Keiden tasa-arvo tai yhdenvertaisuus?: Yhteiskunnallisen oikeudenmukaisuuden kielet uutisjournalismissa 1999–2018

Abstract

Equality and non-discrimination are core concepts<br/>in the Finnish political vocabulary. The concept of<br/>equality has a long history, whereas non-discrimination<br/>only began to gain prominence in Finnish political<br/>debate on social justice after the constitutional reform<br/>of 2000 and the Non-Discrimination Act of 2004.<br/>In this article we use journalistic datasets from 1999<br/>to 2018 to analyse how the concepts of equality and<br/>non-discrimination appeared in Finnish news media<br/>before and after the Non-Discrimination Act. We<br/>also operationalise the political vision embedded in<br/>the concepts of equality and non-discrimination as a<br/>question of representation and voice-giving: Whose<br/>political language are these concepts, and has the<br/>conceptual framing of non-discrimination expanded<br/>opportunities for representation and voice-giving<br/>and influenced the political agenda? To what extent<br/>were equality and non-discrimination talked about in<br/>public? How did this change with the development of<br/>legislation?<br/>We show that the Non-Discrimination Act did not<br/>bring a marked increase in the use of the concept of<br/>non-discrimination. However, after 2010 the use of<br/>both equality and non-discrimination increased in all<br/>our data sources. The rise in frequency was seen first<br/>in op-ed and opinion texts, followed by interpretative<br/>journalism and core news reporting. With the exception<br/>of legal experts, most language users in our data did not<br/>make a strong differentiation between the two terms<br/>but used them interchangeably. According to our data,<br/>the language of non-discrimination has paved the way<br/>for new groups and themes: in the 2010s both asylum<br/>seekers and sexual and gender minorities have gained<br/>increased coverage. A related and aligned phenomenon<br/>is that NGOs have emerged as relevant participants in<br/>the public debate. Our data shows that the language<br/>of non-discrimination has expanded the agendas of<br/>both politics and public debate and made way for new<br/>themes and voices. In this way, it has fostered both<br/>representation and voice-giving.<br/>Keywords: journalism, computational methods,<br/>non-discrimination, equality, political discourse.