The Limits of the Debate: How the Oslo Terror Shook the Norwegian Immigration Debate

• In Event: ICA Plenary Interactive Paper/Poster Session and Reception
  In Interactive Paper Session: Journalism Studies Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

It is widely documented that dramatic events and crises have the potential to change how an issue is debated in the media. The lone wolf terrorist of the 2011 Oslo attacks claimed an extremist, contra-jihadist ideology, stating that he carried out the terror attacks to “wake up” and “warn” the political establishment and public of a failed immigration policy. The present paper analyzes how immigration was debated before and after the Oslo terror, and conceptualizes the developments in the polarized, heated immigration debate by employing Hallin’s (1986) influential three-sphere model. The attacks challenged the journalistic balance between newsworthiness and sensitivity covering a polarized issue. Based on analyses of a comprehensive, quantitative data set of Norwegian mainstream media coverage of immigration in 2011, we find that the debate on immigration changed by a decrease in the amount of coverage, a shift in the prioritization of formats, topics and sources, and by including certain viewpoints into the debate that earlier belonged to an online sphere of deviance.

Authors

• Tine Ustad Figenschou, University of Oslo

• Audun Beyer, U of Oslo