The Alarmed Citizen: Fear, Mistrust, and Alternative Media

ABSTRACT

The democratic role and authority of the news media rest on a basic premise of trust delegation, whereby citizens confide in the news media to provide sufficiently relevant and accurate information. In a time of dwindling trust levels, increasing polarization, and an abundance of new media, this article asks what characterizes citizens’ relations with the media when the relation of trust breaks down. To illuminate broader tendencies of mistrust and disengagement, the article analyzes how citizens who see current immigration patterns as a major threat evaluate established and alternative news media, navigate the news landscape, and create personal and selective news repertoires. From an abductive methodological approach, 24 in-depth qualitative interviews were analyzed in continuous dialogue with theories on trust, public connection, and the democratic role of citizens to conceptualize the alarmed citizen, who’s public connection is characterized by alertness, fear, and low institutional trust; the active shifting between alternative media and established news media, and the construction of personal news repertoires and supportive networks.

KEYWORDS:

• Media trust
• citizen roles
• alternative media
• news repertoires
• criticality
• immigration
• public connection

The relationship between media and citizens rests on a vital premise of trust, whereby people confide in the ability of the professional news media to supply sufficiently relevant and accurate information, providing the ground for public orientation and democratic participation. This article explores what characterizes citizens’ relations with the media when this premise of trust is not taken as given.

The immediate background for this query are the many studies of dwindling audience trust in the established news media in Western societies (Hanitzsch, van Dalen, and Steindl 2018; Newman et al. 2019). Lower trust in the news media is often associated with lower trust in political institutions (Hanitzsch, van Dalen, and Steindl 2018), the rise of populist movements, anti-immigration attitudes (Moe, Thorbjørnsrud, and Fladmoe 2017; Newman et al. 2019) and polarization.Citizens who identify with conservative or right-wing parties show less confidence in the news than those who identify with the (liberal) left (Moe, Thorbjørnsrud, and Fladmoe 2017; Newman et al. 2019). Trust in the media is furthermore related to socio-demographic variables, and studies find that young age, low education and income is associated with lower engagement with and trust in the news media (e.g., Williams 2012; Newman et al. 2019).

Importantly, decreasing trust levels are linked to an abundance of new media platforms and outlets, providing alternative sources of information outside of the established news media (Newman et al., 2019). Using social media as the main news source in combination with alternative online news sources is related to lower trust in the news (Tsfati and Capella 2003; Fletcher and Park 2017; Kohring 2020; Newman et al. 2019). Individuals with populist convictions use alternative and hyper-partisan media more often, and tend to have lower trust in the established news media (Müller and Schulz 2019; Newman et al. 2019).

Emphasizing the above-mentioned audience attributes, studies of media trust have largely been based on survey data. What such surveys cannot reveal, however, is the lived experience of citizens, people’s actual encounters, evaluations, and use of news media in everyday settings. In a time when journalistic authority and news coverage practices are debated intensely, studies of how audience groups evaluate news in an increasingly crowded media landscape remain few (Livio and Cohen 2018). Particularly, studies of audience perceptions of so-called alternative media have been almost non-existent (but see Noppari, Hiltunen, and Ahva 2019; Rauch 2019; Schwarzenegger 2020, for contributions).

Responding to this gap, this study focuses on one group associated with low levels of trust in survey studies—namely, citizens who are critical of current immigration rates and what they see as failed integration policies, fearing the consequences of an increasingly multicultural society. Based on 24 in-depth interviews with Norwegian immigration critics, the article seeks to understand how this group, which distrusts the news media and political elites, evaluates, navigates, and engages with established and alternative media. From an abductive methodological approach (Timmermans and Tavory 2012), in-depth qualitative interview data are analyzed in continuous dialogue with theories of the democratic role of media and citizens. Departing from the discussion dating back to Lippman vs. Dewey (see e.g., Allan 2009) and extending the models of the informed versus the monitorial citizen (Schudson 1999; Delli Carpini 2000), we conceptualize the alarmed citizen whose public connection is characterized by pessimistic judgements of societal development, low trust in the ability of the established media to convey vital information, and tailored personal alternative information networks.

Trust as Prerequisite for Modern Democracies: Citizen Models and News Standards

Modern societies are characterized by enormous complexity and the delegation of responsibility and trust to specialized expert institutions (Coleman 2012). Such delegation always involves taking a risk, as individuals surrender control to different expert systems (Kohring and Matthes 2007; Kohring 2020). In information-rich societies, the established news media traditionally represent the authoritative institution responsible for keeping citizens informed, enabling deliberation and democratic participation (Christians et al. 2009). Trust in the established news is as such fundamentally based on the expectation that the information provided by the media is true and relevant, and that journalists adhere to norms of accuracy, impartiality, and comprehensiveness (Coleman 2012). Per se,this dependency on professional reporters/editors involves the risk of being misled and even deceived (Kohring 2020). To take this risk invariably involves an element of pragmatism. The news media is hardly expected to fulfill lofty ideals beyond dispute, in practice, what counts is that they are judged to provide sufficiently relevant and correct information. What amounts to “sufficient” with regard to the standards of real-life news and citizens’ knowledge formation however, has been debated for more than a decade. Indeed, the context and arguments of current debates in many ways mirror the dispute between Lippmann (1922, 1925) and Dewey (1927). Much like in the pre-war period, pessimistic diagnosis of the state of democracy and media are rampant today, spurred by political and economic crisis; disruptive changes in media technologies and markets; and, the growth of polarizing group cleavages and populist movements. Moreover, the receipt for how to meet the perceived deficiencies of news quality and access to informed deliberation have largely followed two distinct traditions from Dewey and Lippman to today.

The first tradition, following Dewey, has continuously defended an ambitious ideal for the news media and citizens alike. In this model, the informed citizen should be thoroughly informed about the political issues and democratic processes of the day, based on their access to relevant and accurate news (e.g., Delli Carpini 2000). From Dewey (1927) to contemporary debates on citizen journalism and networked public spheres, this ideal tend to be combined with a standard for citizens’ involvement based on a model of participatory democracy, where citizens are enabled to refine and develop their capacities for deliberation, political judgement, and active democratic involvement. Overall, within this tradition, when reality fails to live up to news standards and participatory ideals, improvement and reforms have been called for, rather than adjusting the participatory ideals as such.

Extending key arguments of Lippmann (1922, 1925), Schudson (2008) argues that both the ideal of a full news standard and the belief in an a fully informedt citizen are highly unrealistic. Rather, Schudson (1999, 2015) proposes a pragmatic approach to the functions of the news media and the role of citizens, the latter coined the monitorial citizen. His argument is that in a society with an ever-increasing flow of information, most people will be neither able to follow and assimilate the wide spectrum of current affairs and politics in detail, nor be interested in doing so (see Graber 2003, for dicussion). At the same time, monitorial citizens are alert enough and ready to respond, if necessary, to news that actually affects their lives. Following this more pragmatic approach to the role of citizens, Zaller (2003) argues that the news media’s responsibility is not to cover all events comprehensively, as long as they call the alarm and catch the public’s attention when something of vital importance happen.¹

With the rise of digital platforms and user-generated content from the late 1990s onwards, both the ideal of the engaged informed citizens and the more pragmatic model of the monitorial citizens gained renewed attention. On the one hand, a new optimism related to the deliberative potential of new forms of citizen-oriented, participatory journalism and online participation revitalized Dewey’s ideals of an engaged and informed communities (e.g., Allan 2009; Hermida et al. 2011; Quandt 2018). On the other hand, emphasizing the overwhelming amount of information and news sources in the hybrid media landscape, other scholars found the monitorial citizen approach timely and reactualized. Being “approximately” informed (Ytre-Arne and Moe 2018) with access to “relatively” accurate and relevant information (Nielsen 2017) is argued to reflect actual news use today. Moreover, the digitalization of news facilitates the ringing of “alarm bells” through news push alerts and apps (Ytre-Arne and Moe 2018) and algorithmic news recommenders (Helberger 2019).

The Alarmed Citizen: From Institutional to Personal Trust?

Today, the hopes for a rejuvenation of journalism and democracy through online participation and deliberation is replaced by (an emerging) pessimism (see Quandt 2018, for comprehnsive discussion). The vision of an informed public, engaged in a productive dialogue with professional news makers seems increasingly distant. To understand emerging citizen roles in a hybrid media lanndscape, we argue that both the notion of the informed and the monitorial citizen call for critical assessment. In particular, the basic premise of trust that underlies both models warrants critical discussion.

As noted by Graves (2017), the role of citizens as outlined in the pragmatic tradition from Lippman to Schudson, indeed presupposes a high degree of institutional trust. Citizens are expected to confide in elite institutions and experts (professional journalists, think tanks, interest groups) to act wisely and with integrity on their behalf, so that they can safely attend to their daily personal lives. It is a prerequisite that these expert institutions avoid becoming a “class of experts” inclined to cater for their own interests rather than the common best (Dewey 1927). Although the more idealistic tradition of the informed citizen do not prescribe the same level of outsourcing of responsibility, it nevertheless relies on the premise that the public can confide in trustworthy, high-quality news to keep informed (e.g., Quandt 2018).

In this study however, we identify a citizen role that does not concur with neither the ideal of the informed citizen, nor the monitorial citizen. Rather, we find an audience group we categorize as alarmed citizen, characterized by low institutional trust and a belief that both the governing elites and the established news media fail to keep them safe and informed. This distrust is combined with active scrutiny of sectors of society these citizens are highly engaged in, based on the formation of personalized information networks of hybrid media.

To get a better grip on the different types and level of (dis)trust activated for these citizens, we arguably need to unpack the complexities of institutional versus interpersonal trust.

First, trust in the media as an authoritative institution is a complex phenomenon, and one key distinction is between diffuse/general support (adherence to the core values in the media system) and specific support (evaluation of media professionals’ performance) (see e.g., Norris 2017). These different levels of (dis)trust have different implications: If citizens’ support for the founding ideals of the media, such as press freedom, freedom of speech, and media diversity, collapses and an anti-systemic critique emerges, this is seen as a type of “cynicism” that threaten the support for democratic societies as a whole (Tsfati and Ariely 2014; Holt 1919). Evaluating existing media institutions’ performance and how they live up to their normative ideals in practice, does not involve this type of systemic threat, rather, it is seen as beneficial for democracy that citizens are able to hold the established news media accountable (e.g., Wyatt 2007). Trusting the performance of news media involves trusting the media’s production processes and professional assessments: that the media focus on the topics and events relevant to the public; that those events are reported, contextualized, and explained; and that facts are accurate and information is verified (e.g., Kohring and Matthes 2007). The less transparent and open these selection and production processes are, the more dependent the system will be on high levels of institutional trust (Quandt 2012).

Second, media based on interpersonal trust rather than trust in the news media as an institution, is increasingly challenging professional media (Quandt 2012). These new media, such as social media, so-called “alternative media”² and blogs, are primarily emerging outside the professional media organizations. Particularly emerging far-right alternative media, operating outside professional norms and ethical codes, have been controversial and criticized for being hyper-partisan, manipulative and “fake” (Holt 1919). At the same time these alternative media have become vocal critics of the established media (Figenschou and Ihlebæk 2019). Of particular importance here, rather than acting within the professional realms, these alternative media build trust and engagement through an opinionated content, which enables these media to thrive in networked information structures based on personal connections and peer-based, interpersonal trust (Sterrett et al. 2019).

This new information landscape have ignited intense debates over the position of the established news media as an authoritative expert system (e.g., Waisbord 2013), pushing media organizations to engage in boundary-work to distance themselves from emerging non-professional actors (e.g., Carlson 2017). News audiences today navigate across these boundaries of professional and non-professional actors, combining and evaluating information from a vast number of media sources (Schwarzenegger 2020). Some construct personal news repertoires—catering to their needs and interests—and develop strategies to evaluate what information and media they find interesting, important, and trustworthy (Coleman 2012; Livio and Cohen 2018; Moe et al. 2020; Schwarzenegger 2020).

Within extant studies of news audiences, including both surveys and interview-based studies, the different types and levels of trust in the media outlined above have often been poorly operationalized (Williams 2012). This makes it difficult to assess what type of distrust is actually measured (Fisher 2016), and by consequence, also to what extent evaluations of trust in the news are expressions of anti-systemic cynicism, legitimate criticism or a mixture of the two (see Figenschou and Ihlebæk 2019).

The present study aims to illuminate such evaluations of trust, by zooming in on one group of citizens who are deeply anxious about contemporary societal development and critical of political authorities and the established media, a group we label alarmed citizens. By analyzing their strategies, practices and evaluations in every-day-life, we aim to provide insights into the broader processes of falling institutional trust and polarization from a citizen perspective. To contextualize the study, we first outline the Norwegian case in a broader European context, after which we elaborate on our methodological choices.

The Norwegian Case: Media System, Political Context, and Patterns of Trust

The Media Landscape

Norway is a small, stable, multiparty democracy, with a robust economy and an advanced welfare state. The Norwegian media system belongs to a Nordic model (Hallin and Mancini 2004; Brüggermann et al. 2014) characterized by a strong journalistic profession, active media policies and press subsidies, a traditionally wide newspaper reach, and a strong public service broadcaster. The media landscape is changing fast, however, and Norway ranks high on indexes for use of new technology and digital platforms (Moe and Sakariassen 2018). Like other Western democracies, Norway has seen a rise of partisan, alternative media in recent decades. The most popular are immigration-critical alternative media (reaching 7% weekly use, Newman et al. 2019), largely focusing on the negative effects of mass immigration, the impact of conservative Islam, and criticism of the mainstream media (Figenschou and Ihlebæk, 2019).

Immigration Policy and Political Debate

Conflicts and debates over immigration are not new in the Norwegian context. From the 1960s onward, large-scale immigration has become a permanent phenomenon (Brochmann and Kjeldstadli 2008), with immigrants comprising 18% of the Norwegian population in 2019.³ In recent years, immigration has been among the issues about which voters are most concerned, and it is a highly contested political issue. Approximately one-half of the population prefer stricter immigration policies, much in line with the European average (Pew 2019). Calls for more restrictive immigration policies largely follow a divide between “liberal elites” (with higher cultural capital and education) and a traditional working class. In line with studies of media elites (e.g., Benson 2013), studies find that journalists are positioned further to the political left than the general population (Moe, Thorbjørnsrud, and Fladmoe 2017) and actively distance themselves from immigration critics (Steen-Johnsen and Enjolras 2016).

While the established political parties have been reluctant to profile their politics on immigration, the Norwegian Progress Party has responded to this issue by gradually increasing its standing as an anti-immigration party. The party has been more integrated into the political establishment than other European right-wing parties (Jupskås 2015) and has taken part in the conservative coalition government (2013–2020), although central politicians remain controversial.

Patterns of Trust

Norway is characterized by a high degree of social and political trust (Wollebæk et al. 2012). Concerning trust in the news media, however, Norway represents an average case, with 46% of the audience trusting the news most of the time (Moe and Sakariassen 2018). Furthermore, patterns of trust follow political divides, as right-leaning voters have less confidence in major national news providers and greater trust in immigration-critical alternative media (2018). Norwegians have a comparatively high level of trust in the news media as watchdogs (monitoring and scrutinizing the powerful) (Newman et al. 2019); but express a low degree of confidence in their impartiality (Moe, Thorbjørnsrud, and Fladmoe 2017). Rather than regarding journalists as neutral, respondents with negative attitudes to immigration especially see journalists as being politically biased.

In sum, Norway provides a relevant context for an investigation of fine-grained mechanisms of media distrust. While representing a country with general high trust levels, patterns of distrust in the media are representative for other Western democratic countries, the same applies for conflicts related to immigration and the raise of populist political parties.

Method and Data

This study was based on 24 in-depth interviews with people who self-identified as “immigration critics,” positioning themselves as strongly opposed to current Norwegian immigration and integration policy and discontented with the established news media’s coverage of this topic. They criticized what they saw as failed multiculturalism. Instead, they support the assimilation of immigrants into national and Western culture, and they want to strictly limit immigration to Norway, voicing their support for what they perceive to be vital liberal rights rooted in a Western tradition (freedom of speech, freedom of religion, gender equality). It is important to stress that this is not an analysis of media perceptions by extreme right-wing actors (e.g., Baugut and Neumann 2019). Rather, the intention is to study an audience that does not support undemocratic means, violence, or race ideologies, and which does not participate in hateful debates (i.e., acts of hate speech, trolling behavior, online threats). Being aware of the grey zones and scholarly disagreements over what constitutes racism, our sampling process included the screening of interviewees’ activities on social media over an extended period of time. This was done by following immigration-focused networks on Facebook as well as debates on immigration and integration in alternative media, platforms, and outlets that we have analyzed in previous publications (Moe, Thorbjørnsrud, and Fladmoe 2017; Figenschou and Ihlebæk, 2019). This way, we could make a thorough assessment of their positions. After this process, we ultimately excluded one of the original interviews (interviewee 25, 2018), as it included examples of harassment of other online debaters.

The interviewees were recruited based on several approaches—via personal networks, the interviewees’ networks, or through their engagement in public immigration debates. Recruitment was challenging and time-consuming given the sensitivity and politicization of the immigration issue. For some, it is difficult to trust researchers. For others, being recruited to represent immigration critics was deemed risky, even though they were promised anonymity. We sought to recruit interviewees who represented a variety of genders, ages, and educational and professional backgrounds. Ultimately, we recruited 16 men and 8 women. One-half of the interviewees lived in the capital, Oslo, while the other one-half resided in the south and east of Norway, from small towns to larger cities. All interviewees were adults, most of whom were between 30–60 years old, worked in a range of professions (as teachers, economists, civil servants, IT consultants, local politicians, librarians, writers, craftsmen, and farmers, among others). A majority had a background in higher education, a few had received a vocational education, and some were students. Most interviewees had voted for the Progress Party, and some were active in local chapters of the party; some did not have a clear party affiliation, whereas others had voted for the main social democratic or conservative party. As will be discussed in the analysis, one group of interviewees largely kept their position on immigration to themselves, whereas others were writers, bloggers, or local politicians who were publicly engaged in the issue. To preserve the interviewees’ anonymity while distinguishing them from each other, they are introduced here with only minimal background information and are identified with a number between 1 and 24.

Due to cumbersome recruitment processes, the interviews were conducted over a period of three years, starting in 2016 (13 interviews), with supplementary interviews completed in 2018/2019 (11 interviews). Although the interviews largely covered the same issues, there were some contextual differences worth noting: For many of the 2016 interviewees, the 2015 refugee crisis intensified their involvement in the issue and hence their critique of the media and political establishment. Among those interviewed in 2018/2019, many reported that the established news media coverage of the immigration issue had broadened, including more critical voices, but that the immigration debate had become even more polarized than before. With regard to more general perceptions and evaluations, the two interview rounds provided similar results, indicating that the state of “the alarmed” citizen is not limited to specific, short-term events.

The semi-structured interviews, each lasting 60–90 min, were based on face-to-face meetings. All interviews were recorded and transcribed by a research assistant. The project was reviewed by the National Data Protection Services (NSD) and followed the guidelines from the National Committee for Research Ethics in the Social Sciences and the Humanities (NESH). All interviews proceeded under the condition of anonymity. The interview transcripts were coded, with the codes reflecting the main topics in the interview guide, including media use and practices, perceptions of the established media and alternative information sources, and expressions of trust/engagement and mistrust/disengagement.

The aim here is to analyze the positions of the participants and to give them a voice in a non-judgmental way. This does not imply the absence of critical questions, as taking people seriously involves challenging their views by probing the implications of their opinions. This approach, common in qualitative studies, is not often used studying the people in focus – those critical to immigration, media and political establishments.

Analysis

Becoming Alarmed

A common denominator for the participants in this study was a feeling of unrest and threat, based on the perception that society was vulnerable and subject to wide-ranging negative changes. Many described different types of “awakening processes,” how they first realized that society was moving in the wrong direction. For one group, their engagement was evoked by personal experiences and what they saw as dramatic demographic changes in their local neighborhoods. They felt that local authorities and broader society had ignored their experiences, and that the established news media trivialized the challenges they faced. The following statement from a young interviewee who grew up in a suburb of the capital illustrates the belief that the media mutes these negative experiences:

Where are the people who had to move and change schools because they were bullied for being ethnic Norwegian? I have talked to hundreds of people who have experienced this, but I have never seen their stories in the media […] Most probably they do not dare to come forward, for fear of being labeled racists or fearing the media would look up sources that counter their experiences and delegitimize their story (Interviewee 23, 2019).

Other interviewees related their “awakening” to disruptive international events, such as the Fatwa on Salman Rushdie, the 11 September terror attacks (2001), the Mohammed cartoon crisis (2006), the Charlie Hebdo shooting (2015), the New Year’s Eve sexual assaults in Germany (2015), or the international refugee crisis (2015–2016), as exemplified by this statement:

Before the migration crisis in 2015 I behaved like everybody else. I lived my life, occupied with job and family. I did not shed much thought on immigration at all, I might have suppressed the issue in my head actually, thinking that it kind of was under control, and that most things turn out fine in the long run. Then, when thousands of people crossed the borders just like that, literally walking and bicycling into Norway without anyone there to stop them—I got a wake-up call. I realized that “No, there is no one at home!” No one on watch to look after this on behalf of the rest of us. (Interviewee 6, 2019).

In general, the interviewees conveyed the belief that the experts’ regimes they had once counted on—politicians, journalists, and researchers—did not realize just how serious the ongoing threat of immigration is. As lay citizens, they saw the “warning signs,” but the authorities, in their view, partly downplayed, partly ignored them. Although the professional news media do not call it a crisis, the way the interviewees see it, an existential threat is looming (cf. Zaller 2003). Rather than constituting a rejection of the foundational principles of a free press based on norms of impartiality and relevance, the expressed distrust of the interviewees instead reflects a repudiation based on their evaluations of performance—the perceived inability of the professional media to live up to their own ideals (cf. Livio and Cohen 2018). In other words, the interviewees were questioning the media’s professional assessments as well as how they selected and presented information vital to citizens (cf. Kohring and Matthes 2007).

The Poor Performance of the News Media

Three main strands of criticism were repeatedly voiced across the interviews. First, it was commonly argued that the news media fail to convey the threat of immigration on the macro level. A number of interviewees found that although the media address singular incidents related to immigration, they do not cover what is seen as the overarching threats—the media “do not connect the dots.” In the words of one interviewee: “The media hardly mention the economic burden. There are some op-ed pieces here and there, but gang rapes, terror attacks, these phenomena are still treated as isolated incidents” (Interviewee1, 2018). For the majority, this perceived lack of perspective was linked to a lack of expertise on both immigration trends and statistical methods among media professionals. One interviewee, who was personally engaged in macro analysis and prognosis, exemplified this position:

Journalists and commentators are solid people, but they have very limited knowledge about these issues. The main reason I mistrust them, is that they write too much and read too little and consequently end up repeating utopian, idealistic rubbish—what they believe in and hope for […] They do not bother to build on knowledge and projections, and consequently, end in wishful thinking and moralism (Interviewee 16, 2016).

Related to claims of lacking knowledge, a second objection was that media coverage tends to be overly emotional, reflecting what is viewed as a pro-immigration bias. One interviewee, who worked as a librarian, voiced this concern quite bluntly: “This whole “refugee crisis,” that they call it, it is so one-sided: crying children, when you know most of those who come they are young men […] The media do not prepare us for what is coming […] I fear for my daughters’ safety, for crowds out of control, for girls’ freedom from social control, for gender equality” (Interviewee19, 2016). Similar views were expressed in many interviews, where media coverage was considered “misleading” or “dishonest.” Over time, the interviewees argued, positive, non-representative stories of successful immigrants are systematically highlighted, whereas the negative structural consequences are dismissed. It should be noted here that many of the interviewees recognized that more critical arguments and different positions have been included in the coverage of immigration in recent years, although this trend was often viewed as “too little, too late.”

A third main objection among the interviewees concerned the perceived stigmatization of those actors critical of current immigration policies. All of the interviewees argued that access to the news media is limited and conditional. Some claimed that journalists grant visibility only to those “on the inside,” while those who have critical viewpoints are often misrepresented and demonized. The following quote from an older interviewee with a career in public administration encapsulates this position: “I believe we need to pay attention to what is not working, and that we must be able to have a critical approach, without being labeled this or that. […] When someone tries to address negative developments, they are immediately labeled ‘racists’ or ‘liars’” (Interviewee 5, 2018). For the interviewees, the framing of immigration critics in the established news media as “immoral” and “evil” felt particularly unjust and emotionally upsetting. This perspective contends that not only are the media failing in their responsibility as experts and authoritative knowers (cf. Schudson 2015), they are also questioning and undermining the engagement of lay whistleblowers when they seek to warn others. For many, this framing, in which actors aiming for a more restrictive immigration policy are represented as morally inferior or deviant, is seen as deeply unfair and frustrating, provoking them to action and intensifying their sense of emergency.

For most interviewees, the perceived reluctance on the part of the established media to invite contrary, oppositional voices in a balanced and fair mannercan be explained by what is seen as a leftist bias among journalists. The majority of the interviewees, first and foremost,viewed partisan reporting as the result of “homogenous, left-leaning media elites.” The following quote by an interviewee with a career in music is illustrative of this point: “I know from research, but also from my own experience, that the majority of the journalists are positioned between the political center and the far left. And I know that these filters, the maps they navigate from, will impact on their framing” (Interviewee7, 2018). Elaborating on the same issue, another interviewee who works in construction illustrated how the perceived partisanship of the established media undermines trust in news coverage of immigration: “The media is very one-sided, and framed against my worldview—which makes me more aware of their bias […] It makes me more critical when I know that those who write the news disagree sharply with me on very fundamental issues” (Interviewee 3, 2018).

Even though this engagement makes the interviewees mistrust the established news media, they do not stop using these media altogether. Some interviewees give up on single national news outlets that they find particularly biased against their views (particularly the public broadcaster and some of the national tabloids), but overall they attend to the national news agenda. One interviewee, for example, explained how he found the national public service broadcaster to be strikingly biased on immigration, while at the same time listening to public radio news every morning in his car to get the latest traffic updates and local news (Interviewee 3, 2018). This seeming paradox demonstrates how interviewees distinguish between the media’s coverage of different issues and pragmatically monitor and use the established news media for other news updates. Most interviewees expressed mistrust of the media’s coverage of the polarized issues in which they were personally involved, whereas the same media’s presentation of other issues (i.e., accidents, traffic, local news) sparked less concern and thus evoked less criticism (cf. hostile media effects, see Feldman 2017).

With the conviction that immigration threatens their society, comes feelings of estrangement and anxiety, followed by a new role as a more actively engaged audience. Interviewees appear absorbed din a state of alarm and preparedness, and their experience that the established media do not understand the gravity of the situation aggravates their sense of threat. For them, the immigration issue is too serious and the risk involved is too high to remain approximately informed and reliant on the news media as monitorial citizens (cf. Schudson 1999). In some sense, they conform to the more demanding standards of the fully informed citizen in their quest for information related to immigration trends, polices, and outcomes. However, unlike both the laidback monitorial citizen and the ideal model of the conscientious informed citizen, the interviewees turn to alternative sources of information to create their personal news repertoires beyond the agenda of the established news media.

Alternative News Sources and Interpersonal Trust

Immigration-critical Alternative Media

For the majority of the interviewees, immigration-critical alternative media have become an important source of information. These alternative news media share the interviewees’ concern for a rising immigration threat and cover this topic extensively, thereby filling an information gap and challenging the established news coverage of the issue. The following quote from a teacher epitomizes this perspective: “I do understand why the so-called alternative media have emerged … The established media have been so concerned with not constructing enemy images of Islam.They have been very careful, and not dared to be critical … and then it’s natural that [alternative media] decide to be tougher” (Interviewee 2, 2018).

Criticism and campaigns against established news media from the immigration-critical alternative media are continous, a phenomenon largely reflected in our interviews (cf. Figenschou and Ihlebæk 2019). It follows that even if interviewees seldom explicitly refer to alternative media to back their own criticism, these outlets provide fertile ground for developing and strengthening mistrust in the established, professional newsrooms. The fact that the majority of interviewees rely on alternative media to stay informed on immigration, however, does not mean that they uncritically rely on these outlets. Some interviewees were quite skeptical about the partisan character of the immigration-critical alternative news media—particularly what they saw as monomaniacal editorial agendas and increasing polarization. Among the most vocal critics was a student interviewee, who argued that the alternative media inflame their audience: “Most of their news is based on real events, but they blow things out of proportion and make the problem much bigger than it actually is. I am very skeptical regarding those who only write what people want to hear” (Interviewee 24, 2019). The majority of the interviewees expressed ambivalence toward the performance of these news outlets, stressing shortcomings like inexperienced staff, low budgets, and low ethical awareness, as well as cases of “extreme opinions”. At the same time, they reacted strongly to what they believed to constitute unfair generalizations of these media and their audience. Many emphasized what they viewed as the stigmatization of alternative media users: “If you do say that you read these alternative sites, then you’re pigeonholed as someone trapped in an ‘extreme echo chamber’” (Interviewee 2, 2018).

Asked how they evaluate alternative media versus established news media, a number of interviewees stressed that they approached all media critically, and many expressed a high confidence in their own competence as critical readers (cf. Schwarzenegger 2020). It is notable that these interviewees did not perceive professional newsrooms as more authoritative per se, as seen in the following statement from an interviewee who is a local politician: “I consider established news and alternative media equal […] What we unfortunately see today is that rather than increasing the diversity in established media, we get one group of people flocking around the alternative media echo chamber, and another group flocking around the established media echo chamber” (Interviewee 8, 2018). The following statement reflects the same position, questioning the expertise and performance of the established news media: “Why should one be more correct than the other? On what criteria can I judge their credibility? […] It is not that the ‘professional media’ is that factual and objective either” (Interviewee 5, 2018). Interviewees explained how they used a number of strategies to verify information from alternative media (cross checking with other sources, tracking the information chain and links), and how they combined established and alternative media, creating personal news repertoires to remain informed on immigration (Schwarzenegger 2020).

Overall, these evaluations convey a type of alarmed position that is accompanied by a profound skepticism related to the capacity of the established news media to provide sufficient information. Several interviewees underlined how the opinionated writing style in the alternative media actually strengthens these outlets’ trustworthiness, because they value the transparency of the their political affiliations and values. As one statement plainly illustrated: “I see [alternative news outlets] as trustworthy, I mean, unidirectional and partisan indeed, but reliable. They have an agenda, but why shouldn’t they?” (Interviewee 12, 2016). In contrast, established news media are seen as hiding their political affiliations and values behind professional norms of impartiality and balance. Furthermore, interviewees often highlighted how they trusted individual writers and editors in the alternative media because of their expertise, fearlessness, and authenticity. The interviewees’ media evaluations indicate a partial replacement of trust from institutional trust in the established news media to trustworthy individuals in the immigration-critical alternative media (cf. Quandt 2012). Such interpersonal trust in alternative opinion leaders was also found in the interviewees’ personal social media networks, which function as filters, curators, and certifiers for a stream of information collected from a range of alternative sources in social media.

Facebook Networks as Gateways to Immigration Critique

Most interviewees use Facebook to keep informed by creating immigration-centered newsfeeds via subscriptions to news organizations, alternative news outlets, think-tanks, and individual opinion leaders (writers, politicians, editors, and other free thinkers). Facebook was generally characterized as the key platform for information and also as a community of people who share the interviewees’ position on the immigration issue.

For those interviewees who are most active in immigration debates online, Facebook is also the primary platform for sharing and distributing their views and analysis. For interviewees who are actively participating in immigration debates in their professional role or through their private networks, Facebook interactions (both disagreements and support) serve as a continuation and intensification of their offline engagement: Both the feeling of an emerging immigration threat and the experiences of moral stigmatization,are deepened in social media, and their alarmed position seems to be magnified through these interactions.

Interviewees who are not part of interest networks offline use Facebook to curate the kind of information they feel is ignored and repressed by the established media. One statement made by an interviewee who was not part of any off line circle in which immigration skepticism was a legitimate topic demonstrates the importance of these social media networks:

I have an extensive network of immigration critics on Facebook. People I do not know personally at all […] I receive enormous amounts of information from Facebook. People post articles and information, quite a lot from foreign newspapers […] I believe there is a lot [of news] that should have been covered but has been ignored [by Norwegian media] I believe people get angrier when they realize that these stories are covered up, that they are not discussed out in the open (Interviewee 19, 2016).

The interviewees explained how these networks were built gradually over time from following high-profile writers and alternative media. As explained by one interviewee who has a couple of hundred accounts on her reading list: “It is a result of many years’ work, right, these ‘political friends’ come gradually. I’m friends with some and follow others, and then people approach me when I’m participating in debates and sharing my views” (Interviewee 9, 2018).

These networks of more or less alarmed citizens represent a community of peers who, some interviewees stated, makes them feel less alone. As explained by one interviewee who works in higher education: “On Facebook, in contrast to in my professional life, there is always someone who shares my opinions” (Interviewee 10, 2016). These networks thus confirm and potentially intensify the feeling of crisis, but they can also reassure the alarmed citizens: Their deep concern is shared and confirmed by experts and peers in their own online network. On the one hand, this is a phenomenon several informants warned against when they pointed to the growth of “monomaniac” agendas and gave examples of peers who have gradually moved into less flexible and nuanced positions. On the other, interviewees find social and emotional support in these networks that makes them feel less alone and less vulnerable to stigma and condemnation from the established media and their offline networks.

Conclusion

Concentrating on one group of citizens who largely mistrust the established media, this interview-study provides in-depth insights into how their engagement in and fear of immigration largely shapes their news evaluation strategies, news repertoires, and public connections. Overall, we find that these alarmed citizens stand out as an active, aroused, and selectively informed audience, a position that distinguishes them from the approximately-informed monitorial citizens (cf. Schudson 2015; Ytre-Arne and Moe 2018). Further, they stand out from the informed citizen model, as they do not engage with and trust the established news media to keep them fully informed (cf. Delli Carpini 2000). For this audience group, the professional news media (together with politicians and other experts) have failed to meet what they see as the major societal threat—mass immigration and failed integration. This article has shown that this position impacts how these citizens evaluate the role and performance of the established media, how they create personal media repertoires catering to their need for information on immigration, and how they develop strategies to critically assess information.

By conducting qualitative interviews with a group of citizens who are often ignored in qualitative studies or reduced to “populists,”“skeptics,” or “cynics” in survey studies, this paper contributes a more nuanced perception of people’s everyday practices as critical news evaluators. It demonstrates how media criticism, for this sub-group, is largely driven by their engagement against and fear of an “immigration crisis”. From this alert position, the alarmed citizens navigate an increasingly crowded digital news landscape to gain what is perceived as trustworthy information, creating a personalized news repertoire to keep them "fully" informed on the immigration threat and "approximately" informed on general news (see also Moe et al. 2020; Schwarzenegger 2020).

Their criticality is selective, largely focused on this one issue. The informants are first and foremost critical of the performance of the established news media and their (perceived) failure to meet professional standards in their coverage of immigration, rather than being critical on the system level. This again illustrates the importance of studying people’s actual experience with the media and integrating the performance of professional actors into studies of media trust (e.g., Coleman, Anthony, and Morrison 2009; Livio and Cohen 2018). It is striking that ongoing debates over journalistic authority and news coverage practices, which are examined and criticized in much journalism and political communication research, are largely ignored in the trust literature (Usher 2018). The historic debates over different citizen models discussed in this article can serve as an inspiration regarding how they integrate discussions on the standard of news with the democratic role of the audience. On this basis, we call for more research that combines analysis of news coverage with reception studies to qualify how trust levels are related to journalistic performance and characteristics of actual media coverage.

The present study essentially illuminates how trusting the news media involves taking the risk of confiding in the ability of professional journalism to provide vital information (Kohring and Matthes 2007; Kohring 2020). The risk involved in delegating such responsibility was perceived as too high for the informants in this study. They did not dare to outsource the responsibility of keeping informed to professional actors, as they perceived the established news media and political authorities to be misleading and biased on the issue of immigration. This basic premise for trust—that it involves giving up control—is often overlooked in survey studies of media trust, and warrants further investigation. Beyond immigration, citizens today are worried and engaged in numerous issues, such as climate change, animal rights, big pharmaceuticals, racism and discrimination, globalization, and surveillance. Future studies should test how and whether the alarmed citizen approach can contribute insights into the news repertoires, news evaluations, and public connections of citizens engaged in and worried over these and other societal threats.

It is also a key finding that an alarmed position is magnified by both the negative reception to these concerns in established media and by the validation the same concerns receive in alternative information networks. Interviewees expressed frustration that their worries were labeled “morally deviant” or “racist” by the established media. They saw themselves as engaged lay experts with high competence in navigating, evaluating, and verifying information. Having their views dismissed thus provokes, disappoints, and angers them. In contrast, alternative media and social media networks reassure them, affirming and amplifying their perception of immigration as an existential threat. Particularly, individual contributors and opinion leaders in these networks were deemed to be trustworthy alternative experts by the interviewees. For many, these networks of trusted peerexperts and opinion leaders are perceived to be more authoritative than the professional media. By providing counter-perspectives, they build strong bonds of interpersonal trust over time (cf. discussions by Quandt 2012; Williams 2012). At the same time, as noted by some of the interviewees, these networks are also characterized by cynicism, conspiracies, and crisis maximization, which serve to exacerbate fear and suspicion. The challenge remains, both for the theoretical models and empirical analysis of news standards and citizens’roles, to illuminate how media skepticism and critique of media performance can be combined with a basic institutional trust that allow for a viable democratic deliberation beyond selective group interests and personalized information networks.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Research Council of Norway: [Grant Number grant number 247617].

Notes

1 Zaller’s (2003) “burglar alarm approach” has been contested as it defends tabloid, dramaticnews frenzies that warn the public of social crisis.

2 Whether to conceptualize far-right media as “alternative have been a heated debate. We use the term in this article because both our informants and the outlets they use position these media in opposition to the so-called mainstream. We therefor define alternative media as media operating from a position as a self-perceived counter-hegemonic corrective of traditional, legacy, or mainstream news media in a given context (see Holt 1919). This definition which includes counter-hegemonic media initiatives independent of political leaning, thus departs from traditional approaches delimiting the phenomenon to progressive, left-wing media (2019).

3 Immigrants or those born in Norway to immigrant parents, with the highest proportion of immigrants living in urban areas (up to one-third of the population lives in the capital, Oslo).