Transnational Othering – Global Diversities Media, Extremism and Free Expression
Author: Elisabeth Eide Kristin Skare Orgeret Nil Mutluer
Publisher: Nordicom, Sweden
21 journalists and academics from 9 different countries have contributed to an anthology on freedom of expression, globalisation, extremism, minorities, and inequality in the world today, edited by Elisabeth Eide, Kristin Skare Orgeret, and Nil Mutluer.
Initially, the editors point out that many common perceptions about these topics do not correspond to current reality. For example, they mention that Ghana, according to Reporters Without Borders, has a higher degree of freedom of expression than France and Burkina Faso has more than the United States. Correcting myths is good.
The book is the result of contributions made at three conferences covering topics ranging from freedom of expression and working conditions for journalists in countries characterized by terrorism and/or strong political control of the media, recruitment of IS sympathizers to rapid growth in internet use in countries with a lot of propaganda and little source criticism. In other words, the topics are quite varied, and so is the book.
It could not have been easy to select and gather the contributions that would be included in the anthology. I miss a clearer thread between the various chapters. But I also miss a clearer problem statement in most of the chapters. It may seem as if many of the authors wanted to say «everything» about the internet and other media, (lack of) freedom of expression, politics, resistance… and much else about their country and work when they had the opportunity.
Some of the chapters were undoubtedly more interesting as conference contributions than as book chapters; for example, it is difficult to write a discourse analysis of how IS actively uses YouTube in connection with kidnappings when you cannot see the clips. I can imagine that the breaks during the conferences were both interesting and rewarding when so many journalists and academics interested in freedom of expression, social media, and propaganda were gathered over several days, and the topics discussed were high on the international agenda.
Freedom of expression
We have already read a lot about both the Mohammed caricature drawings in Jyllandsposten and the attack on the French satire newspaper Charlie Hebdo, so some chapters bring little new. It was undoubtedly also much more interesting to hear about the Muslim mob that set fire to twelve Buddhist temples in Bangladesh in 2012, right after it happened, than it is to read about it again in the book without any new angles or information.
Many of the chapters still seem very interesting initially: How does the spread of smartphones and access to cheaper internet affect freedom of expression in Bangladesh? How is the internet used to recruit participants to extremist environments?
For example, the start of Ade Armando’s chapter looks very promising: Fourteen internet activists organized in the Indonesian Muslim Cyber Army (MCA), whose goal is to defend and strengthen Islam, were arrested for violating the country’s electronic information law. The law prohibits the spread of hatred, blasphemy, and false information. Exciting, I think, and look forward to reading more about this while sitting in Chad’s capital Ndjamena and hearing on the news that a radio station has been closed for three months for spreading falsehoods, and that a newspaper journalist was visited by military intelligence and threatened to quit. But unfortunately, after the initial teaser, the cyber army disappears completely, and the rest of the twenty-page chapter is a portrayal of the political development in Indonesia written in moderate English.
How is the internet used to recruit participants to extremist environments?
News about terrorism
Mohamed Baltis’ contribution is also promising; based on his own experiences as a journalist in Tunisia, he problematises how to report on news about terrorism without indirectly supporting the terrorists’ agenda. He discusses the difficulty of distinguishing rumours from facts, the journalist’s dependence on those who can guarantee their safety, and the problematic time constraints for delivering news that often should have been double-checked. These are exciting issues that unfortunately are not followed up with particularly good analyses or answers.
Perhaps my lack of familiarity with Bangladesh and Indonesia, which several of the chapters are about, makes me feel that some chapters are either too detailed or too standardised. But it is also possible that this is because the texts do not relate to a single issue that is pursued.
Editor Orgeret is one exception in this regard. She has limited herself to interviewing five journalists who have had to flee their home countries to Scandinavia and who have read what they themselves have written. She uses this material to discuss the journalists’ change in status to refugees – «as an asylum seeker, I did not feel like a journalist, but like a criminal» – and the challenges of establishing oneself as a journalist in a country one does not know.
At the same time, she emphasizes the importance of getting an outside perspective on ourselves based on the Danish newspaper Information’s special edition of October 9, 2015. This edition was written exclusively by journalists with a refugee background. If everyone had managed to have such a clear and uniform impact in their chapters as Orgeret, the book would have been much better.
In line with the intentions of global knowledge sharing and more equitable distribution of goods, the book is made freely available to everyone and can be downloaded in PDF format by chapter.
