Initiatives
Blog – jury's decision on the Fritt Ord Foundation's call for applications
To contribute to a comprehensive exchange of opinions in Norway, the Fritt Ord Foundation announced the availability of MNOK 2.5 to civic-minded bloggers. The call for applications was aimed at blogs edited personally by individuals with no institutional affiliation. This afforded bloggers an opportunity to apply for funding to set up new blogs or to further develop existing blogs.
Applications for funding were accepted from individuals and small groups of people. It was also possible to invite guest bloggers. The jury has looked for bloggers who have taken journalistic and essayistic approaches.
The Fritt Ord Foundation received 219 applications for project funding in September 2010. The jury decided to award grants to 16 applicants.
Eight of the projects are new ventures. The other eight are already existing blogs that will be further developed.
The blogs focus on politics, society, the environment, health and culture.
The Fritt Ord Foundation's call for applications to fund blogs is an experimental project aimed at creating new platforms for shaping the social media in Norway. The call for applications is also an attempt to build up alternative voices. Priority has been given to blogs that facilitate debate and dialogue, and innovative projects in Norway's blog universe.
The projects will be evaluated in autumn 2011.
The applications have been reviewed by an independent jury consisting of:
Gisle Hannemyr, assistant professor, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo (chair of the jury); Marika Lüders, media researcher, Department for Cooperative and Trusted Systems, SINTEF; Sven Egil Omdal, journalist, Stavanger Aftenblad; Jill Walker Rettberg, associate professor, Department of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies, University of Bergen.
Contact:
Gisle Hannemyr, chair of the jury, mobile phone: +47 905 53659
Bente Roalsvig, project director, Fritt Ord Foundation, mobile phone: +47 916 13340
THE 16 SELECTED BLOG PROJECTS ARE:
NEW VENTURES
Walid al-Kubaisi
Blog: For the secular Muslims (www.opplystemuslimer.no)
Support granted: NOK 310 000
The blog will be established in January 2011.
What Walid al-Kubaisi says about the project: "Secular and liberal Muslims are assigned a marginal place; they are marginalised despite the fact that they account for the majority of the Muslim minority! This secular majority is equally concerned about the future if the Islamists get to dominate the debate and become representatives for the whole Muslim minority. Religionising the minority has the same function as spreading prejudices, opposition to Muslims and racism. In a secularised Europe, religion dominating politics and providing grounds for ranking the citizenry is almost a thing of the past. Yet this is taking place daily in Oslo, and it is gradually gaining momentum.
The media debate is selective and narrow. It is characterised by strong emotions and little knowledge. It is governed by culturally relativistic attitudes that permeate the public sphere and the media. It aspires to fight racism, but at the expense of facts and information. Accordingly, the debate is an expression of Norwegians' anti-racist feelings and tolerance, but it should alter conditions to encourage more integration.
What we want to do, is not to limit the blog to the debate on Islam, as the media have used Muslims thus far. No, we want to engage in the social debate about conditions in Norway."
Anders Sømme Hammer
Blog: From Afghanistan (andershammer.com)
Support granted: NOK 220 000
The blog will be established in November 2010.
What Anders Sømme Hammer says about the project: "Since June 2007, I have lived and worked as a freelance journalist in Afghanistan. Living and working in Afghanistan feels important to me. Around 80 per cent of the enquiries I get from Norwegian media have come in connection with Norwegian soldiers being injured or killed. Then my phone rings incessantly with calls from editors who want a presence and stories of grief. That is understandable, but does little to explain what happens in Afghanistan. When the flags are flying at half mast in the army camps, it seems insensitive to ask critical questions. Yet it is this coverage that has largely been given priority. Very few resources are being invested in independent reporting from Afghanistan the rest of the year. The suffering, the problems and the rest of the lives of the local population are undercommunicated. This means that we in Norway do not hear much about perspectives that can help explain why things are not going well in Afghanistan, and why the war has not led to peace.
Since I plan to continue to live in Afghanistan, I would like to publish continuously what I hear, see and think about the war and the situation as it unfolds now that the country is in its most dramatic period since 2001. By creating a blog, I want to cover the war on a regular basis, as it is experienced when you do not accompany soldiers. I want to write about the lives of civilian Afghans and my own personal experiences. And I will discuss the consequences of the ongoing warfare, and the difference between how the war is experienced in Afghanistan and how it is portrayed in Norway."
Elisabeth Breien Ellingsen
Blog: Political blog portal (bloggeriet.no)
Support granted: NOK 300 000
The blog will be established in January 2011.
What Elisabeth Breien Ellingsen says about the project: "A pilot study is needed to show the way to blogs that address social issues and generate a good debate. I would like to create a blog portal that shows the way to all the good blogs that are being written. The point is to render more voices visible, and to give readers a signpost into the blogosphere.
The point is also to foreground topics that are overlooked by other media. This is especially important and interesting in the election year 2011. We have a new media reality that is not reflected anywhere other than in fragmented blogospheres. Many follow bloggers they find interesting, and many end up in blogs accidentally through bloggers' links under articles on online newspapers. Notwithstanding, the bloggers lack a forum where new readers can find their blogs. I am of the opinion that thematic editing of a blog portal is the way to go."
Morten Øverbye and Jan Thoresen
Blog: News blog (desk.no)
Support granted: NOK 500 000
The blog will be established in January 2011.
This is what Morten Øverbye and Jan Thoresen say about the project: "From online newspapers' debate groups, it is our experience that the readers always include people with deep, relevant and frequently personal knowledge about today's most important news items. Their knowledge is often more extensive or their stories are longer than the medias' format, ranking of priorities and dramaturgy allow.
We aspire to build up a blog revolving around individuals with unique knowledge about the leading stories in the news. Using journalistic working methods and new technology, we want to democratise and open up the social debate to more voices. The blog is to be a place where everyone can participate through blog postings and open debates.
Every day, we will actively bring in individuals with unique personal knowledge of the day's most important events. This might be people who already figure in today's most important news stories, and who are quoted on the front pages of the newspapers. We aspire to give them an opportunity to amplify their points of view by telling their stories unedited and without space limitations. We will actively work with them to ensure that they receive guidance in angles of approach and writing when necessary. By actively giving the sources of today's front page headlines an opportunity to amplify points of view and tell their side of the story, we will serve as a supplement and a corrective to the dramaturgy of the major media."
Mette Lindbæk
Blog: China (kinablogg.com)
Support granted: NOK 92 500
The blog will be established in December 2010.
What Mette Lindbæk says about the project: "Interest in China and its fierce development and economic growth are considerable. There is already a lot of information about this trend, but my feeling is that South China is more of an unknown quantity, and the region is not well known in Norway.
Transparency and a liberal mindset makes the region more receptive to innovation and change, and it is especially interesting to observe how South China serves as a 'test laboratory' for political and economic reforms for the rest of China. On several occasions, the Chinese authorities have chosen to test new political and economic reforms in a limited area before possibly spreading it further across the country. South China is a such an area, a pioneering site for most of the development trends in this gigantic country.
I want this blog to foster even greater interest in China in general and South China in particular. This will be significant as I live in China and observe society personally at close range, through the eyes of a third party. Besides a general Norwegian target group, I hope the blog will be of interest to journalists and others who work in China, including Norwegian enterprises."
Hanne Tråsdahl and Marte Solbakken
Blog: Apple stealing – ethical consumption and vegetarianism (ekstremtbra.blogspot.com)
Support granted: NOK 50 000
The blog will be established in November 2010.
What Hanne Tråsdahl and Marte Solbakken say about the project: "The blog is to be a vegetarian, ethical 'feel good blog', in which we will use good pictures and entertaining contributions to communicate a message that it is possible to live as a vegetarian and sustainably, despite being young and interested in fashion. We will be sharing recipes and experiences and test products, to show a favourable and specific way to accomplish this.
We want to invite people to exchange opinions, not by being an Internet version of a debate site, but by cultivating the blog as an artistic idiom. We will mainly aim at young blog readers, especially young girls, a segment that dominates the blogosphere. We will use the 'typical girl blogs'' artistic idiom to communicate a positive ideal and to point out that there is an alternative to unscrupulous consumption. This entails a strongly personal style, with many pictures of high quality.
By monitoring other blogs on which authors express a clear value platform, we are confident that the blog will engage and provoke readers, without requiring any manifesto or letters to the editor. We are very confident that by taking the blog format seriously, we can contribute to exchanges of opinions in contexts where online debates and newspaper debates fail to reach the mark."
Lan Marie Nguyen Berg
Blog: Climate – Tuvalu (klima-tuvalu.no)
Support granted: NOK 80 000
The blog will be established in December 2010.
What Lan Marie Nguyen Berg says about the project: "My blog will address climate changes and their consequences on Tuvalu, a low-lying island state in the Pacific. By visiting the island state from December 2010 to July 2011, I want to help add to Norwegians' knowledge about climate changes and where they lead in poor, vulnerable countries such as Tuvalu.
I will explore the topic through fact-based articles, reports and interviews with local people. By inviting some of them to be guest bloggers, they can share their experiences and thoughts, so their voices will be heard. With a melange of facts, statistics, research, academic material and personal experiences, text, pictures, audio and film, I want to create a blog that features easily accessible, engaging information that will appeal to as many groups of readers as possible.
What do the people of Tuvalu think about climate change? How do they understand the changes around them? How does this differ from Norwegians' understanding of climate change? What does it mean to be a climate refugee? What happens to the families? The networks? The culture? The language? What kind of international protection do we offer the climate refugees of today and tomorrow?"
Anna Tostrup Worsley
Blog: Health blog (diagnostisert.no)
Support granted: NOK 80 000
The blog will be established in December 2010.
What Anna Tostrup Worsley says about the project: "The blog will document the Norwegian health and welfare service from the inside, with participation by patients and therapists, and it will contribute to public debate and well-rounded exchanges of opinions.
Every fourth NOK in Norway's central government budget goes to health care, i.e. about NOK 128 billion this year. We rarely hear anything specific or objective about what happens in actual practice when this money is spent, how patients experience going through the treatment system, and what it is like for health care workers and administrative officers to work there. The stories that appear in the media are usually tragic stories of illnesses and hospital mistakes that are rewritten and simplified in tabloid format.
I would like to bring more humour and more provocative, profound social criticism to the debate on the public health service. As a civic-minded chronic patient, I find that what I choose to call the 'patientification process' deprives the person who is ill of responsibility and of the choice of how he or she wants to live with his/her own health. Sickness is a gigantic industry where your diagnoses and mine are sources of income that offer a huge return, as long as we stay sick. But who is actually interested in us staying healthy? It should be the State, but thus far, the State helps by paying for acute and chronic illnesses when they are far advanced, i.e. no help for self-help or for health-promoting, preventive efforts. This is what the coordination reform seeks to improve, but with a budget of about MNOK 78 this year, as opposed to NOK 128 billion for the 'regular' health care service that is focused on illness, one might ask how much the reform can achieve."
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ALREADY EXISTING BLOGS
Jan Arild Snoen
Blog: Criticism of the media (www.minerva.as)
Support granted: NOK 75 000
What Jan Arild Snoen says about the project: "The main purpose of criticising the media is not to show that journalists have a particular agenda, but to disclose errors, selective use of facts and other contextual defects that give a misleading picture. One recurring element in my cases is that the journalist does not check the primary source. Another is that she is not discriminate about the source, particularly if the source appears to be well-intentioned and non-commercial. A few times, I have also brought up items I feel involve plagiarism or something similar. A more common criticism is single-source journalism."
Markus Gaupås Johansen and Sturle Vik Pedersen
Blog: The Satire Blog 5080.no (www.5080.no)
Support granted: NOK 230 000
What Markus Gaupås Johansen and Sturle Vik Pedersen say about the project: "There are few channels available to satirical writers. The radio programme 'Hallo i Uken' is the only dedicated large-scale communicator of satire in Norway today. 5080.no is intended to help promote a broader diversity of satirical voices in Norway's public sphere by recruiting external contributors into a more regular system of cooperation. When more individuals contribute to the production of content, more sharp voices will also be heard in the public space. Financial support will make it possible for the website to provide comments on society more often and in a manner more appropriate to the net-based news routines. 5080.no can now - through broader appeal in terms of both content and expression – participate actively in exchanges of opinion."
Maria Gjerpe
Blog: Maria's Method (www.mariasmetode.no)
Support granted: NOK 80 000
What Maria Gjerpe says about the project: "The blog takes shape and meaning as I explore, reflect on and put into words different aspects of the problems and questions that arise from the fact that I am both a patient and a licenced physician. Through blogging, I have gained a different perspective on the health services system, i.e. the vantage point of a user. In this connection, I have discovered that stigmatisation, psychologisation and health care personnel's encounter with the outer limits of their own knowledge in interaction with people who have long-term, vague disorders cause patients to suffer additional trauma due to shame and guilt. I have chosen a position from which I can 'speak freely'. This can be difficult when working on a professional team, where one must take into account careers, network building, one's own job, and the acceptance and approval of colleagues."
Ivar Johansen
Blog: Ivar Johansen's blog (www.ivarjohansen.no)
Support granted: NOK 150 000
What Ivar Johansen says about the project: "A great deal of the philosophy underlying blogs and online engagement involves lowering the threshold between elected officials and the citizenry. I try to do this by making myself as available as possible for contact/queries. Cases can be high profile or just sent out for comment, but regardless: stakeholders/skilled experts/those involved will be invited to express opinions – which will normally be made available on the Internet at the same time."
Maren Agdestein, Linn Søvig and Hedvig Myklebust
Blog: Restart revolution – what do computer games have to do with social criticism? (spillpikene.no)
Support granted: NOK 62 500
Maren Agdestein, Linn Søvig and Hedvig Myklebust about the project: "The game girls blog about games, game research and game culture. One of our goals has been to offer an alternative to the abundance of hyped up news stories in other game journalism media, and to present an alternative to game journalism characterised by time pressure and little focus on game research or contexts. With the new series entitled 'Restart revolution - what do computer games have to do with social criticism ?', we ask: Can games provide social criticism? Which examples of social responsibility have computer games and computer game culture produced?"
Pål Hivand
Blog: RE:minder – a blog about whistleblowing (www.advarsel.no)
Support granted: NOK 100 000
Pål Hivand about the project: "Employees' freedom of expression and whistleblowing in particular will be an ever more relevant topic as the emergence of social media forces operations and authorities to think about communicating in new ways. RE:minder's task in general will be to direct the spotlight at whistleblowing and freedom of expression, with special attention devoted to trying to fortify the Act so that its gives better, more well-defined protection for whistleblowers. By the same token, an ombudsman scheme should be able to protect whistleblowers from reprisals and from being rendered invisible, and protect the whistleblower (person or institution) against illegal assaults under the protection of the whistleblower institute."
Association for Master Communication – Anne Aaby
Blog: The Master Blog (masterbloggen.no)
Support granted: NOK 100 000
What the Association for Master Communication – Anne Aaby - says about the project: "The Master Blog challenges not merely the student him- or herself, but also the universities and teaching institutions whose 'products' appear in the public space. In the long run, we can help challenge the roles that exist in the world of academia, where supervisors and employees at the institutions set the agenda and thus possess a lot of power through knowledge, compared with the students and society at large. In the long term, one can envisage the Master Blog as an arena for debates between student and sensor, sensor and society, or student and reader."
Roar Sørensen and Else Berit Kristiansen
Blog: The Literary Blog (litteraturbloggen.com)
Support granted: NOK 70 000
What Roar Sørensen and Else Berit Kristiansen say about the project: "The Literary Blog aspires to be a website on which writers, journalists, writers and readers can meet to discuss literature and relevant social issues. The blog offers established writers and unpublished writers a place to post content (poem, excerpts from novels, chapters, essays, etc.) and to have their postings commented on by colleagues and others with an interest in literature."
Blog – jury's decision on the Fritt Ord Foundation's call for applications
To contribute to a comprehensive exchange of opinions in Norway, the Fritt Ord Foundation announced the availability of MNOK 2.5 to civic-minded bloggers. The call for applications was aimed at blogs edited personally by individuals with no institutional affiliation. This afforded bloggers an opportunity to apply for funding to set up new blogs or to further develop existing blogs.
Applications for funding were accepted from individuals and small groups of people. It was also possible to invite guest bloggers. The jury has looked for bloggers who have taken journalistic and essayistic approaches.
The Fritt Ord Foundation received 219 applications for project funding in September 2010. The jury decided to award grants to 16 applicants.
Eight of the projects are new ventures. The other eight are already existing blogs that will be further developed.
The blogs focus on politics, society, the environment, health and culture.
The Fritt Ord Foundation's call for applications to fund blogs is an experimental project aimed at creating new platforms for shaping the social media in Norway. The call for applications is also an attempt to build up alternative voices. Priority has been given to blogs that facilitate debate and dialogue, and innovative projects in Norway's blog universe.
The projects will be evaluated in autumn 2011.
The applications have been reviewed by an independent jury consisting of:
Gisle Hannemyr, assistant professor, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo (chair of the jury); Marika Lüders, media researcher, Department for Cooperative and Trusted Systems, SINTEF; Sven Egil Omdal, journalist, Stavanger Aftenblad; Jill Walker Rettberg, associate professor, Department of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies, University of Bergen.
Contact:
Gisle Hannemyr, chair of the jury, mobile phone: +47 905 53659
Bente Roalsvig, project director, Fritt Ord Foundation, mobile phone: +47 916 13340
THE 16 SELECTED BLOG PROJECTS ARE:
NEW VENTURES
Walid al-Kubaisi
Blog: For the secular Muslims (www.opplystemuslimer.no)
Support granted: NOK 310 000
The blog will be established in January 2011.
What Walid al-Kubaisi says about the project: "Secular and liberal Muslims are assigned a marginal place; they are marginalised despite the fact that they account for the majority of the Muslim minority! This secular majority is equally concerned about the future if the Islamists get to dominate the debate and become representatives for the whole Muslim minority. Religionising the minority has the same function as spreading prejudices, opposition to Muslims and racism. In a secularised Europe, religion dominating politics and providing grounds for ranking the citizenry is almost a thing of the past. Yet this is taking place daily in Oslo, and it is gradually gaining momentum.
The media debate is selective and narrow. It is characterised by strong emotions and little knowledge. It is governed by culturally relativistic attitudes that permeate the public sphere and the media. It aspires to fight racism, but at the expense of facts and information. Accordingly, the debate is an expression of Norwegians' anti-racist feelings and tolerance, but it should alter conditions to encourage more integration.
What we want to do, is not to limit the blog to the debate on Islam, as the media have used Muslims thus far. No, we want to engage in the social debate about conditions in Norway."
Anders Sømme Hammer
Blog: From Afghanistan (andershammer.com)
Support granted: NOK 220 000
The blog will be established in November 2010.
What Anders Sømme Hammer says about the project: "Since June 2007, I have lived and worked as a freelance journalist in Afghanistan. Living and working in Afghanistan feels important to me. Around 80 per cent of the enquiries I get from Norwegian media have come in connection with Norwegian soldiers being injured or killed. Then my phone rings incessantly with calls from editors who want a presence and stories of grief. That is understandable, but does little to explain what happens in Afghanistan. When the flags are flying at half mast in the army camps, it seems insensitive to ask critical questions. Yet it is this coverage that has largely been given priority. Very few resources are being invested in independent reporting from Afghanistan the rest of the year. The suffering, the problems and the rest of the lives of the local population are undercommunicated. This means that we in Norway do not hear much about perspectives that can help explain why things are not going well in Afghanistan, and why the war has not led to peace.
Since I plan to continue to live in Afghanistan, I would like to publish continuously what I hear, see and think about the war and the situation as it unfolds now that the country is in its most dramatic period since 2001. By creating a blog, I want to cover the war on a regular basis, as it is experienced when you do not accompany soldiers. I want to write about the lives of civilian Afghans and my own personal experiences. And I will discuss the consequences of the ongoing warfare, and the difference between how the war is experienced in Afghanistan and how it is portrayed in Norway."
Elisabeth Breien Ellingsen
Blog: Political blog portal (bloggeriet.no)
Support granted: NOK 300 000
The blog will be established in January 2011.
What Elisabeth Breien Ellingsen says about the project: "A pilot study is needed to show the way to blogs that address social issues and generate a good debate. I would like to create a blog portal that shows the way to all the good blogs that are being written. The point is to render more voices visible, and to give readers a signpost into the blogosphere.
The point is also to foreground topics that are overlooked by other media. This is especially important and interesting in the election year 2011. We have a new media reality that is not reflected anywhere other than in fragmented blogospheres. Many follow bloggers they find interesting, and many end up in blogs accidentally through bloggers' links under articles on online newspapers. Notwithstanding, the bloggers lack a forum where new readers can find their blogs. I am of the opinion that thematic editing of a blog portal is the way to go."
Morten Øverbye and Jan Thoresen
Blog: News blog (desk.no)
Support granted: NOK 500 000
The blog will be established in January 2011.
This is what Morten Øverbye and Jan Thoresen say about the project: "From online newspapers' debate groups, it is our experience that the readers always include people with deep, relevant and frequently personal knowledge about today's most important news items. Their knowledge is often more extensive or their stories are longer than the medias' format, ranking of priorities and dramaturgy allow.
We aspire to build up a blog revolving around individuals with unique knowledge about the leading stories in the news. Using journalistic working methods and new technology, we want to democratise and open up the social debate to more voices. The blog is to be a place where everyone can participate through blog postings and open debates.
Every day, we will actively bring in individuals with unique personal knowledge of the day's most important events. This might be people who already figure in today's most important news stories, and who are quoted on the front pages of the newspapers. We aspire to give them an opportunity to amplify their points of view by telling their stories unedited and without space limitations. We will actively work with them to ensure that they receive guidance in angles of approach and writing when necessary. By actively giving the sources of today's front page headlines an opportunity to amplify points of view and tell their side of the story, we will serve as a supplement and a corrective to the dramaturgy of the major media."
Mette Lindbæk
Blog: China (kinablogg.com)
Support granted: NOK 92 500
The blog will be established in December 2010.
What Mette Lindbæk says about the project: "Interest in China and its fierce development and economic growth are considerable. There is already a lot of information about this trend, but my feeling is that South China is more of an unknown quantity, and the region is not well known in Norway.
Transparency and a liberal mindset makes the region more receptive to innovation and change, and it is especially interesting to observe how South China serves as a 'test laboratory' for political and economic reforms for the rest of China. On several occasions, the Chinese authorities have chosen to test new political and economic reforms in a limited area before possibly spreading it further across the country. South China is a such an area, a pioneering site for most of the development trends in this gigantic country.
I want this blog to foster even greater interest in China in general and South China in particular. This will be significant as I live in China and observe society personally at close range, through the eyes of a third party. Besides a general Norwegian target group, I hope the blog will be of interest to journalists and others who work in China, including Norwegian enterprises."
Hanne Tråsdahl and Marte Solbakken
Blog: Apple stealing – ethical consumption and vegetarianism (ekstremtbra.blogspot.com)
Support granted: NOK 50 000
The blog will be established in November 2010.
What Hanne Tråsdahl and Marte Solbakken say about the project: "The blog is to be a vegetarian, ethical 'feel good blog', in which we will use good pictures and entertaining contributions to communicate a message that it is possible to live as a vegetarian and sustainably, despite being young and interested in fashion. We will be sharing recipes and experiences and test products, to show a favourable and specific way to accomplish this.
We want to invite people to exchange opinions, not by being an Internet version of a debate site, but by cultivating the blog as an artistic idiom. We will mainly aim at young blog readers, especially young girls, a segment that dominates the blogosphere. We will use the 'typical girl blogs'' artistic idiom to communicate a positive ideal and to point out that there is an alternative to unscrupulous consumption. This entails a strongly personal style, with many pictures of high quality.
By monitoring other blogs on which authors express a clear value platform, we are confident that the blog will engage and provoke readers, without requiring any manifesto or letters to the editor. We are very confident that by taking the blog format seriously, we can contribute to exchanges of opinions in contexts where online debates and newspaper debates fail to reach the mark."
Lan Marie Nguyen Berg
Blog: Climate – Tuvalu (klima-tuvalu.no)
Support granted: NOK 80 000
The blog will be established in December 2010.
What Lan Marie Nguyen Berg says about the project: "My blog will address climate changes and their consequences on Tuvalu, a low-lying island state in the Pacific. By visiting the island state from December 2010 to July 2011, I want to help add to Norwegians' knowledge about climate changes and where they lead in poor, vulnerable countries such as Tuvalu.
I will explore the topic through fact-based articles, reports and interviews with local people. By inviting some of them to be guest bloggers, they can share their experiences and thoughts, so their voices will be heard. With a melange of facts, statistics, research, academic material and personal experiences, text, pictures, audio and film, I want to create a blog that features easily accessible, engaging information that will appeal to as many groups of readers as possible.
What do the people of Tuvalu think about climate change? How do they understand the changes around them? How does this differ from Norwegians' understanding of climate change? What does it mean to be a climate refugee? What happens to the families? The networks? The culture? The language? What kind of international protection do we offer the climate refugees of today and tomorrow?"
Anna Tostrup Worsley
Blog: Health blog (diagnostisert.no)
Support granted: NOK 80 000
The blog will be established in December 2010.
What Anna Tostrup Worsley says about the project: "The blog will document the Norwegian health and welfare service from the inside, with participation by patients and therapists, and it will contribute to public debate and well-rounded exchanges of opinions.
Every fourth NOK in Norway's central government budget goes to health care, i.e. about NOK 128 billion this year. We rarely hear anything specific or objective about what happens in actual practice when this money is spent, how patients experience going through the treatment system, and what it is like for health care workers and administrative officers to work there. The stories that appear in the media are usually tragic stories of illnesses and hospital mistakes that are rewritten and simplified in tabloid format.
I would like to bring more humour and more provocative, profound social criticism to the debate on the public health service. As a civic-minded chronic patient, I find that what I choose to call the 'patientification process' deprives the person who is ill of responsibility and of the choice of how he or she wants to live with his/her own health. Sickness is a gigantic industry where your diagnoses and mine are sources of income that offer a huge return, as long as we stay sick. But who is actually interested in us staying healthy? It should be the State, but thus far, the State helps by paying for acute and chronic illnesses when they are far advanced, i.e. no help for self-help or for health-promoting, preventive efforts. This is what the coordination reform seeks to improve, but with a budget of about MNOK 78 this year, as opposed to NOK 128 billion for the 'regular' health care service that is focused on illness, one might ask how much the reform can achieve."
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ALREADY EXISTING BLOGS
Jan Arild Snoen
Blog: Criticism of the media (www.minerva.as)
Support granted: NOK 75 000
What Jan Arild Snoen says about the project: "The main purpose of criticising the media is not to show that journalists have a particular agenda, but to disclose errors, selective use of facts and other contextual defects that give a misleading picture. One recurring element in my cases is that the journalist does not check the primary source. Another is that she is not discriminate about the source, particularly if the source appears to be well-intentioned and non-commercial. A few times, I have also brought up items I feel involve plagiarism or something similar. A more common criticism is single-source journalism."
Markus Gaupås Johansen and Sturle Vik Pedersen
Blog: The Satire Blog 5080.no (www.5080.no)
Support granted: NOK 230 000
What Markus Gaupås Johansen and Sturle Vik Pedersen say about the project: "There are few channels available to satirical writers. The radio programme 'Hallo i Uken' is the only dedicated large-scale communicator of satire in Norway today. 5080.no is intended to help promote a broader diversity of satirical voices in Norway's public sphere by recruiting external contributors into a more regular system of cooperation. When more individuals contribute to the production of content, more sharp voices will also be heard in the public space. Financial support will make it possible for the website to provide comments on society more often and in a manner more appropriate to the net-based news routines. 5080.no can now - through broader appeal in terms of both content and expression – participate actively in exchanges of opinion."
Maria Gjerpe
Blog: Maria's Method (www.mariasmetode.no)
Support granted: NOK 80 000
What Maria Gjerpe says about the project: "The blog takes shape and meaning as I explore, reflect on and put into words different aspects of the problems and questions that arise from the fact that I am both a patient and a licenced physician. Through blogging, I have gained a different perspective on the health services system, i.e. the vantage point of a user. In this connection, I have discovered that stigmatisation, psychologisation and health care personnel's encounter with the outer limits of their own knowledge in interaction with people who have long-term, vague disorders cause patients to suffer additional trauma due to shame and guilt. I have chosen a position from which I can 'speak freely'. This can be difficult when working on a professional team, where one must take into account careers, network building, one's own job, and the acceptance and approval of colleagues."
Ivar Johansen
Blog: Ivar Johansen's blog (www.ivarjohansen.no)
Support granted: NOK 150 000
What Ivar Johansen says about the project: "A great deal of the philosophy underlying blogs and online engagement involves lowering the threshold between elected officials and the citizenry. I try to do this by making myself as available as possible for contact/queries. Cases can be high profile or just sent out for comment, but regardless: stakeholders/skilled experts/those involved will be invited to express opinions – which will normally be made available on the Internet at the same time."
Maren Agdestein, Linn Søvig and Hedvig Myklebust
Blog: Restart revolution – what do computer games have to do with social criticism? (spillpikene.no)
Support granted: NOK 62 500
Maren Agdestein, Linn Søvig and Hedvig Myklebust about the project: "The game girls blog about games, game research and game culture. One of our goals has been to offer an alternative to the abundance of hyped up news stories in other game journalism media, and to present an alternative to game journalism characterised by time pressure and little focus on game research or contexts. With the new series entitled 'Restart revolution - what do computer games have to do with social criticism ?', we ask: Can games provide social criticism? Which examples of social responsibility have computer games and computer game culture produced?"
Pål Hivand
Blog: RE:minder – a blog about whistleblowing (www.advarsel.no)
Support granted: NOK 100 000
Pål Hivand about the project: "Employees' freedom of expression and whistleblowing in particular will be an ever more relevant topic as the emergence of social media forces operations and authorities to think about communicating in new ways. RE:minder's task in general will be to direct the spotlight at whistleblowing and freedom of expression, with special attention devoted to trying to fortify the Act so that its gives better, more well-defined protection for whistleblowers. By the same token, an ombudsman scheme should be able to protect whistleblowers from reprisals and from being rendered invisible, and protect the whistleblower (person or institution) against illegal assaults under the protection of the whistleblower institute."
Association for Master Communication – Anne Aaby
Blog: The Master Blog (masterbloggen.no)
Support granted: NOK 100 000
What the Association for Master Communication – Anne Aaby - says about the project: "The Master Blog challenges not merely the student him- or herself, but also the universities and teaching institutions whose 'products' appear in the public space. In the long run, we can help challenge the roles that exist in the world of academia, where supervisors and employees at the institutions set the agenda and thus possess a lot of power through knowledge, compared with the students and society at large. In the long term, one can envisage the Master Blog as an arena for debates between student and sensor, sensor and society, or student and reader."
Roar Sørensen and Else Berit Kristiansen
Blog: The Literary Blog (litteraturbloggen.com)
Support granted: NOK 70 000
What Roar Sørensen and Else Berit Kristiansen say about the project: "The Literary Blog aspires to be a website on which writers, journalists, writers and readers can meet to discuss literature and relevant social issues. The blog offers established writers and unpublished writers a place to post content (poem, excerpts from novels, chapters, essays, etc.) and to have their postings commented on by colleagues and others with an interest in literature."
Initiatives