Several studies conducted in Western democracies have indicated that men continue to be overrepresented and women underrepresented as experts in the media. This article explores the situation in Finland, a progressive and ‘female-friendly’ Nordic country with highly educated women who are widely present in the job market. The analysis is based on three sets of research data featuring a wide set of media data, a survey and interviews. This study reveals that public expertise continues to be male dominated in Finland: less than 30% of the experts interviewed in the news media are women. While the distribution of work and power in the labour market may explain some of the observed gender gap, journalistic practices and a masculine tradition of public expertise are likely to play a role as well.

This article provides an analysis and typology of the discursive strategies nationalist-populist anti-immigration parties use when responding to racism accusations in mainstream news. The typology is based on a three-party comparative analysis of statements given in national public service media by the representatives of three electorally successful Northwestern European populist parties-the UK Independence Party, the Finns Party and the Sweden Democrats. When responding to racism accusations, populist parties use both submissive and confrontational sets of discursive strategies in varying combinations to communicate an ambivalent attitude towards racism. This ambivalence is communicated both on the level of an individual speaker utilizing several strategies and on the level of multiple speakers communicating contradictory messages. The comparative analysis suggests that country-specific contexts, and the statuses of both the persons under accusation and the responders giving statements, affect to what extent responses to racism accusations tend to be confrontational.

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In this study, we examine the choice of interviewees and discussion topics made by Finland’s national broadcasting company YLE during the so-called “asylum-seeker crisis” of 2015 and 2016. The rapid increase in asylum-seekers, combined with deepening political tensions regarding the situation and the entry of a populist anti-immigration party into government, created a challenging environment for the media. This was especially true for YLE, which is committed to political neutrality and cultural diversity. Our data shows that the “crisis” was framed as a crisis hitting Finland and European decision-making rather than as a humanitarian crisis. Despite long-term academic criticism of bias in expert interviewee selection (e.g. the underrepresentation of minority and female interviewees), the media continued to use traditional sources of knowledge. However, in a novel approach for Finland, the media engaged the large-scale involvement of politicians, and especially representatives of the populist Finns Party.

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