Solidarity og Responsibility? Framing of the Migration Crisis in Norwegian Print Media

In this study the framing in Norwegian print media coverage of immigration during the peak of the European migration crisis of 2015 is investigated. In a content analysis of articles (news stories, opinion pieces, editorials) covering immigration in three Norwegian newspapers over two periods of four weeks, the use of five generic frames is studied: responsibility, conflict, economic consequences, human interest, and morality frames. Further, the arguments presented in the generic frames were analysed and sorted into proposed categories of issuespecific frames. The results show that the media to a great length frame immigration and refugee as issues of political conflict between parties. The parties however, preferred to frame own policies on immigration as the responsible alternative. The communicator presenting the frame, seem to be as important for the framing as the media outlet (tabloid vs. broadsheet). The framing during the peak of the migration crisis differed somewhat from the control period of February 2018: framing of immigration as responsibility was to some extent replaced by a perspective on economic consequences. The qualitative investigation of the frames suggests that the Labour Party managed to set the agenda by proposing that Norway should take 10 000 extra Syrian refugees, and thus forced their opponents to alter their framing. Finally, there seem to be a division between professional and amateur actors in their use of tone and terms when discussing immigration. The use of negative terms and tone was almost exclusive to 'ordinary people' through opinion pieces, while the media and other professional actors kept a quite neutral tone