Islam som norsk media fortelling : en analyse av moskedebatten på Sørlandet 2011-2014

Abstract

During spring 2011 a debate took place in Norwegian newspapers in the most southern region of Norway concerning the establishment of a new mosque in Kristiansand. This thesis is a case study of the Muslim Union in Agder region, taking as its starting point the public debate that arose relating to this mosque project. The theoretical basis for the study is the theory about media frames. The question raised is how mosque debate was presented in three regional and local Norwegian media in period of 2011-2014. The questions are answered by using quantitative and qualitative analysis of three regional newspapers. The thesis contains a descriptive and an analytical part. The descriptive part is centered around the dominating media frames that were created in the different newspapers, which again provides a detailed insights into how central media frames are established, and how texts are assigned to a media frame. The analytical part of the thesis is to provide a measure of the extent of this debate; which views were expressed and as well as the characteristic of the participants in this debate. This study shows that there are two contrasting approaches to this debate. The first is the religious frame, and the other is the fair-of-the-unfamiliar frame. These two frames has been applied in various degrees and in different ways in the three medias studied.