Identity work and direct quotations in the press releases and on the websites of a Danish TV documentary on transnational adoption

This article concerns identity construction through timescales and by different actors, with direct quotations as the phenomenon in focus. The Danish public broadcasting channel, DR, produced a documentary about transnational adoption during 2002-2003. DR followed five prospective adoptive couples for a year, concentrating especially on their affective labour. After editing, DR broadcast the five-part documentary series entitled “When the Stork Fails” (Når storken svigter) between September and October 2003. The satellite texts of the programme (press releases and websites) had many ‘direct’ quotations from the documentary, apparently culled to stir media or viewer interest in the episodes. The quotations were used as examples of ‘authentic’ suffering, and they constructed the prospective adoptive parents as economically and morally normal citizens. However, a closer look at the texts reveals that one couple was treated differently vis-à-vis direct quotations. This difference reflects DR’s bias towards the official decision makers in a contested case.