DOCSLIB.ORG

How Geo Tagged House Sales Boost Reader Revenues at BT Spotting the Opportunity

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
How Geo Tagged House Sales Boost Reader Revenues at BT Spotting the Opportunity Newsroom automation playbook series How geo tagged house sales boost reader revenues at BT Spotting the opportunity... It’s 2019 and innovation projects are a regular feature at the newsroom at Bergens Tidende in Norway. Then editor-in-chief Øyulf Hjertenes has identified automation as a key area of exploration. Late autumn an idea takes shape. Would it be possible to develop sophisticated robot written articles about house sales and segment them in such a way that they might start to drive subscription sales? There is only one way to find out.... Robots can generate huge volumes of content. They are fast, reliable and accurate. But they are robots. That – in a nutshell – is what newsroom automation is about. Publishers who get real benefits from automation use robots for the stories that can be automated, freeing up reporters to do the investigative, quality, human stories that underpin the journalistic brand. In the case of Bergens Tidende, robots provided an opportunity to launch a Boligsalg (home sales) vertical, filled entirely with automated content and with only one journalist involved. And use it to drive reader revenues to boot. Read on to find out how Bergens Tidende are leveraging newsroom automation. > Top Norwegian regional title Bergens Tidende is one of Scandinavian media group Schibsted’s two large regional titles in Norway – the other one being Stavanger Aftenblad some 200 km further south on the country’s west coast. Bergens Tidende has 45,000 digital only subscribers and 80,000 total subs (Nov 2020). Schibsted also includes Norwegian national titles VG and Aftenposten as well as Aftonbladet and Svenska Dagbladet in Sweden. Cover image: BT’s internal geo tagging map of the very centre of Bergen city. Two key aspects: Quality.... By early 2020, the small, monthly newsroom innovation project at Bergens Tidende set up in late 2019 has turned into the development of an entire new Boligsalg section on the BT site. The strategy behind the publisher’s first foray into automated content is to make it attractive enough and geographically targeted enough to drive digital subscription sales. Project Lead (previously news editor) Jan Stian Vold, the only BT journalist working full time on the project, and the development team at United Robots set out on a journey to expand the automated articles with more data sources, deeper analysis, better visuals. As Bergens Tidende goes live with the Boligsalg vertical in June 2020, it is publishing some of the most sophisticated robot written real estate texts United Robots have ever developed. ...and segmentation In order to put the most relevant articles in front of site visitors, BT have developed a geo tagging system that is more granular than the one used by the real estate industry. In addition to using the tags to segment the content at the point of distribution, the geo tagging is used to generate lists. “In each article, we list the five most expensive sales in the past 12 months at that most granular neighbourhood level, with links to the tag, down to street level, which of course increases the value of our set-up,” says Jan Stian Vold. The granular tagging has been a key factor in driving the value of the content and thus subscription sales. > If there’s data, there can be text Bergens Tidende use the Real Estate robot from United Robots. The texts delivered are generated through an NLG (Natural Language Generation) process applied to structured data sets from Statens Kartverk (public data in Norway) as well as some secondary data sources and Google Streetview + Google Earth. See next page for a look under the hood of what the robot does. BT’s geo tagging system is more granular than the one used by the Norwegian real estate industry. The content – five layers of UX During the spring of 2020, Jan Stian Vold and the United Robots team work in partnership to expand the automated real estate texts. These grow from being stories of a single sale, to providing readers with analysis of the market on neighbourhood, city and national level, coupled with a number of different visuals. #1. The headline & the ”news” The primary data source, Statens Kartverk, is the one that describes the sale that’s taken place — the “news”. It includes street address, type of property, price, seller and geographic coordinates. The headlines have been developed to be long enough to tell a real story – something which helps drive readers through the funnel, towards conversion. To the primary data source a secondary one has been added. This provides additional information about the property, such as size, number of floors / what floor it’s on, whether there’s an elevator, what neighbourhood it’s in etc. All this information makes up the first couple of paragraphs in the text. The robot also has access to historic data, so compares the sales price with the most recent previous sale and calculates the increase/decrease. continues... #2. The neighbourhood scan The second subhead in the article covers sales in the neighbourhood, how many and at what price. Here, the robot also calculates and includes price per square meter. This section has a list of the top five most expensive homes sold in the city area (i e several neighbourhoods combined, e g Bergen West) so far this year. #3. The bigger picture The final subhead is Prices in Bergen Now, which is based on a monthly update, and compares prices with the previous month as well as the same month last year, including a bar graph comparing prices with other Norwegian cities. This data is synched daily so the updates happen automatically. The bar graph is currently produced manually, but is on Jan Stian Vold’s automation-to-do-list. #4. The top ten list As an extra point of interest, BT has a running list of the ten most expensive houses sold in each municipality in the past 30 days, a list published at the beginning of each article. “It’s a kind of gamification of the content in order to create interest – everyone wants to know how their house is doing,” says Vold. #5. The visuals The image of the property sold comes from Google Streetview (United Robots have a global agreement with Google). A new feature for BT is the frame from automatically generated Google Earth “drone” videos. These frames have the property pinpointed and labelled (see below right). Driving reading: Robot editor managing front box A below-the-fold position on the home page of BT.no has a Boligsalg box with three of the top stories. An in-house built algorithm picks out the articles to push, based on a number of predefined keywords such as ”most expensive”. Jan Stian Vold sometimes manually adds a story: ”We need to consider to what extent the Boligbot contributes to the focus on highly priced properties. In order to give a more balanced view, I’ll manually publish some more reasonably priced properties.” ”The key is driving relevance for readers” According to Jan Stian Vold the relevance the automated real estate content drives is twofold. > Quality of information. One aspect is the depth and breadth of information published. “Information about trends in the real estate market is key for anyone owning or aspiring to own a home. By combining specific information about individual sales with general trends in the local region, BT provide readers with a better overview of the market, which means we put them in a better position to make educated choices in that market.” > Geography. The other relevance piece is to do with geography. Thanks to BT’s extensive tagging structure, they serve the most relevant real estate stories to individual readers. They’ve divided the city of Bergen into four sections; north, west, south and central. The next level of tags is by postal code / neighbourhood, and beneath that small and compact geo areas, which means the content reaching the reader is of high value. “There are 15–50 sales of houses or apartments in Bergen every day, and for buyers, sellers, neighbours, or people moving into the neighbourhood these texts are highly relevant. So we assumed they would generate subscription sales – and we’ve been proven right. The high quality of this real estate content, combined with the fact that it’s automatically generated, provides a net value for us – and our readers. But if we’d had to employ 5 journalists to do this job, the gain would have been cancelled out by the cost in newsroom hours,” says Jan Stian Vold. > Immediate effect on subs sales The top KPI for the Boligbot is the number of subscription sales. Since the launch in summer of 2020, this number has stabilised at 60–70 conversions a month. “These are not extremely high numbers, but they play an important part for our overall subscription business.” > Expected Boligbot performance going forward: 10,000 articles published / year 600–800 subscription sales / year (price €24/month) 1 million page views / year The Boligsalg content on desktop > Working with United Robots “A key success factor for the project has been how responsive the United Robots team have been to ideas I’ve had – the route from idea to impact and increased value is short. It’s been fantastic to work with developers who are just as keen to drive innovation as I am. With projects like these, there’s always a risk that you launch and leave, but the United Robots team continue to walk that extra mile to keep improving the Jan Stian Vold content.” Bridging the buzz and the reality A lot of people in the news industry are talking about newsroom automation.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Framing Mali Swedish Media Portrayal of an Armed Conflict
    Framing Mali Swedish media portrayal of an armed conflict Niklas Norberg Department of Media Studies, Department of Journalism, Media and C ommunication Studies (JMK) Master’s Thesis in Journalism 30 EC TS Journalism Studies Master’s Programme in Journalism (120 EC TS) Spring term 2018 Supervisor: Magnus Danielson Examiner: C hristian C hristensen Framing Mali: Swedish media portrayal of an armed conflict Master's thesis Niklas Norberg VT18 Abstract Research has shown that news media reporting on foreign affairs tend to rely heavily on official sources (e.g. Schwalbe, 2013; Entman, 2004; Lawrence, 2009). This thesis analyse whether this is the case in Swedish news media reporting on the armed conflict in Mali, where Sweden has troops sanctioned by the UN. A more broader perspective is also analysed: How does the news media portray the armed conflict, and are there any differences between national daily newspapers (considered more “sober”) and national evening newspapers (considered more sensational)? An inductive framing analysis is used to identify frames not available in previous research. These frames, together with frames identified in other studies, are then used in a quantitative content analysis to measure to what extent the frames occur in the texts. Among the most important findings were that Swedish news media did in fact rely on Swedish official reporting to a large extent. The two evening newspapers, Aftonbladet and Expressen, used Swedish official sources in approximately 60% of their articles. The daily newspapers, Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet, used Swedish official sources in about 35% of their articles. The main source used was also analyzed: This showed that Swedish official sources were the most common, in between 23% to 62% of the articles.
    [Show full text]
  • How a Traditional Daily Newspaper Reinvented Itself on Social
    NEVER MISS A STORY. CASE STUDY HOW A TRADITIONAL DAILY NEWSPAPER REINVENTED ITSELF ON SOCIAL CASE SVENSKA DAGBLADET Table of CONTENTS COMPANY BACKGROUND 4 CHALLENGE: OVERCOMING THE CONSERVATIVE THINKING 5 CATCHING UP WITH THEIR MAIN COMPETITOR 6 IMMEDIATE AND LONG TERM GOALS 7 ABOUT THIS CASE STUDY 8 CONTACT 8 Svenska Dagbladet Case Study 3 +152% +74K +268K GROWTH IN SOCIAL GROWTH IN FANS ON NEW MONTHLY PAGE MEGIA ENGAGEMENT FACEBOOK PAGE * ENGAGEMENT AND SHARES * Within 12 months “Before EzyInsights it was much harder to motivate people when they couldn’t see how their stories were doing in real-time. EzyInsights has given a motivation boost for everyone, including all our journalists. “ HANNA ÖSTERBERG SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER SVD, SCHIBSTED 4 How a traditional daily newspaper reinvented itself on social company BACKGROUND Svenska Dagbladet grew their tiny social presence to become the number one morning news publication in Sweden. From a print mindset with a disconnect between the editorial and social teams, to a fully data integrated news team. Over a 2 year period, they increased their daily on-post engagement from under 1k per day ton an average of over 3.5k. INDUSTRY: LOCATION: COMPANY SIZE: EZYINSIGHTS Daily Stockholm, 220 People USERS: Newspaper Sweden 68 People Svenska Dagbladet Case Study 5 challenge OVERCOMING THE CONSERVATIVE THINKING Established in 1884, SvD was a very traditional daily newspaper struggling in 2014 with their social presence. Their key challenges were overcoming the conservative, print and website only way of thinking, reacting more quickly to the social news cycle and being able to present news items more effectively on social platforms.
    [Show full text]
  • Public Opposition to Wind Power Projects in Norway
    Public opposition to wind power projects in Norway MEEMAS Master thesis Energy, environment and society University of Stavanger 2020 Maren Benedikte Omholt 1 UNIVERSITY OF STAVANGER MASTER DEGREE IN Energy, Environment and Society MASTER THESIS CANDIDATE NUMBER: 5652 SEMESTER: Spring 2020 AUTHOR: Maren Benedikte Omholt SUPERVISOR: Reidar Staupe Delgado MASTER THESIS TITLE: Public opposition to wind power projects in Norway SUBJECT WORDS/KEY WORDS: Wind power, renewable energy, Frøya, Vardafjell, Kvitfjell, Raudfjell PAGE NUMBERS: 56 STAVANGER 30.08.20202 ………………………………………………. DATE/YEAR 2 Acknowledgements This thesis marks the conclusion of my master’s degree in energy, environment and society at the University of Stavanger. The original plan for this thesis was to do a field study that was interview based, while focusing only on one wind farm, and supplement this with secondary sources. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this made it difficult to go through with. The solution was then to change the methods of the thesis from an interview based field study, to a case study where the sources that are being looked at are online based, while at the same time being secondary sources that shed light into the ways in which demonstrators are feeling and experiencing the build- ings of wind farms. I would like to thank my supervisor Reidar Staupe Delgado for helping me by giving me tips as well as constructive criticism which helped me a lot within the writing process. I would also like to thank my friends and family for keeping me motivated throughout the process. 3 Abstract The wind power debate is ongoing in Norway with many different opinions regarding the issue.
    [Show full text]
  • The Nordic Model in Europe
    The Nordic model in Europe Prostitution, trafficking and neo-abolitionism Daniela Burba Corso di Laurea Magistrale in Scienze Per la Pace Università di Pisa European Law and Gender 2020/2021 2 Index 0.Introduction 3 1.Western perspectives on prostitution 3 1.1 Feminist perspectives: a gender trouble 3 1.2 The issue of human trafficking 5 2.The Nordic model 7 2.1 Nordic model: Sweden 7 2.2 Legal framework and legacy 8 3.Assessing the impact of the criminalisation of sex purchase 10 3.1 Trafficking and immigration 10 3.2 International outcry against criminalisation 11 3.3 A comparison with regulatory policies: The Netherlands 13 4.New challenges 15 4.1 Covid-19 and job insecurity 15 5.Conclusions: the need for new perspectives 17 6. Bibliography 18 Cover images sources: http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/story/stop-backpagecom-taking-stand-against-prostitution-an d-trafficking-women/9034 and https://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/canada-supreme-court-strikes-anti-prostitution-law s-article-1.1553892 (accessed 13/01/2021) 3 0.Introduction Policies over prostitution in Europe and globally have widely diversified in the last few decades, shaping a legal and social landscape that deeply affected the activity, wellbeing and perception of the individuals involved. Countries’ anxiety over the body of the prostitute and their visible presence is to a considerable extent a consequence of feminist discourse and counterposing ideologies over the body of women, an approach developed within a deeply gendered spectrum. The increasing concern over trafficking in persons for sexual purposes has also encouraged the international community and national governments to develop a new range of policies to tackle a phenomenon that seems to be out of control due to the globalised world’s heightened mobility.
    [Show full text]
  • Schibsted Annual Report 2019 Who We Are
    Index Who we are .................................................................................................................................. 3 Message from the CEO ................................................................................................................ 4 Board of Directors’ report ........................................................................................................... 5 Sustainability report ................................................................................................................. 12 Corporate governance .............................................................................................................. 36 Financial statements for the Group .......................................................................................... 44 Financial statements for parent company ............................................................................... 91 Share information ................................................................................................................... 104 Members of the Board (2019-2020) ........................................................................................ 107 SCHIBSTED ANNUAL REPORT 2019 WHO WE ARE Who we are Schibsted is an international family of digital consumer brands with more than 5,000 employees. We have world-class media houses in Scandinavia, leading marketplaces and digital services that empower consumers. Millions of people interact with Schibsted companies every day. What we do We rely on
    [Show full text]
  • Hur Objektiv Är Den Svenska Storstadspressen?
    Hur objektiv är den svenska storstadspressen? - En granskning av 2014 års valrörelse Erik Elowsson Institutionen för mediestudier Examensarbete 15 hp Vårterminen 2015 Medie- och Kommunikationsvetenskap Handledare: Göran Leth Examinator: Anja Hirdman Sammanfattning I denna uppsats används kvantitativ innehållsanalys för att pröva storstadspressens objektivitet gällande rapporteringen om valrörelsen 2014. Storstadspressen definieras som de fyra stockholmstidningarna: Aftonbladet, Expressen, Dagens Nyheter och Svenska Dagbladet. Syftet är att kartlägga hur dessa tidningar rapporterar om sammanhållningen inom de två politiska blocken, Alliansen och De rödgröna, vilka konkurrerar om att bilda regering efter valet. Objektivitet har operationaliserats som opartiskhet, vilket avser att medier balanserar uppmärksamheten och graden av positiv och negativ framställning mellan parterna i ett givet sammanhang. Resultaten indikerade att storstadspressens rapportering av valrörelsen, med avseende på sammanhållningen inom blocken, gynnade Alliansen mer än De rödgröna och att skillnaderna mellan tidningarna var betydande. För två av fyra tidningar kunde partiskhetsutlåtanden göras, där en bedöms som partisk och en som opartisk. Dagens Nyheters rapportering bedömdes som partisk, då Alliansens fick betydligt mer uppmärksamhet och nästan uteslutande positiv uppmärksamhet, samtidigt som De rödgröna fick avsevärt mindre utrymme och mestadels negativ uppmärksamhet. Svenska Dagbladet å andra sidan lyckades balansera sin rapportering mellan blocken, både i fråga
    [Show full text]
  • PRESS 2000 Zygmunt Bauman
    PRESS 2000 Zygmunt Bauman, 'Leben - oder bloß Uberleben?', Die Ziet, Berlin, Germany, 28 December 2000 Aidan Dunne, 'Where angels fear to tread', The Irish Times, Dublin, Ireland, 4 December 2000 John A. Walker, 'To buy or not to buy?', Art Review, London, England, December 2000/January 2001 Anders Sjogren, 'Mannen bakom rondellens huvudlosa kroppar', Vasterbottens-Kuriren, Umea, Sweden, 9 November 2000 Author Unknown, 'Omdiskuterad staty invigd', Vasterbottens Folkblad, Umea, Sweden, 9 November 2000 Barry Toberman, 'Oslo weeps as memorial to Nazi victims dedicated', Jewish Chronicle, London, England, 3 November 2000 Trond Boren, 'Stolene er tome', Stavanger Aftenblad, Stavanger, Norway, 27 October 2000 Lotte Sandberg, 'Poetiske paminnelser', Aftenposten, Oslo, Norway, 27 October 2000 Erle Moestue Bugge, 'Norske joder far sitt krigs-monument', Aftenposten, Oslo, Norway, 25 October 2000 Martin Gayford, 'Artist on art', The Daily Telegraph, London, England, 7 October 2000 Martin Gayford, 'Self-portraits without the self', The Daily Telegraph, London, England, 4 October 2000 Gautier Deblonde, 'Gormley's People', Granta 71, London, Autumn 2000 Mark Currah, 'Antony Gormley', Time Out, London, England, 27 September - 4 October 2000 Author Unknown, 'Männer, schwerelos: Skulpturen von Gormley bei White Cube2 in London', Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Frankfurt, Germany, 23 September 2000 Charles Darwent, 'Eight iron men, some old Y-fronts and a neon tube', The Independent on Sunday, London, England, 17 September 2000 Claire Bishop, 'Casting himself
    [Show full text]
  • Raport Emss-Final.Indd
    EUROPEAN MEDIA SYSTEMS SURVEY 2010: RESULTS AND DOCUMENTATION Marina Popescu with contributions from Gabor Toka, Tania Gosselin, and Jose Santana Pereira Colchester, UK: Department of Government, University of Essex Downloadable from www.mediasystemsineurope.org © Marina Popescu, 2011 Part I. Introduction 1 in the EMSS 2010 country-level data sets based How to obtain the data 1 on various recodes and averages of Conditions of use 2 elementary indicators 18-19 How to cite 2 Illustration 7: Composite measures in the EMSS 2010 country-level data sets based Contents Acknowledgements 3 on summing up two weighted averages 20 Part II. Project design 4 Objectives and method 4 Part IV. Data quality 21 Country selection criteria 5 Tests of data validity 21 Respondent selection criteria 6 Data reliability 22 Questionnaire design 6 Illustration 8: Data reliability in the Illustration 1: Except from the questionnaire EMSS 2010 study 24 as the respondents saw it 7 Media channels covered in the survey 8 References 26 The coding of media partisanship 8 Data collection and response rates 9 Part V. Graphical displays 28 Illustration 2: Response rates by national Single items 28 context to the 2010 EMSS survey 11 Composite measures 70 Country by country 120 Part III. Variables and visual displays 12 Single questions about individual media outlets 12 Part VI. Technical Appendix 28 Illustration 3: Outlet-level data on Italy from I. THE EMSS 2010 QUESTIONNAIRE 154 the 2010 EMSS survey 12 II. The coding of national media outlets Single questions about national media in general 13 covered in EMSS 2010 161 Illustration 4: Mapping broad trends 14 III.
    [Show full text]
  • Ship of Shame Gender and Nation in Narratives of the 1981 Soviet Submarine Crisis in Sweden
    Ship of Shame Gender and Nation in Narratives of the 1981 Soviet Submarine Crisis in Sweden ✣ Cecilia Ase˚ On the evening of 27 October 1981, a Soviet submarine, U-137, ran aground and was stranded on a rock in a restricted military area near a naval base in Karlskrona, in the southeastern part of Sweden. The boat was discovered the next morning by a local fisherman, who alerted the authorities. Until 6 November, when the submarine was restored to a Soviet fleet waiting beyond the limits of Sweden’s territorial waters, it remained an object of marked military attention and intense diplomatic negotiations. Media coverage of the incident was extensive and made headline news in Sweden and around the world. From Sweden’s perspective, the submarine was a security threat and a flagrant breach of the country’s territorial sovereignty. After the delayed dis- covery of the boat, the Swedish military acted resolutely. Heavily armed troops filled the islands surrounding the submarine, numerous military vessels took positions nearby, and marine helicopters and air force planes circled the area. However, as the diplomatic negotiations became protracted, the sense of shock and disbelief diminished, and concern over national prestige and reputation became all the more rampant. A sense of danger returned with renewed force on the afternoon of 5 November, when Prime Minister Thorbjorn¨ Falldin¨ announced with restrained emotion at a press conference that the submarine carried nuclear weapons.1 This declaration was sensational news and made the violation of Swedish territory appear all the more serious. In the decade following the U-137 episode, the Swedish military was involved in numerous other submarine searches, evicting what were ostensibly foreign submarines from Swedish waters and dropping sink bombs.
    [Show full text]
  • Crisis Management in the Media
    Crisis Management in the Media Sven Egil Omdal: The Day that changed Norway n Hanne Skartveit: VG at it’s Best Wenche Fuglehaug: The many Faces of Grief n Grzegorz Piechota: A never-ending Nightmare Kalle Lisberg: The Sound of Sorrow n Jan Ove Årsæther: The longest Day; 56 Hours and 11 Minutes Harald Stanghelle: To Coin a Phrase when Words are not Enough José A. Martinez Soler: From Titanic to Utøya The Tinius Trust Annual Report 2011 The Tinius Trust Annual Report 2011 [4] THE TINIUS TRUST Annual Report 2011 The free press put to the test The tragedy which hit us on 22 July 2011 put the media to the test too. In his speech at the national commemorative day on 22 August, one month after the tragedy, H M King Harald emphasized the importance of our basic values: “I stand fast to my belief that freedom is stronger than fear. I stand fast to my belief in an open Norwegian democracy and civic life. And I stand fast to my belief in our opportunities for living freely and safely in our own country.” A prerequisite for these values to prevail is a free press. Tinius Nagell-Erichsen, who established the Trust in May 1996, emphasized the importance of working for the freedom of speech and a free press as an essential safeguard for an active democracy. Securing these values is a task the Trust carrying his name is taking very seriously. In the media world of today, this challenge is greater than ever. It requires that we protect principles like freedom of faith, tolerance, human rights and democratic principles, just those values which were challenged by the events on 22 July 2011.
    [Show full text]
  • Bakgrunnen for Media Norge
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by NORA - Norwegian Open Research Archives Camilla Fosse Knut Tornes Helge Østbye Bakgrunnen for Media Norge Rapport til Rådet for anvendt medieforskning (RAM) Institutt for informasjons- og medievitenskap Universitetet i Bergen juni 2010 1 © Forfatterne ISBN 978-82-8033-030-7 Rapporten er også lagt ut i BORA (Bergen Open Research Archive) for gratis nedlasting: https://bora.uib.no/ Henvendelser til: [email protected] Helge Østbye Institutt for informasjons- og medievitenskap Boks 7801 5020 Bergen 2 Innhold: Forord 5 1. Introduksjon 7 2. Frykten for eierkonsentrasjon i mediene 13 3. Schibsted-sfæren 25 4. Ideen om Media Norge 33 5. Eierne behandler fusjonen: «… and then they were four» 55 6. Hvem skal stanse gorillaen? 67 7. Stoffutveksling 2008 – 2009 93 8. Avslutning 109 Referanser 111 3 4 Forord Prosjektet ble etablert på oppfordring fra Rådet for anvendt medieforskning (RAM), og med finansiering fra Rådet. RAM er får sine midler fra Kultur- departementet og er administrert av Medietilsynet. Oppdraget gikk til Helge Østbye ved Institutt for informasjons- og medievitenskap (Universitetet i Bergen). Camilla Fosse leverte i 2008 en masteroppgave i medievitenskap med tittelen Historien om Media Norge . En del av materialet ble videre bearbeidet i et bokkapittel i Martin Eide (red.): Journalistiske nyorienteringer (2009) Knut Tornes leverte i 2009 en masteroppgave i medievitenskap med tittelen Media Norge, samarbeid og mangfold. Disse tre arbeidene er brukt i denne rapporten. I den grad det i rapporten hentes saksframstillinger, sitater fra kilder, etc. fra disse arbeidene, skjer det som oftest uten nærmere henvisninger til det aktuelle arbeidet.
    [Show full text]
  • Norway's European Conundrum
    Norway’s European Conundrum John Erik Fossum Working Paper No. 4, February 2009 ARENA Working Paper (online) | ISSN 1890- 7741 Working papers can be downloaded from the ARENA homepage: http://www.arena.uio.no Abstract Membership in the European Union has for several decades figured as one of, if not the, most politically divisive issues in Norway. The question of Norwegian EU membership has been turned down in two popular referenda, and three governments have faltered on the issue. Since 1994, through the EEA agreement and other formalized links under all three EU pillars, Norway has become tightly incorporated in the EU. Norway’s ‘tight incorporation without formal membership’ has occurred without much political uproar and within a context where Norwegian political actors have removed the contentious EU membership issue from the political and public agenda. It is the political mechanisms that political actors have used to remove the contentious membership issue from the political agenda that is the topic of this article. I argue that these can be usefully studied with reference to Stephen Holmes’ notion of ‘gag rules’, formal and informal provisions bent on removing contentious issues from debate and decision-making. These mechanisms have helped smooth Norway’s incorporation in the EU, a type of incorporation that poses serious challenges to Norwegian democracy. In the concluding section the democratic implications are discussed. This single-case study of Norway offers insights into mechanisms and patterns of de-politicization of European integration and the democratic implications thereof that are of relevance across Europe. Reproduction of this text is subject to permission by the author.
    [Show full text]