Anti-racism in the hybrid media system: Why the Baltic herring movement failed to consolidate a front against racism

The rise of the far right has encouraged the emergence of anti-nativist and anti-authoritarian citizen movements around Europe. These counter-movements expose extremism within political parties, debunk anti-immigration disinformation, and organise collective action to protest the institutionalisation of racism (Hatakka 2019). This chapter discusses the viability of such civic anti-racism in the hybrid media system (Chadwick, 2013) that, we argue, contributes to the emergence of anti-racist collective action but hinders its chances for institutionalisation. The chapter analyses the birth, challenging, and political repercussions of the Baltic herring movement (f. December 2019), a Finnish popular localized adaptation of the Italian Sardines movement. In the chapter, the “Baltic herring” is analysed as a populist signifier (Laclau 2005), that is, a symbol that discursively articulates a political front comprised of a multitude of demands. By using Twitter data (n≈10400 tweets) gathered during and after the emergence of the movement, we analyse, what political demands the symbol was used to advance, how it was appropriated to mobilise opposite demands, and how it lost its ability to consolidate a congruent front against racism. First, a network analysis is conducted to map out the different communities using the signifier. Hashtag co-occurrence analysis and topic modelling with LDA are then used to compare the contents of the sub-communities’ communications. And last, to complement the data analysis, the most-circulated movement materials and pieces from mainstream and alternative media are analysed qualitatively to discern how the movement’s actions were framed on other platforms. Thus, the chapter contributes to the section’s analytical dimensions regarding the actors, mediated arenas, and political consequences of the politicisation of immigration. The chapter theoretically explicates how emergent signifiers can rapidly unite progressive movements on social media, but that due to the horizontality of the media system, the same political symbols can become fragile as vessels for institutionalising any mobilized demands.