When photos of the refugee situation in Denmark shared on social media became a complicated affair

Due to the on-going migrant crisis is Europe a lot of pictures have been flourished through the Internet and has been shared all over the social network sites, news sites, etc. Two pictures in particular, the first showing an elderly man spitting at the refugees arriving from Germany to Denmark and the second showing a Danish policeman and refugee girl playing has put Denmark on the map – for better and for worse.

An image of a drowned Syrian boy touched us all back in the beginning of September. It became a very strong picture of the situation facing millions of people desperately fleeing a terrible civil war. The picture went viral on September 3. Around the 5th of September, Germany opens their boarders and the following days Denmark is experiencing exactly what a refugee crisis means. Hundreds of refugees crossing the border between Denmark and Germany and now the Danes does not only sit in their living rooms looking at the crisis in their televisions, the crisis is just outside their doorsteps. Many powerful images showed the refugees that walk along the highway from Rodby towards Sweden. Danish police have chosen to close the highway.

On September 8 this photo starts to flourish on the Social Networks:

It’s part of a reportage for the Danish newspaper Information. The picture text says: “A man standing on the bridge over the E47 outside Rødby and sees the large group of refugees, passing under him. Suddenly he begins to spit down on the crowd, and then he yells at them that they need to go back home.” (Information, September 8 2015.)

Many of the Danish Politicians shared the photo on Facebook and Twitter as well as thousands of Danes. A huge wave of rage is pointed towards the man. At least, that’s what I see in my newsfeed on Facebook and the articles I chose to read. But this picture tells so much more. It divided Denmark in two; those who let themselves be intimidated by the refugees crossing the Danish border and the Danes who react with disgust to the picture of the man on the bridge. What started as a picture in a reportage at a news site went to print, back to social networks, and into discussion forums, which lead to user-generated content such as memes. 

In the second picture, the picture text is now changed into: “A man standing on the bridge over E47 outside Rodby and sees the large group of refugees, passing under him. Suddenly he pulls out a panpipe and starts playing relaxing Indian music.”

It is a classical example of what happens when the users starts to participate and create their own content based on-going discussions. It’s part of the participatory culture; the news papers that shared the original picture of the man spitting starts sharing the user-generated pictures of the man kissing a refugee etc. (Dagens.dk, September 8 2015). What might traditionally be understood as media producers (the news paper etc.) and consumers (the users – the people) are transformed into participants who are interacting with each other according to a new set of rules which none of us fully understands (Jenkins, 2006).

While its very typical Danish to respond with humour to a situation like the picture of the man spitting such as memes and creating Facebook groups where people gathered and went out to help the incoming refugees with food, clothes and a place to sleep, the photo went worldwide and became a picture on Denmark’s negative stand towards receiving refugees. The picture and story was shared at news sites such as Washington Post and The Hindu and in social communities such as Reddit and Imgur.

A few days after this picture, a new picture started flourishing through social medias. It started as a photo in a photo reportage in the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten and BT. The picture shows a Danish police officer playing with a refugee girl on the same highway as the above-mentioned picture. 

A soon as the photo reached the social networks the responses were in general very positive. For the most part, people were praising the police for their both professional and humane handling of the refugees. The photo was shared worldwide as well such as Huffington Post, BCC, and Independent. The photo became a picture of hope and humanity – as something ‘normal’ in a very complex situation.

For many Danes this photo was a relief. It showed a part of Denmark that we are really proud of and cherishes. But the last photo of the spitting man wasn’t forgotten and as the picture hit different social communities such as Reddit and 9gag, the attitude towards the photo was very different. The picture below shows some of the most upvoted comments on the photo of the Police Officer and the refugee girl when it was posted at 9gag. 

The photo is seen as “propaganda” put forward to show the best sides of Denmark, as something that doesn’t match the reality. This is a good example on how context sensitive these photos are but it also raises another issue; how we have a tendency to stick to forums with people who think alike and share our believes. In the social community Imgur, the title of another photo in same series of photos changed to “Danish PoliceOfficer Has Had Enough Of Syrian Girl Who Crossed the Boarder Illegally”.

As the Media Professor Henry Jenkins argues, convergence happens within the brains of individual consumers, and yet, “each of us constructs our own personal mythology from bits and fragments of information we have extracted from the on-going flow of media around us and transformed into resources through which we make sense of our everyday lives” (Jenkins 2006: 3). As the news papers aims to tell one story, the users/readers might aim to tell another story. Media convergence is a big part of the explanation of how we interpret the images and in general the content we are presented.

This leads to another important discussion; media convergence gives us the opportunity to transform fragments of information into our own stories. This is both positive and negative. We are able to seek information everywhere; news sites, printed papers, social networks, discussion forums – to both seek and understand different opinions. But we can also chose to seek information that fit into our own believes and therefor not be confronted with other opinions and believes. This issue is discussed in this article by Cass Sustein called “The Daily We” which I highly recommend for further reading on this issue.