The Norwegian Press and the Reception of Donald Trump’s Native American Narratives

Abstract

Abstract Indigenous Peoples face a challenge in gaining visibility in western news outlets. It is well established that when they are made visible, coverage leans into representing stereotypes rather than giving voice to members of Indigenous Peoples or their spokespersons. This study aims to determine to what extent this dynamic can be found in the Norwegian Press. Specifically, it investigates the Norwegian Press and their reception of the US president Donald Trump's use of the word Pocahontas as a nickname for his political opponent US senator Elizabeth Warren.

In the Norwegian context, it is interesting how the Norwegian news outlets covered the events, and in what way they gave a stereotypical representation of Indigenous Peoples and if they made the Indigenous response to Trump's and Warren's statements visible. Furthermore, the reception in the Norwegian context should be analyzed according to the political position of the different news outlets.

To study this, a quantitative study of news articles regarding the topic, from 18 online news outlets was done. The language in the articles was then coded and each online news outlet reception was analyzed. The results showed that the Norwegian Press did use stereotyping language and words coined by Trump to a high degree. Native American and Indigenous People's voices were included only in a minority of articles, and there was a tendency for center-right wing media to give more visibility to the Native American response, than center-left wing media. The results suggest that Norwegian news outlets largely perpetuate the dynamic where Indigenous peoples are made less visible in western media. On this basis, attention should be given to how coverage is done of Indigenous issues and efforts made to give a less stereotypical representation while including Indigenous people's voices in the Norwegian Press.