Audun Beyer

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

How do disruptive events such as terrorism, disasters, and crises change public discourses? Do they alter journalistic distinctions between legitimate utterances and unacceptable viewpoints? This article provides answers to these questions through a unique data set concerning the coverage of immigration in Norway before and after the Oslo terror of 2011. The data serve as a natural experiment where we can analyze how immigration discourse was changed with regard to its magnitude, topical emphasis, and the sources interviewed. The analysis demonstrate that Hallin’s classic three-sphere model illuminates the dynamics of current meta-debates on polarized topics, where multiple online media continually criticize mainstream media and multiple voices question legitimate discourse. The main finding is that mainstream media definitions of appropriateness and deviance were challenged after the terror, as journalists adapted to a new political context. First, the issue of immigration was covered less in the months after the attacks. Second, the most vocal critics of the current immigration policies were put on the defensive, and debates with a critical potential were largely muted. At the same time, however, the attacks to some extent also opened mainstream media debate to online, deviant anti-Islamic actors who were previously largely silenced and ignored.

The Moral Police Agenda-setting and Framing Effects of a New(s) Concept of Immigration

Abstract How does the general public understand media coverage of immigration issues? The present article analyses the media effects of an extensive news series focusing on the harassment of people believed to disrespect traditional Muslim norms. Through an explorative survey study, it traces how Norwegian media launched and covered what was labeled “the moral police” phenomenon, and to what extent the media framing of the issue had an agendasetting and/or frame-setting effect on the public. It finds that, although most respondents had become aware of the issue through the media, they did not necessarily adopt the media’s framing of the phenomenon. The respondents did not primarily relate the “moral police” to immigration (the dominant media frame), they understood the new phenomenon through experiences from their own lives and framed it as a general social problem.

Human Interest Framing of Irregular Immigration An Empirical Study of Public Preferences for Personalized News Stories in the United States, France, and Norway

The media have a strong tendency to frame political issues with a focus on personal and emotional cases. We do not, however, know if there is a close link between the news media’s use of these frames and the news preferences of the public. Such a close relationship may exist either because human interest news coverage is driven by audience demand or because the public might be influenced by the degree of individual news stories in the news. On the other hand, the audience’s news preferences may be unrelated to the actual media coverage on irregular immigration due to citizens’ selective media exposure, which may be driven by political predispositions. Based on a large quantitative content analysis conducted in the United States, France, and Norway and a following public opinion survey in the same countries, we find that the application of a human interest frame in a country’s news coverage of irregular immigration does not correspond with the public’s preferences for this type of news coverage. On the individual level, our findings demonstrate that liberal audience groups favor human interest–framed news coverage, while conservatives do not agree that individual news stories would provide a better understanding of the issue of irregular immigration.

Public Perceptions of the Media Coverage of Irregular Immigration Comparative Insights From France, the United States, and Norway

Irregular immigration has become a globally important topic. While there have been some studies on public opinion toward irregular immigration, virtually no studies have examined how audiences evaluate the media coverage of this issue. There is also a lack of comparative research. The aims of this article are to provide survey data on public opinion toward irregular immigration in the United States, France, and Norway as well as a comparative analysis of public perceptions of the news coverage. Findings suggest that irregular immigration remains a highly salient issue in public opinion in all three countries. Furthermore, public opinion is generally critical and skeptic toward irregular immigration and immigrants, and differences between countries regarding the coverage of the issue in national mainstream media do not necessarily seem to be mirrored in public opinion. The survey data also suggest that citizens in all three countries tend to believe that the negative aspects of irregular immigration such as crimes or border control receive too little coverage whereas perspectives more positive to irregular immigration receive too much. Implications for further comparative research on public opinion and media coverage are discussed.

Toward a Cognitive-Affective Process Model of Hostile Media Perceptions A Multi-Country Structural Equation Modeling Approach

This article develops and tests a theoretical cognitive-affective process model of the hostile media effect (HME). To explain the HME, scholars have mainly focused on cognitive involvement, that is, the extent to which an issue is of personal importance. In addition, we introduce the notion of affective involvement and hypothesize three distinct routes responsible for a HME: a cognitive, an affective, and a cognitive-affective route. Simultaneously collected representative survey data from the United States, Norway, and France employing country-invariant measures provide clear evidence that the three routes each and independently drive the HME. Theoretical and methodological implications of these findings are discussed.

Election Campaigns, Issue Focus and Voting Intentions: Survey Experiments of Norwegian Voters

This article investigates whether and how changes in issue focus in election campaigns affect voting intention, even if no preference change takes place, and whether such effects vary systematically across different groups of voters. Evidence is reported from two survey experiments of Norwegian voters, where respondents were treated with information drawing their attention towards issues pertaining either to immigration or the environment. Although irrelevant for policy learning or persuasion, this information strongly increased the support of particular parties. More specifically, parties with ‘ownership’ of the issues involved gained votes. Certain types of voters were more likely to change voting intentions post-treatment than others, but which types crucially depended on the issue area under focus. Nevertheless, the results indicate that the issue focus of campaigns is very important for vote choice. Hence, one should expect that, for instance, even ‘neutral’ political news coverage at or close to election day could affect voters in predictable ways. Furthermore, one should expect different parties to fight hard to steer the focus of campaigns towards issues where they have ownership.