Reminder: The deadline for entering the 2021 Fritt Ord competition is 15 March

February 19 2021

The Fritt Ord Youth Competition is an annual competition that invites students to submit entries on topics related to freedom of expression and democracy. This year’s topic is 22 July 2011. The deadline for entering is 15 March 2021.

Fritt Ord invites schools to work on the topic of 22 July, and to submit their entries on the website at frittordkonkurransen.no.

Pupils can participate on their own or as part of classroom activities. They can work individually or in groups, and pupils are invited to submit entries in different genres: Audio, video or online productions, essays or articles. The best entries will win cash awards (NOK 20 000, NOK 15 000, and NOK 10 000) and a study tour to Strasbourg. The study tour will be assessed in the light of the corona situation.

Please use the website frittordkonkurransen.no as your starting point, then find your own sources on the topic. In retrospect, how have books, films, newspapers and other media dealt with the terrorist attacks? Feel free to share your own personal analyses, interpretations and thoughts on the events and the time that has passed since then.

In the aftermath of 22 July 2011, many books and films have been released about what happened, including fact and fiction alike. Both aspects are important contributions when addressing such a difficult topic. Factual prose and documentaries help us understand what actually happened, at the same time as the fictitious stories are also highly relevant. What part do these presentations play? And how are the events communicated?

Along with the Association !read, Fritt Ord has published an anthology entitled 22 July (selected texts), a complimentary collection of excerpts from books about the events of 22 July 2011. The book can be downloaded as an ebook here (available in Norwegian only).

Contact:

Joakim M. Lie, project manager for the Fritt Ord Foundation Competition
Email: joakim.lie@frittord.no
Mobile: +47 915 60 770

Earlier topics for the competition

2013-2014: Freedom of expression 1814-2014
2014-2015: Freedom of expression’s heroes and anti-heroes
2015-2016: Censorship
2016-2017: Enemies of the people
2017-2018: Propaganda
2018-2019: Draw!
2019-2020: Crisis

News

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Call for nominations: Free Media Awards 2025

March 14 2025

In collaboration with the ZEIT STIFTUNG BUCERIUS of Hamburg, the Fritt Ord Foundation has allocated the Free Media Awards annually since 2004 to Eastern European journalists and media that defy every obstacle to tirelessly ensure independent press coverage. Russia’s war against Ukraine and the subsequent wave of disinformation clearly demonstrates the need for independent reporting in the region. Journalist, editorial teams and media companies in and from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Russia, Ukraine and Hungary who make a contribution to press freedom through their investigative, independent reporting can be nominated for the Free Media Awards.

Civitates' Tech & Democracy open call

March 6 2025

Civitates – The European Democracy Fund is a pooled philanthropic fund that was set up in 2018 for the sole purpose of addressing democratic decline and closing civic space in Europe. The case for confronting these threats is growing increasingly urgent. Fritt Ord Foundation is one of the initiators and partners of Civitates.

Civitates has launched its Tech and Democracy open call to support organisations working to ensure safer, more inclusive online spaces (social media platforms, search engines etc.) by improving the enforcement of EU tech regulations at the national level.

This open call offers a unique opportunity to strengthen civil society’s role in holding the tech sector accountable, with a focus on key EU regulations such as the Digital Services Act, GDPR, AI Act or the European Media Freedom Act to name a few.

Norwegians increasingly more positive to computer games

March 5 2025

Norwegians are increasingly more positive to accepting computer games as culture

About 17 per cent have developed a more favourable view of computer games over the past year. Six of ten play computer games, and one of three plays computer games weekly. At the same time, computer games are ranked as having lower status than books and music, for example.
“Computer games deserve more attention and discussion”, contends Joakim Lie of Fritt Ord.

– Computer games are also art

March 4 2025

“The problem with far too many media reports about computer games is that they start begin with sentences like: ‘computer games have come a long way since Pac-Man’,” sighs American computer game critic Jacob Geller.

“Let us first simply agree that computer games are indeed an art form and an expression of culture, and then let us examine the works as part of the history of art and culture.