Cafébabel and ‘Génération Bataclan’: Cosmopolitan identities and/as constructive European news...

<jats:p> The attack on the Bataclan Theatre in Paris in November 2015 arguably targeted a transnational community of youths able to move and convene freely; as such, it was an attack on the liberal and cosmopolitan core of the European project. Cafébabel (cafebabel.com), a multilingual current affairs online magazine co-funded by the European Union, is intricately linked to this project. This article consequently investigates how Cafébabel, in the aftermath of the attack, appropriated the notion of ‘Génération Bataclan’ from a front page of Libération and how this may be seen as a constructive intervention in the relations between terrorism and journalism in Europe. Cafëbabel’s coverage was, it will be argued, linked to efforts to reflect and/or construct a generational and transnational ‘cosmopolitan identity’ within journalistic practices that largely can be called participatory. Following this, the article consequently argues for seeing Cafébabel’s coverage as instances of constructive news as participation in the European project, which is related to how the outlet perceives the news by national legacy media as un-constructive (conflict, scepticism, nationalism, sensationalism, etc.). In analysing a sample of articles from Cafébabel following the Paris attacks, the article consequently employs a theoretical foundation that merges elements from writings applying three distinct concepts, namely, constructive journalism, journalism as practice and cosmopolitanism. </jats:p>