically significant”.70_{In critical linguistics, Fairclough says, focus is on the text as a} product, but less interest will be put on the processes of interpreting and producing texts. In Discourse and social change Fairclough calls for a social theory to complement the critical linguistic view. In this part, he describes the “struggle” between “social forc-es”: “What is envisaged is a discourse analysis focused upon variability, change and struggle: variability between practices and heterogeneity within them as a synchronic reflex of processes of historical change which are shaped by struggle between social forces”.71

In this calling for a “new theory” he puts attention to the social act of speaking or writing. Language is not “just text”. Both Fairclough and the linguist Lili Chouliara-ki, tend to see scientific knowledge as a contribution to debate, rather than an absolute truth, says Jörgensen and Phillips 72_{. Laclau and Mouffe claim that through} deconstruc-tion it is possible to show how discourses could have been formulated differently. They do not claim to hold an ideology-free “truth”, but they put forward the utopia of what they call “radical democracy”.73_{Jörgensen and Phillips argue, in line with Laclau´s and} Mouffe´s discourse theory, that it is possible to strive towards an ideology critique, alt-hough in a modified version compared to the earlier Marxist inspired schools.

Jörgensen and Phillips say: “But it is possible to have full freedom and equality as a horizon to strive towards and an attempt can be made to include more and more areas in the political debate about equality (Mouffe 1002: 378 f.)”74_.

68_{Norman Fairclough, Media Discourse (London, New York: Bloomsbury Academic 2011), 25.} 69_{Norman Fairclough, Discourse and Social Change (Cambridge, Malden: Polity Press, 2012), 27.} 70_{Norman Fairclough, Discourse and Social Change (Cambridge, Malden: Polity Press, 2012), 27.} 71_{Norman Fairclough, Discourse and Social Change (Cambridge, Malden: Polity Press, 2012), 36.} 72_{Marianne W Jörgensen and Louise J Phillips, Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method (London,}

Thousand Oaks, New Delhi, Singapore: SAGE 2002), 181.

73_{Marianne W Jörgensen and Louise J Phillips, Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method (London,}

Thousand Oaks, New Delhi, Singapore: SAGE 2002), 181.

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25 Wodak and Meyer see the critical as a direction towards critiquing and changing society (as a contrast to describe or understand it). Critical research should “be directed towards the totality of society”, and it should “improve the understanding of society by integrating all the major social sciences, including economics, sociology, history, politi-cal science, anthropology and psychology”. 75_{Wodak and Meyer point to the critical} project as focusing on the ideology of everyday beliefs, revealing power structures and ideology.76_{For other researchers, the representation itself, manifested as “knowledge”,} is not possible to reach. This latter position is represented by, among others, anthropol-ogist Steven Tyler. The researcher should produce “effects” in the world rather than to search for knowledge. Jörgensen and Phillips also mention anthropologist Bruno Latour, and Kenneth Gergen, social psychologist, as critical about the possibilities of reaching “knowledge”.

Kenneth Gergen´s findings might be of relevance for the studies of media texts. He points to one obvious but often forgotten feature of the critical: it is always dependent on that what it criticizes,77_{and this dependence means that criticism} reinforc-es the very same things that it criticizreinforc-es. The pattern of “pro” and “contra” is thus main-tained and strengthened. Gergen´s ideal is a more balanced debate where different un-derstandings and arguments are being discussed in a collective process, and that process forms “knowledge”. The conflicting point between the reasoning of Fairclough and the reasoning of Tyler, Latour and Gergen is their different views on the critical project.

From my point of view, it seems as if the latter researchers do not enough consider power relations – if all arguments and understandings will be equally good and valuable, there is no need for a “critical” research. However, I consider reflexive strate-gies, pointed to by philosopher and feminist researcher Sandra Harding and described by Jörgensen and Phillips, as a good way for the researcher to achieve some transparen-cy about the researcher´s own knowledge, or, put otherwise, version of a “truth”. Re-flexive strategies are also described by sociologist Thomas Johansson as a part of cul-tural studies78_{. Cultural studies have been an inspiration to the thesis, as mentioned,} es-pecially because of the reflections made by researchers on their own activities, and also

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26 by the focus that has been put on the cultures of minorities. However, given the task of analyzing media texts, texts that have been in the center of conflicts, it seems that the views of Norman Fairclough and to some extent Laclau, Mouffe, Ruth Wodak and Mi-chael Meyers will be best suited for the research, and thus their understanding of “criti-cal” will be adopted. The discourse constructed do in parts relate to or point out minori-ty groups in the societies where the media texts appeared. In practicing discourse analy-sis of the texts in question there is a risk that by criticizing for example the lack of par-ticipation in the debate by those groups, one might fall into the trap pointed out by Kenneth Gergen – that the researcher reinforces the views that she/he criticizes.

On the other hand, if all arguments are equally relevant, then there would be no need for the critical aspect that points to the unequal division of access to and possession of the possibilities to participate in the media discourse. It seems to me that the term suggested by Jörgensen and Phillips cover the aspects I want to focus on when they conclude that discourse analysis is concerned with “discursive struggle”79_{. Michel} Foucault – often more engaged with the production of knowledge in a more abstract sense – also focuses on the discursive struggle. The thesis will not focus on the recep-tion of texts or the producrecep-tion of texts, but they will be observed and if relevant, also mentioned. The statement on the production of discourses, made by Michel Foucault will be kept in mind while analyzing: “in every society the production of discourse is at once controlled, selected, organized and redistributed by a certain number of procedures whose role it is to ward off its powers and dangers, to gain mastery over its chance events, to evade its ponderous, formidable materiality”.80

Finally, the concept “mediatization” needs a clarification. There are many different un-derstandings of the concept. Stig Hjarvard´s definition of the concept is: “Mediatization is to be considered a double-sided process of high modernity in which the media on the one hand emerge as an independent institution with a logic of its own that other social institutions have to accommodate to. On the other hand, media simultaneously become an integrated part of other institutions like politics, work, family, and religion as more and more of tese institutional activities are performed through both interactive and mass media. The logic of the media refers to the institutional and technological modus

78_{Thomas Johansson, Ove Sernhede, Mats Trondman, Samtidskultur. Karaoke, karnevaler och kulturella}

koder (Nora: Nya Doxa, 1999), 9.

79_{Marianne W Jörgenssen and Louise J Phillips, Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method (London,}

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27 erandi of the media, including the ways in which media distribute material and symbolic resources ad mae use of formal and informal rules” 81_{. In my thesis, I will use the} con-cept in a more narrow way. I will define the concon-cept as a part of intertextuality, as an expression of how media representations will increasingly serve as a reference for how a conflict is discussed in society.

New Historicism – an inspiration

New Historicism is grounded in critical theory and was developed by Stephen Green-blatt in the 1980s. Here, cultures are seen as texts. Texts are embedded in a network of material and social acts. Conducting this kind of research demands an overview of his-tory and of literary texts, which makes New Historicism more suited for research on specific topics seen from some distance and with a wide scope. New Historicism, as it has been outlined by Stephen Greenblatt and Catherine Gallagher, focuses for example on asking questions about foreground and background (also studied to some extent in critical discourse analysis) or on the study of earlier unseen or not analyzed details of artistic or literary works (for example a detail in the altarpiece by Flemish painter Joos van Gent´s “Communion of the Apostles”, which is analyzed in Practicing New

Histor-icism82_{). Foregrounding takes place, says Greenblatt and Gallagher, “through no very} peaceful process”, and focus is put on the “tension between certain artifacts (including many of the works that have been regarded as canonical works of art) and their cul-tures”. 83

The out-look in New Historicism is broad: “We are trying, in other words, to deepen our sense of both the invisible cohesion and the half-realized conflicts in spe-cific cultures by broadening our view of their significant artifacts”.84_{New Historicism} asks the questions on how and why foregrounding has taken place.85_{Gallagher and} Greenblatt also points to the importance of quotation: the quotation is itself a story.86 Those insights will be taken into consideration in the thesis, as well as other findings

80_{Michel Foucault, “The Order of Discourse”, in Robert Yong, ed., Untying the text: A Post-Structuralist}

Reader (Boston, London and Henley: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981), 13.

81_{Stig Hjarvard, “The Mediatization of Society. A Theory of the Media as Agents of Social and Cultural}

Change”, Nordicom Review 29, no 2 (2008): 105.

82_{Catherine Gallagher and Stephen Greenblatt, Practicing New Historicism (Chicago, London: University}

of Chicago Press, 2000).

of Chicago Press, 2000), 16.

of Chicago Press 2000), 13-14.

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28 such as the “thickness” of texts - they claim some texts to be “thicker” than others, that is, they are more “embedded in the cultures from which they come” 87_{. Gallagher and} Greenblatts pointing to the instability of literariness is also of importance when studying media texts. Media texts are usually not considered being literary texts, but they are textual traces that can or could be, of some “thickness”, to my point of view, as they are texts involved in a dialogue with other texts. Gallagher and Greenblatt says about the broadening of the field of research that results from the consideration of whole cultures as texts that “canonical works of art are brought into relation not only with works judged as minor, but also with texts that are not by anyone´s standard literary”.88

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29

Chapter 3. Method and data

3.1. Method

As mentioned in the introduction, critical discourse analysis will be used to analyze me-dia texts from the chosen data. This methodological approach will be complemented by a quantitative method, describing numbers of articles per month and in total, and, in some few examples, by a content analysis.

Critical discourse analysis, CDA, as it has been elaborated by linguist Norman Fairclough, will be used, but other scholars will contribute, for example Ruth Wodad, and at times there will be references to her understanding of the method.89 Ref-erences will also be made to Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method90_{by Marianne} Jörgensen and Louise Phillips.

To complement the methodological framework of CDA a quantitative re-search method has been used. “Quantitative” will, in this case, refer to a counting of number of articles on the topics treated, as well as to the counting of numbers of articles per month in each newspaper studied. At times the quantitative method will comple-mented by a content analysis, used to investigate quantitative aspects of linguistic regu-larities/irregularities (for example regarding vocabulary). The quantitative and the quali-tative methods are used to give support to arguments elaborated in the critical discourse analysis, regarding the mentioned regularities/irregularities, and regarding the possible chain reactions in the press (described by Norman Fairclough as part of the order of media discourse, see below). As one of my intentions is to find out how configurations of discourses are constructed, it has been important to examine how, when and to which extent key-words have been used within the whole corpus of texts. Further, as one of the

New Delhi, Singapore: SAGE 2009).

90_{Marianne Jörgensen and Louise Phillips, Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method (London, Thousand}

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30 elements in critical discourse analysis looks at the context in which the social act of text appears, it has been important to study the context as carefully as possible, and for this purpose the approach of quantitative and qualitative research have been found relevant.

Critical discourse analysis of chosen samples of the data collected

In the concluding chapter of Media Discourse Norman Fairclough gives a useful and short description of how the method can be used to analyze media texts. The method described is best suited for analyzing short texts/ talks/sequences from television or ra-dio, as it demands a careful study of the chosen text from a variety of aspects. Not all of the aspects pointed to by Norman Fairclough will at the end prove to be fruitful for eve-ry text.

I will comment on and discuss some aspects that I consider to be relevant when analyzing the data chosen for the thesis. Norman Fairclough distinguishes three main categories when conducting CDA: analysis of texts (spoken or written), analysis of discourse practices, and discourse practices as sociocultural practices. In Media

dis-course91_{he also suggests the category of media discourse. I will comment on these} cate-gories and also at some points compare them with methodology described by other scholars.

Design of the text – analysis of spoken or written texts

Norman Fairclough distinguishes three inter-related sets of questions regarding the de-sign of the text. The first sets of questions aims to elaborate the concept of intertextuali-ty. In the case of media texts, I consider intertextuality to be of a special interest. Nor-man Fairclough suggests the researcher to look at what genres, voices and discourses a text draws upon, the use of direct and indirect speech, narrative analysis, generic struc-ture, conjunctions and collocations.

In the summary sections 92_{at the end of Media discourse he does not} comment on intertextuality as a communication between media texts. However, he does mention it earlier in the book, concluding that earlier texts in a chain might be embed-ded in later produced texts, and, as a consequence, is part of the intertextuality: “But the intertextual analysis of a text is also concerned with embedding – with how the trans-formations which texts undergo in shifting along chains leave traces in embedding

When Art Becomes Explosive