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HAVE YOU HEARD the joke about the Swede, the Dane, and the Norwegian? If you are from one of the Scandinavian countries, you may have heard such jokes that rely on stereotypes which distinguish Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians. Although Scandinavians work hard to create distinct images of themselves and may in fact see themselves as distinct from their Scandinavian neighbors, most nonScandinavians see them as a cultural unity. These perceptions can be seen not only in jokes but in a variety of old and new media: stock characters or incidental portrayals in books and film, newspaper and magazine articles, television shows, fashion, all forms of advertising, and travel accounts by foreign visitors.1 Some of the most unaffected and interesting perceptions of Scandinavia may be gleaned from Internet travel accounts - perceptions people record from their visits to a foreign country. According to a 2004 report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, "nearly half of U.S. adults who use the Internet have published their thoughts ... or created Web logs or diaries" (Bamako). Similarly, blogging and online diary services have caused an "unparalleled explosion of public-life writing by private citizens" (McNeill 25). The result is thousands of Internet travel accounts written by travelers to Scandinavia not only from the United States, but from many other nations. Not only do most of these accounts represent a wide strata of travelers, from many nations and social classes (unlike the majority of travelers of earlier centuries),2 but the free and instant access to publication of these accounts via the Internet seems to foster an authenticity in the accounts that retains the style, idiosyncrasies, and biases of the writers while at the same time allowing for the free expression of perceptions without artistic affectation or editorial oversight.
This study investigates such travel accounts about Scandinavia and particularly the perceptions of Scandinavia they express. The term "Scandinavia" will be applied in a broad sense to include the five Nordic countries of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, and Finland. Because this study aims to understand foreign perceptions of Scandinavia generally, accounts by Scandinavians traveling within Scandinavia (e.g., Swedes traveling to Norway) have been excluded. Only those by private individuals (and not professional travel entities) have been included, and these have been...