26 PERSPECTIVES ON BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS | VOL 41 | 2023 Benefits Danish media exhibits high levels of political independence. In 2021, the Media Pluralism Monitor examined potential risks to media pluralism in the Danish media landscape. They classified the Danish media environment as only a low risk to political independence, meaning that, for the most part, media coverage is politically neutral. DR and TV 2 are funded based on public service contracts, which are renewed by Parliament every four years. These renegotiations have in the past ordered unbiased and politically impartial news coverage. Debates in the 2000s and 2010s about the presence of left-wing bias in DR media coverage prompted the station to promote more representative programming of political parties during their national Parliament election. This promotion included the representation of political parties from the far right. Studies on DR media coverage in the 2000s have found no such political bias in their news network (Santon Rasmussen et al., 2022), and recently, research has suggested that political bias in Danish media coverage was not a driving factor in exposure to political party leaders (Wallberg, 2019). Political impartiality is an important value. In a politically impartial environment, people can take control of their opinions by deciding for themselves how they feel about the news. Politically impartial news can also reduce social polarization, because citizens are exposed to the reasons behind alternative views, which may help avoid the conclusion that political opponents are evil and stupid (Mazor, 2019). Costs In contrast to their general political neutrality, Denmark’s news sources have been culpable in the development of anti-immigrant sentiment in Danes by contributing to prejudiced public discussion of ethnic minorities. Immigrants are often presented as a threat to Denmark’s economy, culture, and security. Researchers at Norway’s University of Bergen conducted content analyses of over 4000 articles about immigration in prominent Scandinavian news articles from 1970 to 2016 (Hovden & Mjelde, 2019). Overall, they found an increase in threat-related framing of immigration in Denmark. Denmark was distinct from Sweden and Finland in that approximately one-half of all Danish articles related to immigration contained some form of reference to threats. One-third of these threat-framed articles discussed immigrants in relation to crime, presenting them as a barrier to public order and security. And since 2020, around one-half of all Danish articles have applied this security-threat framing of immigrants and immigration. Economic and cultural threat frames are also present in more than 10% of these articles. Furthermore, communication research has shown that Danish media stresses differences in culture and religion in their reporting of virtually all immigration-related issues (Yilmaz, 2016). Indeed, immigrants are referenced in Danish cultural journalism in terms of their religion twice as often as in neighboring Scandinavian countries. Some research even suggests that Danish media openly stigmatizes Islam, as its culture, values, and behaviors have been consistently stereotyped. (For further information on anti-immigrant sentiment in Denmark, see Ayambem’s article in this volume.) Such media reporting may be related to the underrepresentation of non-western media sources in Denmark. For example, non-western immigrants make up only 4% of news sources despite constituting over 12% of the population. In fact, unlike specifications about adequate media representation of the disabled, Danish public service contracts have not incorporated rules about racial and ethnic minority representation in the media (Santon Rasmussen et al., 2022). Negative depictions of immigrants have been associated with a host of pejorative attitudes, including high levels of ethnic prejudice, stereotyping, and support for anti-immigrant policy stances and parties, the last viewed as the most able to deal with the perceived issues of immigration (Boomgaarden & Vliegenthart, 2009; Eberl et al., 2018; van Klingeren et al., 2015). Beyond far-right attitude shifts, such coverage has implications for immigrants themselves. For example, anti-immigrant stigmatization has negative affects on the mental health of immigrants (Morey, 2018). And experiencing prejudice and discrimination are barriers for integration, which can further heighten negative attitudes toward immigrants (Dahl & Jakobsen, 2005). A vicious cycle can then be created in which prejudice demotivates immigrants from integrating, and a lack of integration further promotes Danish prejudice. This dynamic may partially explain why Danes have some of the most negative views of Islam in Europe, with onethird of Danes believing that Denmark is at war with Islam (1 in 3 Danes…, 2016). Despite this level of prejudice, 42% of Danes believe that racism is a major problem in their country (Buttler, 2021), which suggests that some accommodation, if not resolution, needs to be found. Social and institutional trust come together in response to COVID-19 The benefits related to Danes’ high levels of social and institutional trust are best exemplified by Den-
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