The moral police

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 agenda- setting 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.