Titley, Gavan
(2019)
Taboo news about Sweden: the transnational assemblage of a racialized spatial imaginary.
International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 39 (11/12).
pp. 1010-1023.
ISSN 0144-333X
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the construction of Sweden as a racialised spatial
imaginary in the emerging transnational networks of far-right media production. Departing from President
Donald Trump’s widely reported remarks, in 2017, as to “what happened last night in Sweden”, it examines
the racializing discourses through which Sweden is constructed as a dark future to be averted; a failed social
experiment in immigration and multiculturalism symbolised by the “no-go zones” held to be dotted, yet
denied, in its major cities. While the symbolic production of “problem areas” is a familiar dimension of the
politics of immigration, the paper explores why Sweden-as-nation is so insistently and intimately associated
with its putative no-go zones in what are termed the “revenge fantasies” of the far-right. Further, it argues
that these modes of representation cannot be understood without examining the value of Sweden as a news
commodity in the expansive far-right media environment.
Design/methodology/approach – The analysis offers the idea of “taboo news” to conceptualise putatively
“alternative” news about Sweden which is confirmed through its denial in the mainstream.
Findings – It argues that examining the increasing importance of “taboo news” as a commodity form must
be integrated into a reading of how these racializing narratives are produced and circulated.
Originality/value – In so doing, it examines the shaping of this racialised imaginary as a digital assemblage
taking shape as a commodity in a newly emerging and under-researched field of communicative and
ideological action.
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