Team

Steering Committee

Jostein Gripsrud
Project director
Professor
Department of Information Science and Media Studies
University of Bergen

 

 

 

Jens E. Kjeldsen
Professor
Department of Information Science and Media Studies
University of Bergen

The verbal and visual rhetoric of the Scandinavian immigration debate.

This part of the Scanpub-project covers three forms of communication in the public discourse on immigration: Speeches, visual material such as press photographs, and television debates.

The aim of the rhetorical analyses is to establish the most important differences and similarities between the immigration rhetoric internally between the three Scandinavian countries, and externally between Scandinavia as a whole and other countries. In short: the study aims to find out what people say about immigration and how they say it. This includes normative considerations on the quality of the immigration debate. In the rhetorical examination of the immigration debate (speeches, visuals and debates) the part analysing the debates will be the part where the normative evaluation of the immigration debate will be most prevalent. Based on argumentation theory, public sphere theory, and rhetorical theories of virtues and vices of public debate we will evaluate the moderators, debaters, and the debates as a way of public deliberation. The analyses of the speeches and visuals will contribute to this as well.

It will also be an aim of the analysis of the visuals to contribute to an improvement of public sphere theory, which has only limited studies and explanations of visual communication and pictorial rhetoric.

 

Anniken Hagelund
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Human Geography
University of Oslo

 

 

 

 

Stig Hjarvard
Professor
Department of Media, Cognition and Communication
University of Copenhagen

 

 

 

Kristina Riegert
Professor
Section for Journalism, Media and Communication Studies
Stockholm University

 

 

 

Scientific Advisory Board

 

Toril Aalberg
Professor
Department of Sociology and Political Science
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)

 

 

 

Paolo Mancini
Professor
Sociology of Communications
University of Perugia

 

 

Rodney Benson
Professor
Department of Media, Culture and Communication
New York University

 

 

 

Dominique Pasquier
Professor II
Department of Information Science and Media Studies
University of Bergen/ParisTech

 

 

 

Hans-Jörg Trenz
Professor
Department of Media, Cognition and Communication
University of Copenhagen

 

 

 

Hartmut Wessler
Professor

Media and Communication Studies
University of Mannheim

 

 

 

Hakan G. Sicakkan
Associate Professor
Department of Comparative Politics
University of Bergen

 

 

 

Marie Gillespie
Professor of Sociology
Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences
The Open University

 

Other participating researchers

 

Hallvard Moe
Professor
Department of Information Science and Media Studies
University of Bergen

Hallvard Moe contributes to SCANPUB’s aim of analyzing of how online media have left their mark on the general discourse on immigration, and the extent to which they have provided a space for a greater variety of views on the issue of immigration than the traditional media still constitutive of the general, overarching public sphere. This involves also an aim to qualitatively assess these arenas for public debate, both in terms of who speaks, what they say and how they say it.

To complement the other subproject’s approaches to the online realm, Moe will at the outset undertake an analysis of Wikipedia as a source and arena for immigration debate through a comparison of contributor and articles of relevance to the immigration issue in the three Scandinavian countries.

 

Jan Fredrik Hovden
Professor
Department of Information Science and Media Studies
University of Bergen

 

 

 

 

Hilmar Langhelle Mjelde
Postdoc
Department of Information Science and Media Studies
University of Bergen

 

 

 

 

Ragnhild Mølster
Researcher
Department of Information Science and Media Studies
University of Bergen

This project studies the relationship between the public debate and political decisions on immigration in the three Scandinavian countries. How does public opinion, as expressed through the public debate in media and arts, influence political decisions? What are the differences between the countries, and how has the relationship developed over the past 45 years?

Through analyses of policy documents, parliamentary debates and interviews with Scandinavian politicians, public servants and communication officers, the projects will seek to identify and understand links between public debates and political decision-making in Scandinavia during the past 45 years.

 

Jill Loga
Senior Researcher
Democracy, Civil Society and Public Administration
Uni Research Rokkan Centre

 

 

 

 

Ida Andersen
PhD Candidate
Department of Information Science and Media Studies
University of Bergen

The debates about the refugee crisis in Norwegian, Swedish and Danish comment sections

The project examines how the refugee crisis in 2015 was discussed by ‘ordinary’ citizens in Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Through rhetorical analysis of the debates taking place in comment sections of three dominant newspapers’ Facebook-pages, the project examines what arguments and forms of participation the comment sections contain, and attempts to identify the underlying values and understandings of the issue that form the basis for these arguments. In addition to the textual analysis, interviews with a selection of the participants are carried out. Thus, the project also examines the participants’ own experiences and expectations to the debates.

 

John Magnus Ragnhildson Dahl
PhD Candidate
Department of Information Science and Media Studies
University of Bergen

 

 

 

Silje Nygaard
PhD Candidate
Department of Information Science and Media Studies
University of Bergen

This PhD-project aims to explore intermedial agenda setting in the Scandinavian immigration debate in Norway, Sweden and Denmark between social media – including Facebook, Twitter, blogs and alternative media – and the traditional news media. Furthermore, the project examines how alternative media in Norway, Sweden and Denmark – with an outspoken critical perspective on immigration – handle the distinction between news and views. By taking a qualitative approach, this study will provide political communication research with empirical insights into the information quality in alternative media by looking at the nature of the news articles published under the banner of Norwegian “Document.no”, Swedish “Avpixlat” and Danish “Den Korte Avis”: Is there a clear distinction between news and views?

 

Hedda Paulsen
Research Assistant
Department of Information Science and Media Studies
University of Bergen

Hedda completed her master’s degree in media studies at the University of Bergen. Her thesis is a comparative and quantitative analysis of how two of the largest newspapers in Norway presented the mental illness depression in 1996 and 2016. The complete paper “Depresjon, drap, sammenbrudd og fisk. Endringer i dekningen av depresjon i Bergens Tidende og VG mellom 1996 og 2016» is available at BORA here. Hedda completed her first bachelor’s degree in PR, Communication and Media Forms at Volda University College, and her second bachelor’s degree in Rhetoric at the University of Bergen.

Irmelin Wilhelmsen Nilsen

Research Assistant
Department of Information Science and Media Studies
University of Bergen

At SCANPUB, Irmelin will be working with the cultural section of the public sphere, and her main focus will be to analyse and compare television-fiction that concerns immigration, produced in the three Scandinavian countries. Irmelin finished her master’s degree in media studies at the University of Bergen in the spring of 2019. Her thesis is a qualitative analysis of the media coverage and representation of new cancer research and cancer drugs in three nationwide newspapers in Norway (VG, Dagbladet and Aftenposten). The paper is titled «Kreft, forestillinger og sensasjonsjournalistikk. En analyse av sosiotekniske forestillinger om kreftforskning i møte med journalistiske nyhetsrammer».

Lars Finborud

Research Assistant
Department of Information Science and Media Studies
University of Bergen

Lars will survey nonfiction books about the immigration issue in Scandinavia 1970-2019 for SCANPUB. He will focus on books that have made an impact on the public discourse, and attempt to find differences and similarities in how the immigration issue is represented in the three countries. Lars completed his master’s degree in comparative literature at UiB with a thesis about Knut Hamsun’s Landstrykere (Wayfarers). The thesis «‘En verden hvor hvermand førte hvermand bak lyset’. Edevart og behaget ved bedraget i Hamsuns Landstrykere»

 

Former Research Participants

 

Oda S. Slotnes
Research Assistant
Department of Information Science and Media Studies
University of Bergen

 

 

Tone Kristine Kolbjørnsen
Associate Professor
Department of Information Science and Media Studies
University of Bergen

 

 

 

 

Stein Ove Lien
Former Research assistant
Department of Information Science and Media Studies
University of Bergen

 

 

 

 

Malgorzata Anna Pacholczyk
Former Student member
Department of Information Science and Media Studies
University of Bergen

Issues concerning freedom of speech and its relation to religious sensitivities have become absolutely central in public discourse. I have decided to make this particular matter the subject of my master thesis. I wish to investigate how the attack on Charlie Hebdo was covered and commented on in the Polish and Norwegian press. The goal is to both chart the particularities and dimensions of the coverage and commentaries and try to suggest factors that may help explain the observed patterns.

 

Anders Løkeland Slåke
Former Research assistant
Department of Information Science and Media Studies
University of Bergen

Poles is by far the largest group of immigrants living in Norway today. According to its own Statement of Commitments “c. The NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation) shall disseminate knowledge of diverse groups and of the diversity of Norwegian society. The NRK shall create arenas for debate and information about Norway as a multicultural society.”.

Anders Løkeland Slåke’s project aims to examine the story of Polish immigrants as conveyed through the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation’s decisions on framing, themes and TV scheduling.

 

Luise Salte
Former Research assistant
Department of Information science and Media Studies
University of Bergen

The aim of my master thesis is to show how veiling – head and body coverings of Muslim women – is discussed in the Norwegian public sphere. ”The veil” has developed into a symbol of both political, religious and cultural matters, and its meaning differs among the publics in European countries. The intensity and actual existence of the debate also varies with different national contexts. This has all in turn led to different policies and regulations. In extention of an analysis of the Norwegian discourse about veiling, the thesis will therefore aim to relate it to what one might consider to be the current Norwegian model of citizenship.

 

Marit Kristine Bjøntegård
Former Research assistant
Department of Information Science and Media Studies
University of Bergen

Marit Kristine Bjøntegård wrote her master thesis about how politicians portray the immigration issue on the Norwegian public broadcaster, NRK’s «Partilederdebatt» in 1987, «Folkemøte» in Oslo in 1999, and «Partilederdebatt» in Fredrikstad in 2015. Televised debates on immigration do not only focus on promoting political solutions to the problem. To a large extent, they are concerned with Norwegian values, moral, and identity.

Bjøntegård understands the immigration debates as containing both deliberative and epideictic language actions. Deliberative rhetoric is associated with political proposals ascribed to the future. Epideictic rhetoric focus on definitions of who «we» are and what the «issue» is about. Through Maurice Charland’s theory of constitutive rhetoric, Bjøntegård examines how politicians invite the audience to become a part of a shared identity, which creates a basis for real life-action. The rhetorical theory of «topics»forms the theoretical framework in the analysis of how the politicians choose arguments either to support a liberal or restrictive immigration policy.