I would like to thank colleagues and friends for insightful and helpful comments on drafts of this book’s chapters. Some of the chapters are based on previously published articles and chapters, and I would like to thank the reviewers and editors for their work. I would like to thank the Danish Royal Library and the National Archives, my friends and colleagues in the United States Virgin...

In 1984, Adrienne Rich wrote ‘Notes towards a Politics of Location’, in which she argues for a grounded approach to theoretical work. Behind its lyrical wording, the above quote suggests an understanding of knowledge production that takes both its starting point and raison d’être in a grounded cartographic reading of particular circumstances. These particular circumstances...

Benedict Anderson (1991, 44–45) defines the relationship between capitalism and print languages as foundational for national consciousness, with the press playing a particularly significant role in creating and supporting national identity. Anderson sees this relationship as important in three ways: First, the relationship created a common field of...

In 1915, political agitator, schoolteacher and lawyer, David Hamilton Jackson, travelled from St. Croix to Denmark, the then-colonial power of the Caribbean islands currently known as the United States Virgin Islands. Jackson did so to argue for his right to free speech and print, to argue for his right to publish The Herald. Over the ten years that followed, Jackson’s...

Referred to as ‘the first draft of history’, news journalism focusses on news and events that may or may not end up in the history books once time has edited the draft and selected the parts that turn out to fit a larger narrative. The relationship between journalism and history or historical narratives and memory is, however, complex. Undeniably, journalists use historical...

In his work on visuality, Nicholas Mirzoeff does not...

The passionate words of the eminent African American scholar and poet Audre Lorde resonate across time and strike a relevant note about political change and civic responsibility, which are also my main concerns here. In this book, I have sought to construct a multilayered argument for a diversified set of interlocutors, spread across a number of discrete but interrelated fields. I have aimed to...

Bolette B. Blaagaard is Associate Professor of Communications at Aalborg University, Copenhagen, Denmark. She is the co-editor of Deconstructing Europe: Postcolonial Perspectives (2012), After Cosmopolitanism (2013), Cosmopolitanism and the New News Media (2014) and Citizen Media and Public Spaces (2016), among others.

Series Editor: Engin Isin is Professor of International Politics, Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) and University of London Institute in Paris (ULIP). He is a leading scholar of citizenship studies and is a Chief Editor of the journal Citizenship Studies. He is author and editor of eleven books in the field, including Being Political and Citizens Without...