Indigenous Identity in Print: Representations of the Sami in News Discourse

Abstract

This article examines news representations of the indigenous Sami people in the Finnish news discourse and the role of the representations in the politics of Sami identity. Through critical discourse analysis of Finnish newspaper texts collected from the leading daily Helsingin Sanomat, I analyse the representations by examining how the journalists utilized textual and linguistic resources available to them, how journalistic practices limited and enabled choices made and, finally, how the textual choices contributed to the representations. The study suggests that a combination of the minority position of the Sami, journalistic practices and an unawareness of or insensitivity towards the representational power of news media result in polarized ethnic representations that contribute to marginalization of the Sami rather than participation in the public discussion in the news arena.