Je suis Charlie – The symbolic battle and struggle over attention

In January 2015 a terror attack to the headquarters of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical weekly magazine in Paris, activated a symbolic battle and a struggle over attention in the transnational media. The symbolic battle was fought over the values of the freedom of expression and religious sensitivity. This project examines how this event was created, experienced and circulated in a multiple media platforms, and how it united and/or polarized different kinds of imagined communities emerging around those symbolic battles. The project applies theoretical framework of a disruptive media event and combines digital ethnography and social network analysis for collecting and analyzing the events in the media.
This two year project (2015–2017) is funded by the Helsingin Sanomat Foundation.

Charlie Hebdo 2015 – ‘Liveness’ and acceleration of conflict in a hybrid, violent media event:
Poster presented in the International Communication Associationin Conference (ICA) 2017.

The project team:
Research director Katja Valaskivi (University of Tampere)
Principal investigator Johanna Sumiala (University of Tampere)
Researcher Minttu Tikka (University of Tampere)
Researcher Jukka Huhtamäki (Tampere University of Technology)

Publicatons:

Sumiala, Johanna, Tikka, Minttu & Valaskivi, Katja (2018) Digital Witnessing and the Mediation of an Ideal Victim: The Death of Ahmed Merabet in the Charlie Hebdo Attacks 2015. In J. Postill, P. Budka & B. Bräcuhler (eds.) Theorizing Media and Conflict (Media Anthropology Series). London & New York: Berghahn Publishers (forthcoming)

Sumiala, Johanna, Tikka, Minttu & Valaskivi, Katja (2018) Charlie Hebdo, 2015. ’Liveness’ and Acceleration of Conflict in a Hybrid Media Event. Media, War and Conflict. Special issue New and Old temporalities of (Media)Events, K. Niemeyer & S. Ericson (eds.) (forthcoming)

Sumiala, Johanna (2018) Digital Rituals and the Quest for Existential Security. In Digital Existence, Amanda Lagerkvist (ed.) London: Routledge. (in press)

Sumiala, Johanna & Valaskivi, Katja (2017) Circulation of Imaginaries of Violence in Hybrid Media Events. Television and New Media 19(2), 128-135. Article first published online: December 6, 2017; Issue published: February 1, 2018 https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476417747653

Sumiala, Johanna (2017) Charlie Hebdo and the Politics of Space Exploring Digital Media as a Landscape for Ritualisation of Death. Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics. 11(1): 111-126. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/jef-2017-0007

Sumiala, Johanna, Tikka, Minttu, Huhtamäki, Jukka & Valaskivi, Katja (2016) #JeSuisCharlie: Towards a Multi-Method Study of Hybrid Media Events. Media and Communication, vol. 4, (4), 97-108. http://dx.doi.org/10.17645/mac.v4i4.593

Tikka, Minttu (2016) Verkon sosiaalista todellisuutta kartoittamassa. Kirja-arvio kirjasta Kozinets, Robert V. Netnography: Redefined. Media & Viestintä 40(2).

Sumiala, Johanna, Tikka, Minttu, Valaskivi, Katja & Huhtamäki, Jukka (2015) Je suis Charlie – The Symbolic Battle and Struggle of Attention. Project description. Nordicom-Information 37: 3-4, 84-87.

Special Issue:

Sumiala, Johanna & Valaskivi, Katja (2017) Special section on Terror as Media Event. Television and New Media.

Book:

Sumiala, Johanna, Valaskivi, Katja, Tikka, Minttu & Huhtamäki, Jukka (2018) Hybrid Media Events. The Charlie Hebdo Attacks and Global Circulation of Terrorist Violence. Emerald Publishing (forthcoming in May)