Refuge from Reality – An Essay on Digital Life

December 22 2015

With the project Digital Life, the Fritt Ord Foundation has invited the public to a debate on the place of computer games in culture and society. In addition to a series of events in the winter 2015/2016, the project includes of an essay competition with a deadline for entries on Friday, 15 April.

Help influence how gaming culture is covered in the public space. The texts can deal with anything from the history of gaming media, tools and potential, to personal experiences and experience of games and gaming.

Prompted by the Fritt Ord Foundation, Martin Bergesen has written a personal text about computer games and his own childhood. It serves as a model for how the assignment can be done. You can either be inspired by “”http://digitaleliv.no/virkelighetsflukten/“>Refuge from Reality” in form and content, or you can opt to move in entirely different directions when you write your entry.

Read more about the call for entries on http://digitaleliv.no.

Twelve texts will be selected for a digital anthology. They will also be given eternal life by professional illustrators. The best text will win NOK 25 000, while the other texts selected will win NOK 5 000.

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Free Media Awards for 2025

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The Fritt Ord Foundation and the ZEIT Stiftung Bucerius hereby announce that the Free Media Awards for 2025 will be presented to media outlets and journalists from Ukraine, Georgia, Hungary, Russia, Belarus and Azerbaijan

Greater diversity among journalists results in greater diversity among sources

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A recently published report reveals biases in who is allowed to participate in the public debate. According to a new report from Retriever commissioned by the Fritt Ord Foundation, men who have Nordic names dominate both as sources and journalists in Norwegian media. Women, younger people and people with foreign names are less likely to be included. This is true both as interviewees and as authors of articles. That being said, greater diversity among journalists results in greater diversity among sources.

Eirin Larsen and Hadia Tajik join the Fritt Ord Board

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Eirin Larsen (36) and Hadia Tajik (42) bring valuable experience from journalism, technology, politics and jurisprudence to the Fritt Ord Board.

Making the film «Farouk» – on the geologist that secured Norway its oil

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Geologist Farouk Al-Kasim joined the the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate in 1968, shaping Norwegian petroleum resource management for decades afterwards. Now, documentary film director Halkawt Mustafa and producer Janne Hjeltnes are making a film about Al-Kasim’s life and reflections.
“Farouk tells me something in this film that he has not talked about before, because he has always told the version he feels Norway wanted to hear,” recounts Mustafa, who has Iraqi roots himself.

Read the interview with the director and see the list of grants awarded by Fritt Ord in June 2025.