'Alexei Navalny' as a floating signifier: Domesticating Navalny in Finnish, German and Russian news reporting
Ala-Koivula, Oona (2022)
2022
Master's Programme in Global Society
Yhteiskuntatieteiden tiedekunta - Faculty of Social Sciences
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2022-08-18
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202208056253
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202208056253
Tiivistelmä
Due to modern information technology, news topics easily circulate around the world. However, they tend to turn into very different news stories when being made relevant to local audiences. In this study, this process called domestication is analyzed through the news coverage of Alexei Navalny. My aim is to study if and how ‘Alexei Navalny’ as a discursive person reference serves as a floating signifier that is characterized by highly different processes of normative local meaning-making. Drawing from neoinstitutionalist framework, these processes are examined through the analytical approach of epistemic governance, according to which power and governance operate through rhetorical means of influencing people’s conceptions of reality.
My empirical data consists of Finnish, German and Russian news articles on Alexei Navalny that were published in early February 2021. Applying the research method of membership categorization analysis, I analyzed how news stories on Alexei Navalny are constructed by invoking different actor categories. More specifically, I focused on the perspective of moral casting, in other words how the invoked actor categories are put into moral relations with each other.
I identified two different moral storylines, both of which operate through the morally charged categories of ‘victim’ and ‘aggressor’. In the Finnish and German news coverage, members of Russian civil society, including Navalny and his supporters, are represented as victims of the repressive Russian state. In the Russian news coverage, in turn, Russia and its loyal citizens are represented as being under threat of foreign interference and criminal behavior represented by Navalny, his supporters and the West. In addition, the analyzed news reporting strongly represents “us” as defenders of the victims, strictly condemning the actions of aggressors. In this way, my findings are in line with earlier research arguing that normative news coverage tends to attach positive qualities to “us” and negative qualities to “them”.
The identified storylines indicate that ‘Alexei Navalny’ has become a floating signifier that discursively mediates the political struggle between Russia and the West. Since person references have not been approached as floating signifiers prior to my study, I have outlined a novel approach to the study of moral order in transnational political meaning-making. After all, different political figures and actors play the major role in our understanding of different political processes.
My empirical data consists of Finnish, German and Russian news articles on Alexei Navalny that were published in early February 2021. Applying the research method of membership categorization analysis, I analyzed how news stories on Alexei Navalny are constructed by invoking different actor categories. More specifically, I focused on the perspective of moral casting, in other words how the invoked actor categories are put into moral relations with each other.
I identified two different moral storylines, both of which operate through the morally charged categories of ‘victim’ and ‘aggressor’. In the Finnish and German news coverage, members of Russian civil society, including Navalny and his supporters, are represented as victims of the repressive Russian state. In the Russian news coverage, in turn, Russia and its loyal citizens are represented as being under threat of foreign interference and criminal behavior represented by Navalny, his supporters and the West. In addition, the analyzed news reporting strongly represents “us” as defenders of the victims, strictly condemning the actions of aggressors. In this way, my findings are in line with earlier research arguing that normative news coverage tends to attach positive qualities to “us” and negative qualities to “them”.
The identified storylines indicate that ‘Alexei Navalny’ has become a floating signifier that discursively mediates the political struggle between Russia and the West. Since person references have not been approached as floating signifiers prior to my study, I have outlined a novel approach to the study of moral order in transnational political meaning-making. After all, different political figures and actors play the major role in our understanding of different political processes.