Challenging Journalistic Authority in the Networked Affective Dynamics of #Chemnitz

Journalism as an institution is increasingly under pressure in hybrid media systems. Various far-right actors use social media platforms as a key staging ground for contesting legacy media. Drawing on affect theory and discursive institutionalism, this article empirically examines how journalistic authority was challenged on Twitter during far-right riots in the German city of Chemnitz in 2018. Through these public and networked contestations, we see the emergence of “affective publics” that form around shared and competing emotions. Through social network analysis, we examine the networked polarization around #Chemnitz. By applying in-depth textual analysis, we then untangle how far-right actors attack legacy media by strategically mobilizing and performing outrage. Based on our findings, we propose to understand journalism as an affective institution, whose authority is perpetually contested as affective publics gain agency. Such an understanding involves a profound questioning of the notion of objectivity that has been constitutive of journalism in the 20th century

United in Grief? Emotional Communities Around the Far‐Right Terrorist Attack in Hanau

Drawing on theories of affect, emotion, and new institutionalism, we analyze discourse around the right-wing terrorist attack in Hanau, Germany, to identify the different ways in which emotions and affect circulate on legacy media and Twitter and how they help establish varying emotional communities. Building upon an understanding of journalism as an affective institution, our article takes a close look at how journalism attempts to assert its role in public spheres not only by circulating information but also by providing emotional interpretations of events. Journalism’s emotional interpretations, however, do not remain unchallenged. With the emergence of the hybrid media system, users engage in various forms of interaction on social media platforms, forming “affective publics” by connecting through their affective reactions to current issues and events. In these interactions, distinct emotional communities may emerge, built around performative, political emotions. Our data comprises various news shows aired on the German public service broadcaster ARD as well as a dataset of tweets about #Hanau that were collected in the immediate aftermath of the attack. The results of our mixed-methods analysis reveal that different performances of grief played a central role both on TV news and on social media. On TV, grief was nationally connotated and aimed at uniting Germany’s population. On social media, it fueled anti-racist activism, as seen on the hashtag #SayTheirNames, honoring the victims of the attack