Demokratiets vagthund eller magthavernes skødehund? En kritisk diskursanalyse af mediernes italesættelse af etniske minoriteter under covid-19

This paper examines the relationship between the media's representation of ethnic minorities during the covid-19 pandemic and nationalist tendencies in Danish politics. This is examined by analyzing how ethnic minorities are represented in Danish media coverage of increasing corona infection in the housing area Vollsmose, located in Odense, Denmark. Taking Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis approach combined with Høilund’s theory of The Right of Fear and Hallin’s theory of Spheres of the Journalistic World, this qualitative study analyzes 113 articles from eight Danish newspapers through thematic coding. The critical discourse analysis is structured according to Fairclough’s three-dimensional model, which divides the analysis into text, discursive practice and social practice. The analysis finds that the media draws on a nationalist discourse that is based on a concept of exclusion and divides the Danish society into “us” and “them”. The paper concludes that a nationalist discourse has gained hegemony in the media as well as the social and political structures of society. The media's representations of ethnic minorities during the covid-19 pandemic reproduces the same discourses as powerful political actors, thus contributing to the establishment of a nationalist discourse as a hegemonic discourse and strengthening nationalist political tendencies through fear of the covid-19 pandemic. Finally, the paper concludes that the media abandons the journalistic ideal of objectivity and critique by reproducing the same nationalist discourse as powerful political actors instead of challenging the attitudes, norms and values of prominent politicians. Thus, the media contributes to the creation and maintenance of unequal power relations, in which ethnic minorities are kept in a marginalized position.