Power, Communication, and Politics in the Nordic Countries

POWER, COMMUNICATION, AND POLITICS IN THE NORDIC COUNTRIES POWER, COMMUNICATION, POWER, COMMUNICATION, AND POLITICS IN THE NORDIC COUNTRIES The Nordic countries are stable democracies with solid infrastructures for political dialogue and negotiations. However, both the “Nordic model” and Nordic media systems are under pressure as the conditions for political communication change – not least due to weakened political parties and the widespread use of digital communication media. In this anthology, the similarities and differences in political communication across the Nordic countries are studied. Traditional corporatist mechanisms in the Nordic countries are increasingly challenged by professionals, such as lobbyists, a development that has consequences for the processes and forms of political communication. Populist political parties have increased their media presence and political influence, whereas the news media have lost readers, viewers, listeners, and advertisers. These developments influence societal power relations and restructure the ways in which political actors • Edited by: Eli Skogerbø, Øyvind Ihlen, Nete Nørgaard Kristensen, & Lars Nord • Edited by: Eli Skogerbø, Øyvind Ihlen, Nete Nørgaard communicate about political issues. This book is a key reference for all who are interested in current trends and developments in the Nordic countries. The editors, Eli Skogerbø, Øyvind Ihlen, Nete Nørgaard Kristensen, and Lars Nord, have published extensively on political communication, and the authors are all scholars based in the Nordic countries with specialist knowledge in their fields. Power, Communication, and Politics in the Nordic Nordicom is a centre for Nordic media research at the University of Gothenburg, Nordicomsupported is a bycentre the Nordic for CouncilNordic of mediaMinisters. research at the University of Gothenburg, supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers. The book Countries has been published with support from the University of Navarra. ISBN 978-91-88855-28-2 NORDICOM NORDICOM Edited by: 9 789188 855282 > Eli Skogerbø, Øyvind Ihlen, Nordicom, University of Gothenburg, PO Box 713, SE-405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden Nete Nørgaard Kristensen, & Lars Nord www.nordicom.gu.se Nordicom, University of Gothenburg, PO Box 713, SE-405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden www.nordicom.gu.se POWER, COMMUNICATION, AND POLITICS IN THE NORDIC COUNTRIES Power, Communication, and Politics in the Nordic Countries Edited by: Eli Skogerbø, Øyvind Ihlen, Nete Nørgaard Kristensen, & Lars Nord NORDICOM Power, Communication, and Politics in the Nordic Countries Eli Skogerbø, Øyvind Ihlen, Nete Nørgaard Kristensen, & Lars Nord (Eds.) © 2020 Nordicom and respective authors. This is an Open Access work licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No- Derivatives 4.0 International Public licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). To view a copy of the licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ ISBN 978-91-88855-28-2 (print) ISBN 978-91-88855-29-9 (pdf) DOI: https://doi.org/10.48335/9789188855299 The publication is also available as Open Access at www.nordicom.gu.se Published by: Nordicom University of Gothenburg Box 713 SE 405 30 GÖTEBORG Sweden Cover by: Per Nilsson Contents Preface 7 PART ONE Eli Skogerbø, Nete Nørgaard Kristensen, Lars Nord, & Øyvind Ihlen 1. Introduction: A Nordic model for political communication? 13 Nete Nørgaard Kristensen & Mark Blach-Ørsten 2. Media and politics in Denmark 29 Jón Gunnar Ólafsson & Valgerður Jóhannsdóttir 3. Media and politics in Iceland 51 Kim Strandberg & Tom Carlson 4. Media and politics in Finland 69 Eli Skogerbø & Rune Karlsen 5. Media and politics in Norway 91 Lars Nord & Marie Grusell 6. Media and politics in Sweden 113 PART TWO Sigurd Allern, Mark Blach-Ørsten, Anu Kantola, & Ester Pollack 7. Development trends and challenges in Nordic political journalism 135 Carl-Gustav Lindén, Lisbeth Morlandstø, & Gunnar Nygren 8. Local political communication in a hybrid media system 155 Nete Nørgaard Kristensen & Anna Roosvall 9. Cultural communication as political communication 177 Eva Josefsen & Eli Skogerbø 10. Indigenous political communication in the Nordic countries 197 David Nicolas Hopmann & Rune Karlsen 11. Elections and political communication in the Nordic countries 219 Juha Herkman & Ann-Cathrine Jungar 12. Populism and media and communication studies in the Nordic countries 241 Karoline Andrea Ihlebæk & Silje Nygaard 13. Right-wing alternative media in the Scandinavian political communication landscape 263 Bente Kalsnes, Kajsa Falasca, & Aske Kammer 14. Scandinavian political journalism in a time of fake news and disinformation 283 Øyvind Ihlen, Anne Skorkjær Binderkrantz, & PerOla Öberg 15. Lobbying in Scandinavia 305 Tine Ustad Figenschou, Magnus Fredriksson, Kristoffer Kolltveit, & Josef Pallas 16. Public bureaucracies 325 Audun Beyer, Erik Knudsen, Kim Andersen, & Adam Shehata 17. Political media effects in a Nordic perspective 347 Jens E. Kjeldsen, Christian Kock, & Orla Vigsø 18. Political rhetoric in Scandinavia 365 Lars Nord, Eli Skogerbø, & Nete Nørgaard Kristensen 19. Conclusion: Nordic political communication between change and continuity 385 Preface Is there a Nordic model for political communication? This is the question we pose in this anthology. It seems simple enough, but there are many answers. When we first invited our Nordic colleagues to this book project, we asked them to reflect on the changes that challenged the Nordic welfare states and their infrastructures for political dialogue and negotiations. We pointed to the technological shifts, the hybridisation of the media structures, and the fact that the Nordic countries had different experiences and handled crises differently in the recent past. While this book was in its final stages, a new crisis hit. During the global Covid-19 pandemic, both striking differences – such as differences in crisis management and crisis communication of the Nordic governments – and deep-seated similarities – such as the high trust level between governments and citizens – came to the fore. As the chapters of this book explore, if anything, the key to understanding Nordic political communication is to keep in mind both aspects: the systems are similar, but there are considerable differences between the countries in terms of history, cultures, languages, demography, and contemporary politics. The aims of the book are threefold. First, we want to present an updated and broad picture of Nordic political communication. In this respect, this book updates and expands Communicating Politics: Political Communication in the Nordic Countries, edited by Jesper Strömbäck, Mark Blach-Ørsten, and Toril Aalberg in 2008, which brought a much-needed systematic comparative perspective to Nordic political communication. Second, we aim to go beyond the comparative media models perspective. The media models remain important, but at the same time, we seek to explore and disclose the dynamics that under- lie the theoretical framework. In order to do so, this book expands the field by including new actors, themes, theories, and research questions in Nordic political communication. The third objective is to show that both more comparative studies and more in-depth analyses are essential to understand the similarities and differences Skogerbø, E., Ihlen, Ø., Kristensen, N. N., & Nord, L. (2021). Preface. In E. Skogerbø, Ø. Ihlen, N. N. Kristensen, & L. Nord (Eds.), Power, communication, and politics in the Nordic countries (pp. 7–9). Gothenburg: Nordicom, University of Gothenburg. https://doi.org/10.48335/9789188855299-p 7 PREFACE between the Nordic countries. It is precisely the similarities and differences that create the conditions for Nordic politics and political communication. To the degree that there is a Nordic political communication model, it is flexible and pragmatic and takes both the similarities and the differences within the Nordic region into account. To unpack the fundamental elements of Nordic political communication, we challenged leading Nordic researchers to compare their research and insights. The ambition was to bring scholars from several Nordic countries together in each chapter – an effort that resulted in brand new collaborations we hope will inspire and facilitate Nordic cooperation in the future. It has been a true pleasure and privilege to edit this anthology. Owing to many factors, it has been in process for a while, and there are many people to thank for the fact that the book is now available to you in different formats. First, the authors should be thanked for their contributions to the anthology. Without you, it would not be here. Many of the authors, including the editors, have never worked together before. They were asked to form authorships across borders and fields and have responded to the challenge with much enthusiasm and dedication. They have generously explored and shared knowledge in their special fields and met the challenge of comparing insights from the different Nordic countries that make up Nordic political communication research. Further, we thank the POLKOM group and network and our home institutions for taking part in this effort. The group has its base at the Department of Media and Communication (IMK) at the University of Oslo and has been supported financially and administratively by this department. The POLKOM network includes scholars, many of whom authored chapters in this book, working with political communication in institutions all over Norway and the other

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