Being political in the media : Political identities in journalistic and Twitter discourse

This thesis is about the role of media discourse in shaping the political identities of those who\nwant to be heard in public. The ways in which people are able to speak, know, and feel in\npolitical situations have important implications for how we conceive of the possibilities to be\nengaged in contemporary democracy. This thesis offer four empirical studies of how political\nidentities are constructed through journalism and social networking services in cases in which\npeople have decided to make their voices heard. Identities constructed through mediated\nparticipation have important implications for how we understand the possibilities to act\npolitically in public, a public that that is characterized as having a multifarious media ecology.\nMethodologically as well as theoretically it is bound together by a discursive approach to\npolitical identities, which means that it is at the discursive level of mediation that identities\nare analysed as a means to open up for discussions about the limits and constraints of what it\nmeans to be political today, what kind and now the media facilitate political engagement.\nEmpirically it analyses print and radio journalism as well as emotional tweets and Twitter\nprofiles to map out ways in which political identities are constructed in activist participation\nin and through the media. The four different studies contribute to discussions around what it is\nto be knowledgeable, emotional, subjective and able when you are communicating politics in\nmedia discourse.\nOne of the main contribution is that political identities in the media are precarious and that\nresearch need to be careful about making too simplistic assumptions about those who make\ntheir voices heard in public or what they need to become in undertaking this, and there is a\nnecessary precarious quality to becoming or emerging political in the media, which poses\nimportant challenges for social scientific studies that wishes to understand what and who\nthose who act politically through the media.