The presentation and self-presentation of mosques in Norwegian mediascapes: construction of ‘the good ones’

Abstract

Mosques in Norway are subjected to high levels of suspicion and scrutiny and have frequently been the target of negatively charged media narratives. When examined, though, much of this reporting, even from respected outlets, is wholly unsubstantiated. Some have circular narratives where the source for the stories seems to be the organisations’ failure to proactively refute them. Other reporting contains no explicit allegations, but take a suspicious tone suggesting that there may be some wrongdoing somewhere. This argument of this paper is that this is part of the socially constructed imaginaries surrounding Muslims in the west, where they are placed into categories of acceptable or unacceptable, with the onus being on themselves to prove that they belong in the former category. The default assertion seems to be that Islamic religious organisations are suspect, and that they are expected to make an extra effort to show that they are ‘one of the good ones’.