11. The Role of the Media
11.3 Contact with the Media
Three of the five focus group participants had experienced being sources for journalists in the Danish media. One summed up his experiences as follows:
They like to call, when things happen. They don’t want to speak to us when we have something to say … When there’s a new terror case, an axe murderer carrying around an axe, the pirates—when a new ship has been hijacked, I’ll tell you, they’ll be ringing incessantly. But then, if we have an event for which we’d like journalists to come, it can be difficult to get the message through, I think … we really try to stay friendly with them.378
The consequences of this continuously negative portrayal of Danish-Somalis were emphasised in the interviews as a huge challenge for Danish-Somali civil society activists, especially among the young Danish-Somalis who try to actively change the discourse and see themselves as agents of a two-way process of integration:
376 M1, Media focus group, 26 May 2013.
377 M5, Media focus group, 26 May 2013.
378 M1, Media focus group, 26 May 2013.
For every story published, for all the negative attention, then the bridge is ruined, or we go back several years, we start over. Then once again we need to defend, why did a Somali choose to do as he did and that it’s not all Somalis who are like that.379
Well it is understandable that of course they want to sell, the newspapers they want to sell copies … It just means that they might generalise about a group which is already weak and fragile, which is unable to defend itself. Then they’re pigeonholed; it ruins the work we do as civil society work, and then you’re left frustrated.380
11.3.1 Consequences
The Danish-Somali community’s comments in the media are often distorted, according to the focus group participants. This is not only a problem of the ongoing negative social construction of Somalis, but also often a problem for Danish-Somali activists who engage with the media. If their comments are twisted or misused this can cause problems in the Danish-Somali community:
If you give a statement, your words will be twisted … So then there’ll be a conflict between you and your community, and you need to shut your mouth or try to explain that this does exist, that this is also an issue. This is the dilemma we deal with as volunteers or as active participants in the public debate.381
This denunciation of Danish-Somalis who speak out in the media was also reflected by one of the participants in the focus group:
Media determines a lot as it manipulates people. If there were Somali who could speak for the Somalis it was great. The problem is that Somalis who reach that position change character and do not keep their promises. Every day there are problems written and shown by the media [that are] negative about the Somalis.
Somali politicians never come and react. The older generations have done nothing. If the media talks negative about Somalia, a white man comes and defends the Somalis, that is not good. If we had Somali spokespeople and politicians the situation would have been much different.382
The focus group agreed that the usual reaction among Danish-Somalis to the negative stereotyping was to stay out of reach of the media:
They might get a negative impression from the media and think, no, now there’s a Somali in the picture again … There are many who stay away from, if a
379 M1, Media focus group, 26 May 2013.
380 M3, Media focus group, 26 May 2013.
381 M3, Media focus group, 26 May 2013.
382 C3 Civic and political participation focus group, 19 March 2013.
journalist rings up associations or something similar they’ll say, we don’t want to talk, because it will be on the front page. This is why they stay back, when it comes to the media.383
We said [in an association meeting] after that thing with the axe murderer, the terrorist bombs, then we said, from now on we won’t give statements to the media, because we have lost some of our members, there is some trust which has been lost there, therefore we can no longer give statements. We just focus, we use our energy to mobilise people and do something to include them in society, I can’t spend time meeting journalists, because what do I get out of it if in the end, it doesn’t benefit the people it was supposed to.384
In the focus group with young women, one of the participants explained the effect of talk by media and politicians:
When I’m with my friends I don’t feel that there’s any difference between us, but as soon as the media says, Danes and Somalis, that’s when we feel that there is a very large difference, even though we have lived here and feel a part of the country but we still feel that we are pushed aside, also for being Somalis.385
Another participant in the same focus group suggested that young Somalis have to counter the image in the media that all Somalis are criminal and uneducated:
The most important thing is, that us Somalis in Denmark or in England, we need to come together and try to show especially to the young, that actually we can be an example to you and you can be an example to those even younger, that this way … you don’t have to do as the media tells you to do, to be involved in crime, to be on social benefits, you can actually get an education, you can go far.386
Not only does the negative media portrayal influence the Danish-Somalis and the ethnic majority, it also influences the image of Somalis among other ethnic-minority groups. One city official with an ethnic-minority background, in discussion with an ethnic-majority interviewer, formulated the link between media constructs and the Somali position as marginalised both in relation to the ethnic majority and other ethnic minorities:
That they need to struggle with you, but now they also have to struggle with us, because we see them as being, not inferior, but we share the same frustrations, because they are so visible publicly. And of course the media plays a large part, but then they always have done. … And then there has been some radical cases
383 M4, Media focus group, 26 May 2013.
384 M3, Media focus group, 26 May 2013.
385 YW1, Young women focus group, 23 March 2013.
386 YW2, Young women focus group, 23 March 2013.
related to Somalia, and everything is trudged up on to the front pages, well that does mean that the general attitude in society as a whole becomes anti-Somali.
The connotations surrounding Somalis, then I think well this, this, this, you know? 25 wives, female circumcision, this and that. And naturally, this is the same thing again, these are the same frustrations which I also remember from my own childhood and that today we see in different contexts. The sad part then is, that even those of us who have been through these things are unable to recognise that these are the same difficulties which the Somalis also face.387