White Fear: Habitual Whiteness and Racialization of the Threat of Terror in Danish News Journalism

Abstract

With its focus set on Danish news reporting on the threat of terror, the chapter seeks to unfold the argument that when some kinds of violence, and not others, are interpreted as terror, it does not only have to do with the installed enemy image of “the Muslim terrorist,” but must also be considered in relation to the ways fear of terror is represented as a public concern. It is argued that fear is accumulated in the public space in a way where some bodies’ fear is turned into a general, common fear, and others’ not. Thereby, it sets the frame for which danger is seen as general and indiscriminate—and thus interpreted as terror—and which danger is interpreted in more specified terms. Hence, with the threat of terror being racialized as “Arab/Muslim,” it is here considered if fear of terror works to consolidate public whiteness, through the representation of “a white fearing public.”