Rethinking Transitional Justice: The Eliminationist News Cycle in Liberal Democracies

Abstract∞ How can an ostensibly free and open media actively facilitate systematic violence against minoritized groups? Studying anti-trans and anti-migrant media discourses in the UK as symptomatic of the existence of an ‘eliminationist news cycle’ in liberal democracies, this article interrogates the violence that is likely to emerge against minoritized groups in countries with hybridized liberal media systems. Identifying key far-right populist discourses that circulate through the UK’s media system and the state/state-sanctioned violences they authorize, the article undertakes a discursive approach to analysing 131 systematically selected newspaper articles. Cumulatively, the article develops an original framework that demonstrates how minoritized communities can actively be dehumanized and earmarked for elimination in liberal democracies, in contravention of received wisdom on the role of the media in transitional justice. Moreover, it reflects on possibilities for resisting the eliminationist news cycle by identifying commonalities in patterns of Othering/dehumanization levelled at minoritized groups.