In recent years, the oppressive political and legal climate in many countries has forced independent journalists and media actors into exile. Syria, Belarus, Afghanistan, Russia are recent examples of a long list of countries, from were journalists are expelled en masse. Being displaced, many of them strive to continue their operations in exile in other countries and have to adapt to a completely foreign regulatory environment and an unstable political context. Exilic journalists face professional and personal crisis and have to reconsider own professional identity crisis, adapt to precarious nature of the labour, and survive within financial insustainability. Online talk in September combines three research projects on exiled journalism from Syria and Russia to discuss challenges and resilience of the displaced media and find approaches to scholarship on exiled journalism as worldwide phenomenon.
Yazan Badran from Vrije Universiteit Brussel will present his research “Precarious newsroom: Dynamics of precarity and agency in Syrian exiled media in Turkey” where he addresses precarisation of journalistic work of media practitioners, whose professional and personal lifeworlds are underpinned by multiple layers of precarity. Jenny Wiik and Elena Johansson from Gothenburg University will talk on “Russian journalists in exile: rethinking of professional identity” where they ask how exile affects the professional identity of Russian journalists, and how they navigate the challenges associated with upholding their journalistic values and credibility. Finally, Katja Lehtisaari from Tampere University will share the tentative results of her interviews with donor organisations to explore “Resilient model(s) for independent media in exile” in order to understand the impact of financing model on journalistic autonomy and the agenda-setting of the exilic media outlets.
Online talk will be organized in Zoom September, 12 from 12:00 to 13:30 (Helsinki time). If you want to participate and get emails about the next online talks, please leave your contact information here until September, 11 noon: registration form. If you registered for Online talks or RMLN email list before, no need to register again, you will get the information.
In November, Roman Horbyk from Örebro University in Sweden will present his research “Towards the Mobile Phone Doctrine(s): Hybridization of Civilian and Military Uses of Mobile Communication in the Russo-Ukrainian War”. In this talk Horbyk will present the final results of a two-year research project on the major trends highlighting how a mobile phone—an ordinary civilian device—has become weaponized and turned into a hybrid tool that integrates a number of peaceful and combat functions.