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The Internet in Norway Dissemination and Use PER HETLAND Media-Technological Dramas: The It has been claimed that the Norwegian press Internet Meets the Public1 does not have much space for more professional science and technology communication (Eide and In our day and age the general public usually meets Ottosen 1994). Traditionally science and technology new communication media through the old and well communication has been understood within an en- known mass media. There the new media are inter- lightenment tradition. It has been those with exper- preted, dramatised and given content. It is therefore tise who were to communicate knowledge to the instructive to follow a new medium in its embryonic general public via the different mass media. How- stage, because in this stage of its development there ever, much of the communication of research and arise many understandings or also misunderstand- technology that takes place via the mass media has ings, as McLuhan chose to say. Of the new media other frames of reference than the conventional en- the Internet is perhaps the one that most clearly il- lightenment tradition. The attempts of the world of lustrates this situation. Thus the presentation given advertising to communicate research and technol- by the mass media will perhaps over time be experi- ogy are an example of this. In this connection it is enced as a dramatisation of possibilities and prob- important to draw a distinction between the commu- lems. Selected aspects of the new media are nication of research and the communication of tech- problematised. Others are under-communicated or nology. The communication of research has as a rule are not registered at all. The success of the Internet a weaker connection to commercial interests than is might therefore just as well stem from the fact that the case for the communication of technology. In the actors around the Internet have been good at addition the communication of technology has communicating certain attractive or challenging vi- strong allies among the public in the form of differ- sions of the possibilities of the Internet rather than ent groups of technology users. One may thus expe- from the “superior” technological properties of the rience a greater diversity of “publicising actors” Internet. At the same time news of the Internet within the communication of technology than with- might just as well be representations of what the in the communication of research. Often these pub- “media society” believes people like to read, rather licising actors appear in roles that make it difficult than an adequate description of the Internet. Exotic for the public to identify on whose behalf they are events may be emphasised. More trivial and perhaps “speaking”. Technology enthusiasts or “zappers” more important properties may remain unknown to can for instance be used more or less systematically the public. The established mass media in this way by technology producers and marketers to get user include the public in the processes of interpreting, feedback on the products and to promote the same inscribing and transcribing when it comes to under- products. When new media technology is being in- standing the new communication media. troduced, the established “media society” forms an important collection of stakeholders. The same ac- tors therefore wish to participate when new media Department of Media and Communication, Univer- maps are to be drawn. The story of the Internet years sity of Oslo, Box 1093 Blindern, N-0317 Oslo, 1995-97 is thus also a story of how old media actors [email protected] accommodate to new media. 3 Namnlöst-12 3 2005-08-16, 12:06 In 1973 Norway was linked to one of the structures in society. In this process of co-construc- Internet’s predecessors, ARPANET. However, be- tion the power relations between the actors are of tween 1973 and 1990 the networks that were going central significance. In this context there is a great to be the future Internet were mostly used for com- difference between having influence on a text or on munication between different research institutions. a media technology as a recipient or user, and hav- In the middle of 1990s several companies started to ing influence on the agenda on which the text or market Internet-access for the general public and in media technology has originally been produced 1995 the Internet was put on the public agenda in (Morley and Silverstone 1990). The coverage of the Norway. Three years later, in 1998, Norway was Internet in the three newspapers2 Aftenposten number 3 in the world when it came to Internet ac- Morgen, Dagbladet and Dagsavisen Arbeider- cess. The popularising by the mass media of the new bladet, together with the growth in the number of media technology had been central in the work of households with private access to the Internet, setting this agenda. At the same time the agenda of shows how the Internet met the public in the years the mass media was closely connected with the pub- 1995-1997. See figure 1. lic agenda. If we look more closely at agenda-set- In the same period the Internet to an increasing ting research, we can see that the first level of extent made its mark on parts of the policy agenda. agenda-setting research was concerned with how the In his annual speech to the nation in 1997 the Presi- media give prominence to some issues rather than dent of the United States, Bill Clinton, placed most others, so that they affect the public’s understanding weight on education: “The aim is that all eight-year- of what are the important matters on society’s olds shall be able to read and that all twelve-year- agenda. The second level of agenda-setting research olds shall have access to the Internet”. The aim that is more concerned with how the media give salience “all twelve-year-olds shall have access to the to certain attributes, so that the media affect the Internet” has been copied in a number of those na- public’s understanding of what are important as- tions that want to be in “the First Division of the in- pects of the questions that are put on the agenda formation societies”. Goals of this type are often (McCombs, Shaw, Weaver 1997). In studying how based on notions of the intrinsic properties of tech- the Internet has been put on the agenda, I shall ex- nology. These are notions that have clear technol- ploit both the perspectives mentioned, that is to say ogy-deterministic features. Through different forms how the Internet has been emphasised as an impor- of investment in technology the wish has therefore tant new medium of communication and which as- been to achieve other important societal goals. At pects of the new communication medium have been the same time there is great uncertainty in political emphasised. The stories of the Internet as they have life and in a number of connections the public has been told in the Norwegian press are therefore cen- therefore been invited to participate in dialogue. tral to this study. Spigel has previously done a paral- The emphasis on the principle of communication for lel study of how the introduction of television was public information work supports this desire for dia- represented in magazines of different kinds (Spigel logue (NOU 1992:21). For the Internet this has 1992). A premise for her study was that new media manifested itself in among other things the IT fora4 are introduced to the general public through old me- which the former minister Bendik Rugås estab- dia, and an analysis of the magazine representation lished, “The IT forum for the elderly” and the would therefore say something about which agenda “Young people’s IT forum”. television was put on. Within agenda-setting research the focus has In agenda-setting research the agenda of the me- been on the three agendas mentioned: the agendas dia is seen as the independent variable, that is to say of the media, the public and policy (Dearing and the cause variable, while the public’s agenda is seen Rogers 1996). It is however not very fruitful to limit as the dependent variable, the variable that is af- the information society’s stories to these three agen- fected. This applies both to the first and to the sec- das. The fourth agenda must be included. The fourth ond levels of agenda-setting research. However, the agenda is formed by technology developers, tech- question is not what the mass media, through their nology producers and their marketing of new prod- stories about the Internet, have done to the public or ucts. By way of illustration mention may be made of what the public has done to the stories about the an advertising campaign in which it was stated that Internet, but rather how the mass media, the public “He is 23, has his own Internet address and eats and the new medium of communication have pro- anxious thirty-year-olds for breakfast”. Through vided the foundation for a co-construct of new marketing they try to enrol the users in their under- understandings, new forms of expression and new standing of the possibilities of technology. In this 4 Namnlöst-12 4 2005-08-16, 12:06 Figure 1. Number of Articles about the Internet in the Three Newspapers and the Number of Households (in thousands) with Access to the Internet (half-yearly figures3) Thousands 400 350 Articles 300 Private Internet 250 200 150 100 50 0 S95 A95 S96 A96 S97 A97 connection the media play several roles. Two of the like Nicholas Negroponte have actively contributed more central roles are that (a) they include the pub- to the information society’s stories, both through lic in a process of interpretation, inscription and their own written presentations and through innu- transcription when it comes to understanding the merable appearances, not least for prominent politi- new communication media, and (b) they promote cians (Gates 1996, Negroponte 1995).

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