Activist journalism in moderation
When journalists are celebrated for ascribing rhetorical agency to social movements
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52610/rhs.v27i86.304Keywords:
activism, journalism, rhetorical agency, women's liberation movment, climate movementAbstract
In advocacy journalism, journalists actively work to promote a specific political or social cause. The practice is controversial because it is seemingly at odds with the journalistic objectivity norm. This article focuses on two examples where Danish journalists nonetheless have achieved recognition from their peers for ascribing rhetorical agency to social movements. The first example is Erik Thygesen’s mobilization of the Danish women’s liberation movement in the 1970s; the second is Jørgen Steen Nielsen’s defense of the young climate movement in the 2010s. The article illustrates how journalists may successfully balance between journalism and activism and ascribe agency to social movements without compromising their own privileged capacity to act as journalists. While Thygesen and Nielsen keep
a critical distance to the social movements they cover, they
nonetheless promote the movements’ causes by establishing
possible communicative relationships among people who have
either little knowledge or little understanding of each other.
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