ABSTRACT
International interest in Iceland during the economic boom was nothing compared to the attention the crash received. Iceland’s economic collapse was a major international media event, with thousands of articles published on it within a span of few days. Iceland appeared as a country that was “bankrupt [and] the first casualty of a growing worldwide crisis . . . humiliated and ruined” (Chartier 2011, 11). Iceland became the newest case of “parachute journalism,” where journalists flock for a suddenly interesting story (G. Th. Jóhannesson 2012, 140). Some international media proclaimed that the country’s international reputation had been destroyed (Chartier 2011, 14), while others described Iceland as “a potentially bankrupt country with its hand out to other countries for short term financing” (quoted in Chartier 2011, 13; from Le Monde, Chartier’s translation from French). The visual image generated here is a country on its knees, begging for charity.
