Introduction:
As a result of months of intense campaigning across the 1500-mile long country, on September 9 last year, the election results were finally ready. The polls had already told the tale for weeks, but all the politicians knew that everything could happen on Election Day. However, the polls could not have been more correct. The reigning left-wing coalition, led by the country’s biggest party, Labour, had to leave office after eight years in the government building. The two most powerful women in Norwegian politics rose to the top; Erna Solberg - leader of the Conservative Party (Hoyre) and Siv Jensen - leader of the Progress Party (Fremskrittspartiet, often shortened to FRP). The two leaders formed, as expected, a coalition government giving them the majority in the parliament.
To many foreign media outlets this came as a shock, considering their picture painted of right wing, immigration hostile party with close connections to terrorist Anders Behring Breivik. The election took place only two years after the gruesome attacks, which in many people’s mind was a political motivated action after he was declared sane by the courts appointed psychiatrists.
This research project will try to investigate the thesis that the British media has in an unfairly manner reported the Progress Party to their readers/viewers. This essay contains interviews with journalists from Norwegian media, voicing their opinions on the topic.
Background
The Progress Party was founded at Saga Kino, October 18 1973, where Anders Lange voiced his political views in front of an audience of around 3000. His main ideologies were lower taxes and less involvement by the government. The meeting was a protest against the state monopoly and La...
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SSB. (2013, October 29). Statistisk sentralbyrå. Retrieved April 23, 2014 from http://www.ssb.no/en/valg/statistikker/stortingsvalg/hvert-4-aar/2013-10-29#content
Telegraph. (2011, July 23). Retrieved May 16, 2014 from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/norway/8656966/Norway-attacks-Anders-Behring-Breivik-was-active-member-of-far-right-party.html
The Guardian. (2011, April 23). Retrieved April 24, 2014 from http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/apr/23/election-editorial-comment-guardian
The Guardian. (2011, October 1). Retrieved April 26, 2014 from http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/01/norway-conservatives-coalition-immigration
The Guardian. (2013, September 8). Retrieved April 24, 2014 from http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/08/norway-anti-immigration-party-coalition-election
Verdens Gang. (1987, September 8). VG .
Unlike the other countries in Europe Sweden had a functional economy, no loss in people and a strong government. The unique long reign of the Social Democrat party stabilized the policy but most of the time they could only react to external developments. Sweden could start from a better living point and increase the living standard greatly. A strong state offered its citizen enough protection and developed the known international image of the Swedish Welfare State. Even though it does not exist anymore as it once did, especially Social Democrats from all around the world see Sweden as the role model for a strong Welfare State that offers benefits to every individual. The contemporary Welfare State has it ties in the Rehn-Meidner model but made developments into a neoliberal state like every other country in
Party is an inevitable feature of the democracy and it is defined as ‘an autonomous group of citizens having the purpose of making nominations and contesting elections in the hope of gaining control over governmental power through the capture of public offices and the organization of the government’ (Caramani, 2011, p.220). Parties are ubiquitous in modern political systems and they perform a number of functions, they are: coordination, contesting elections, recruitment, and representation (Caramani, 2011). Political parties are the product of the parliamentary and electoral game, and party systems reflect the social oppositions that characterize society when parties first appear (Coxall et al., 2011).
The Progressive Era ( 1890’s- 1920’s) was a period of political reforms and social activism within politicians, and radical groups. Some politicians were also known as “Political Progressives”, this group made great changes in the effort to sooth the anger of many industrial workers, and to make their jobs a little less rigorous, however the changes put into effort by political progressives would do little to aid the concerns such as those of the radicals groups (women, blacks, Mexican-Americans).
Progressivism is a political orientation that emerged when education began to take priority over religion in America. Universities began to teach courses and subjects independent of religious input. The educated youth began to analyse society and began to feel that society as a whole was made up of people who were either poor foreigners or the newly rich businessmen who they saw as lacking in culture. The youth wanted to see more equality in wealth and more appreciation of culture and respect in society (Kuklick 2009). From these ideals the progressive movement spread to those who supported its initial ideas. Those who aligned themselves with progressivism found themselves in the middle politically, between those who were happy with the ways things were and socialists. Those who were progressive wanted more equal and fair politics in society and wanted to end the boss system where the wealthy would use corruption and bribery to maintain their power. However they had their own ideas of how politics should be and wanted those in power to have similar beliefs to them which meant that they did not trust everyone. They ...
In Keys paper it shows the changing of coalitions at various times, it is all due to movements of people. A large portion of the Democratic vote at a certain point came from the Industrial towns...
Tavits, Margit. "Party Systems in the Making: The Emergence and Success of New Parties in New Democracies." British Journal of Political Science 38.1 (2008): 113-33. JSTOR. Web. 26 May 2014.
McCormick, Richard L. “The Discovery that Business Corrupts Politics: A Reappraisal of the Origins of Progressivism.” American Historical Review 86, no. 2 (1981): 247-274.
Have you ever turned on the TV to watch the news during election year? News programs constantly bombard the public with campaign coverage that negatively affects the way people vote. The most noticeable effect the TV news media causes is a decrease in voter attendance at the ballot boxes. News coverage of political campaigns reduces voter turnout because of the negative campaign tactics used by candidates and their parties; exit polls that predict the outcome of an election; and the public's perception that the media can be bought to influence people to vote for a certain issue or candidate.
It is not uncommon to hear people complaining about what they hear on the news. Everyone knows it and the media themselves knows it as well. Some of the most renowned journalists have even covered the the media’s issues in detail. Biased news outlets have flooded everyday news. We find that journalism’s greatest problems lie in the media’s inability for unbiased reporting, the tendency to use the ignorance of their audience to create a story, and their struggles to maintain relevance.
While women were traditionally largely responsible for child care and managing the household, men were more concerned with earning the money in order to support their families. Moreover, it is has been a widely held view, especially by male politicians, that women were not capable of evaluating political matters because they were too emotional and thus, don’t have the required powerfulness (Monique Leijenaar, 1997). Nevertheless, women’s status and integration in the political decision making process has improved continuously since most western-countries introduced women’s right to vote. Consequently, in some of these states women’s underrepresentation is not a numerical problem anymore; instead it is only a problem of the representation of their interests and values on the political agenda. This can be illustrated by the example of Denmark where women have a majority in six councils. However, women should be given more power in order to create a world in which power is exercised equitably for the benefit of
There for we say yes, media can have a sizeable political impact, especially when a politician controls a substantial share of the media. Media is therefore bad for democracy. Stated throughout this paper is the level of bias that is displayed in the media. This level of bias sways the public far right or far left. Their decisions are based on a political point of view.
... small media reforms (like public journalism) will be enough to reduce the commercial and corporate imperatives driving our existing media systems (Hackett and Zhao, 1998, p. 235). Instead, a fundamental reform of the entire system is needed, together with a wider institutional reform of the very structures the media systems work within, our democracies. This will be a difficult task, due to powerful vested interests benefiting from the status quo, including media, political and economic elites. Reforms will need to be driven by campaigns mobilising public support across the political spectrum, to enable the citizens of the world to have a media system that works to strengthen democratic principles as opposed to undermining them. This task is challenging, but it will become easier once people begin to understand the media’s role in policymaking within our democracies.
As Americans we take pride in our liberating government. But, it is essential to ask how much we, the general public, know about our democracy. Because of the representative structure of our government, it is in our best interest to remain as knowledgeable as possible about political affairs so that we can play an active role in our democracy by voting for candidates and issues. The media, which includes print, television, and the internet, is our primary link to political events and issues. (For the purposes of this essay only print and television will be considered.) Therefore, in order to assess the success of our democracy it is necessary to assess the soundness of our media. We are lucky enough to have a media, in theory, free from government influences because of our rights to freedom of press and freedom of speech, but we are still subject to the media’s interpretation and presentation of politics, as is the danger when depending on any source for information. So, we must address how the media informs us; how successful it is at doing so; and how we should respond to it.
The structure of foreign news: The presentation of the congo, cuba and cyprus crises in four norwegian newspapers. (1965). Journal of Peace Research, 2(1), 64-90.
Althusser (1971) explains that, as an ideological state apparatus, media doesn’t use pressure as a way to bind society together under one dominant ideology, but instead uses the will of the people to make them accept the dominant ideology. However, media is also used as a way for people to challenge the dominant ideology. Newspapers, for example, will have articles that openly criticise and oppose the dominant ideology for what it is, whilst at the same time providing perspectives and opinions on different ideologies (such as feminism) that society can believe in. Although these alternate ideological perspectives exist, they are usually overlooked and only ever reach small audiences. Ideology can also help us understand the media because of the way in which it distributes ideology.