Chapter 13: COVID-19 Lockdown, Information Access and Use Among African Diaspora in Norway

This chapter takes up the discourse on marginalisation and ‘othering’ surrounding information and communication among the African diaspora in Norway during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown. Following the Norwegian Health Directorate (FHI)’s (2020, 2021) concerns about the statistically higher number of infections among immigrant groups, the chapter unpacks the dynamics surrounding this group’s information access and use during lockdown. The chapter explores ‘public institution’ informational initiatives targeting immigrants at local levels and experiences of individual immigrants outside the public institution. Theories on media representation, otherness and trans-national communication were harnessed to analyse data generated qualitatively. While individual experiences were fragmented and diverse, ‘otherness’ and disadvantage on the basis of socio-cultural, economic and political marginality emerged with nuances depending on stratified contexts such as age, educational, nationality, religion. Public institutional efforts were experienced as necessary and valuable but insufficient in fully combating fear, uncertainty and confusion among the immigrants. These, mainly top-down interpretations of national and local directives and statistics, were thus supplemented with alternative and contra sources of information to feed fragmented immigrant informational needs.