Articles by several researchers from SCANPUB’s team have been published in the latest issue of Javnost – The Public, journal of the European Institute for Communication and Culture, Volume 26, 2019 – issue 2. This is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal in the social sciences that address problems of the public sphere on international and interdisciplinary levels. Issue 2, Volume 26, is devoted to the SCANPUB project, and many of the articles are open access and available here.
Below is a complete list and short introduction to SCANPUB’s publications in Javnost – The Public, Volume 26:
- PhD Candidate Ida Andersen’s article “Personal Emotions, Experiences and Attacks: Immigration Debate in Scandinavian Comment Sections” examines how one increasingly complex and controversial issue – immigration – is discussed in Scandinavian newspapers’ comment sections. It does so through a case study of discussions about the arrival of Syrian refugees to the three nation-states.
- PhD Candidate John Magnus R. Dahl’s article “From the Club Stage to the National Scene: How Mass Media Interpreted Two Comedians as Important Immigrant Voices” investigates how comedians with an immigrant background gain political relevance, taking two contemporary comedians from Norway and Sweden as cases. It is shown that the coverage of the two comedians to a large degree conformed to existing immigration discourse, challenging the view of comedy as a subversive force.
- Professor Jostein Gripsrud’s article “Comparing Public Discourse on Immigration in Scandinavia: Some Background Notes and Preliminary Results” briefly presents the SCANPUB project, devoted to the comparative study of public discourse on immigration in Scandinavia from 1970 to 2016. Its emphasis is on a discussion of the terms “nation” and “nationalism,” particularly the notion of “methodological nationalism” in relation to the project.
- Professor Jan Fredrik Hovden & Postdoc Hilmar Mjelde’s article “Increasingly Controversial, Cultural, and Political: The Immigration Debate in Scandinavian Newspapers” contains a content analysis of a representative sample of articles for two newspapers for each Scandinavian country for the period 1970–2016. Focusing on broad Scandinavian trends and major national differences, the results support the general claims about national differences in Scandinavian immigration debate, and also suggest some major developments, in particular the rise of immigration as an issue for debate and for national politicians.
- Professor Hallvard Moe’s article “Wikipedia as an arena and source for the public. A Scandinavian comparison of “Islam”” compares Wikipedia as an arena and source for the public through analysis of articles on “Islam” across the three Scandinavian languages. The analysis illustrates how our understanding of the online realm profits from “groundedness,” and how the comparison of similar sites in different languages can yield insights into cultural as well as political differences, and their implications.
- Professor Jens E. Kjeldsen’s article “Royal Interventions in the Public Discourse on Immigration: Rhetorical Topoi on Immigration in the New Year’s Speeches of the Scandinavian Monarchs” explores how the Scandinavian monarchs work through the issue of immigration in their New Year’s speeches during the years 1972–2017. The study reveals that the speeches of the Danish Queen constitute Denmark as a rooted nation, the Norwegian King constitutes Norway as a rights nation, and the Swedish King constitute Sweden as an immigrant nation.
- Professor Kristina Riegert (Stockholm University) and Professor Jan Fredrik Hovden’s article “Identity, Empathy and Argument: Immigrants in Culture and Entertainment Journalism in the Scandinavian Press” compares immigration discourse in a representative sample of six Scandinavian newspapers between 1970 and 2016 using content analysis, and find that cultural journalism, while clearly reverbing with the dominant national issues at the time, did provide alternative perspectives.