Remediation in the hybrid media environment: Understanding countermedia in context

Abstract

We examine the position of five online-only ‘countermedia’ publications often publicly labelled as ‘fake media’ and use them to indicate how the ‘post-truth era’ takes place. Both academic and public discussions perceive countermedia as separate and distinct from the established, professionally produced journalist media outlets. We argue that the studied outlets are an integral part of the hybrid media environment. Our data show countermedia mainly remediate content initially published by professional Finnish media. We also suggest that media references are used strategically to explicate a relationship with mainstream media, as there are different ways of remediating the mainstream media content. This evidence contributes to the growing body of work criticising the usage of the ‘fake media’ concept and attempts to create a more nuanced understanding of countermedia’s role in its contexts. Furthermore, we suggest remediation as a lens may help scholars understand the integrated hybrid media environment.

Remixing News: Appropriation and Authorship in Finnish Counter-Media

“…There was some variation between the two samples, as MV-lehti had a more proven standing in the fringe media ecosystem in 2017 than in 2015. This can be seen in the number of published articles but also in more news-like stories, which, for instance, circulate information from police press releases and report on radical right-wing demonstrations (see also Toivanen et al, 2021).…”

“…These non-mainstream websites have sometimes been clumsily categorised as fake news, which has prompted scholars to generate more appropriate formulations. In recent years, these websites have been further defined as counter-media (see Hopp et al, 2020;Toivanen et al, 2021;Ylä-Anttila et al, 2019), alternative media (see Holt, 2018;Nygaard, 2020;Schulze, 2020;) and hyperpartisan media (see Heft et al, 2020;Rae, 2021). These definitions work as distinctions, not only to fake news or legacy media, but also to more traditional partisan media (Levendusky, 2013) and populist media (Norocel et al, 2020).…”

“…Third, counter-media are dependent on legacy media, not only as opponents or targets of criticism but also as sources of material. There have been various scholarly definitions of this use of media material, as it has been labelled as remediation (Toivanen et al, 2021), recontextualisation and reframing (Ekman, 2019, p. 552;Haanshuus & Ihlebaek, 2021), or produsage of reinformation (Pyrhönen & Bauvois, 2020). Antagonistic actors use legacy media material on their websites, social media, and open media platforms.…”

Fortifying boundaries

“…In mainstream discussions certain non-mainstream websites have also been clumsily categorized as fake news, prompting scholars to generate more appropriate formulations to capture variant actors, whose content is not all fake, as in "made up" (Ylä-Anttila et al, 2019). In contesting this narrative, these websites have been further defined as countermedia (see Toivanen et al, 2021;Hopp et al, 2020;Ylä-Anttila et al, 2019), alternative media (see Nygaard, 2020;Schulze, 2020;Holt, 2018), and hyperpartisan media (see Rae, 2020;Heft et al, 2020). These definitions also work as distinctions to more traditional partisan media (Levendusky, 2013) and populist media (Norocel et al, 2020).…”

“…The content on Finnish legacy media and MV-lehti offers an interesting juxtaposition, as the extant literature suggests that these actors are in many ways incompatible yet intertwined. For instance, Toivanen et al (2021) have noted how MV-lehti interacts with the legacy media through remediation of content. In addition, it is well documented how journalists default to defensive positions and retreat to their enduring values in the face of outside or institutional threats to journalism (see Carlson, 2015;Lewis, 2012;Deuze, 2005).…”