Conflicting Countries - Conflicting Perspectives?

In August 2001, a dramatic diplomatic dispute, the Tampa Crisis, played out for eight days between Australia and Norway. The Australian Prime Minister John Howard refused to allow the Norwegian cargo ship "MS Tampa" to enter Australian waters with 438 refugees it had rescued at sea, and Howard capitalized on the crisis to secure his re-election. This research project examines news coverage of the Tampa crisis in Australian and Norwegian newspapers, employing quantitative content analysis and discourse analysis. Similarities and differences are examined and discussed in the light of Hallin & Mancini’s models for comparing media systems. The project also examines which news values were given prominence, and whether “enemy images” were formed.The study shows that the Australian newspapers primarily focused on people smuggling and realpolitik, while the Norwegian newspapers presented the Tampa crisis as an attack on Norway and on humanitarian standards deep-rooted in the Norwegian self-image. While the Norwegian newspapers conveyed enemy images of Australia as a nation, there were few enemy images of Norway to be found in the Australian newspapers.