| dc.description.abstract | In this master’s thesis, I have examined how the American Ku Klux Klan-movement was portrayed in Norwegian newspapers from 1920 to 1930. I have divided the analysis of its portrayal into three categories: ideology (ideologi), actions (aksjonsform), and influence (innflytelse). I believe this is an important topic to investigate because it can offer insights into Norwegian societal attitudes toward violence, racism, anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, nationalism, and xenophobia in the 1920s. After all, the KKK represented such methods, prejudices, and ideas. My primary sources compromise a selection of articles about the Ku Klux Klan from the chosen time-period, from newspapers with varying political orientations. I have utilized the National Library's (Nasjonalbiblioteket) digital archive of scanned newspaper articles, available on their website: nb.no. The search term I used to find articles about the Klan was "klux". I found that there was a significant interest in the Ku Klux Klan in Norwegian newspapers during the 1920s. The movement was condemned in most articles, regardless of political orientation, particularly concerning the violence they perpetrated. Regarding Klan-ideology, the political orientation of the newspapers was more relevant, as conservative newspapers tended to provide more neutral coverage of the ideology compared to liberal- and labor movement newspapers, which largely condemned it. The Klan was often depicted as a fascist organization in labor newspapers. There were also instances of this in conservative- and liberal newspapers, but they were less frequent. The KKK was portrayed as quite brutal and murderous, with extensive and detailed coverage of their violent actions. Klan leadership was depicted in several articles as opportunistic and hypocritical, motivated by money and personal gain, rather than ideological goals. The Klan's increasing power was often depicted negatively as threatening, and in the latter half of the 1920s, hopeful predictions were made that the movement's dissolution was imminent. However, later several Norwegian newspapers claimed that the KKK remained strong and influential despite its reduction in membership. These were the main findings from the examination, and it demonstrates that the Ku Klux Klan did not receive a particularly positive portrayal in the Norwegian press. It appears that the brutal violence carried out by the KKK made it difficult for even conservative newspapers, which had some ideological overlap with the Klan, to support the white-hooded organization. | |
