<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">This article argues that the theory of social representations can give valuable contributions to media research. It offers a new theory-based approach for studying how the media and citizens socially represent societal and political issues colouring our age, or some specific time period. Two fundamental communicative mechanisms – anchoring and objectification – are posited by the theory. These mechanisms, with a set of subcategories, are presented and it is shown how they can be used as conceptual analytical tools in empirical analysis. Concrete examples are given from a study on climate change and the media.</abstract>

Social Representations Theory

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The present article analyses how various forms of business integrations, combined with technology innovation, have affected the sports broadcasting market in Norway. Interviews with representatives of Norwegian TV broadcasters and transmission companies documented that extremely fierce competition can motivate former rivals to collaborate. Even the new entrants tend to operate together with others instead of operating autonomously. Such collusion can transfer market power from the sellers to the buyers of sports rights. The interviews showed how product innovations can improve the profitability of sports broadcasting. They confirmed that integration can generate <italic>economies of scope advantages</italic> (cost reductions from the joint use of inputs), for example by using labour more efficiently within parent companies. Additionally, they also showed that economies of scope advantages can come from similarities in the distribution of goods and services, not only from similarities in the production process.</abstract>

Dr.philos., Professor, Trondheim Business School, Sør-Trøndelag University College, Trondheim

Ph.D., Professor, Department of Information Sciences and Media Studies, University of Bergen

Sports Broadcasting

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The future of public service broadcasting (PSB), and its role for democracy and culture in an age of globalization and digitalization, is a disputed issue among communication scholars, journalists, the general public and politicians. The PSB institutions are dependent on political support for their survival, and they have to live up to cultural policy obligations. The focus of this analysis is on the rhetoric employed in the white papers on PSB and overall cultural policy, produced between 2005 and 2007 in Norway and Sweden. The analysis shows that both countries emphasize the need to secure an inclusive public sphere, a vivid democracy and a national culture. The rhetoric differs in the sense that the Norwegian focus is on PSB as a tool for achieving cultural policy goals, while the Swedish focus is more on why the idea of PSB is important in itself.</abstract>

Public Service Broadcasting as an Object for Cultural Policy in Norway and Sweden

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Feature journalism has developed from being an insignificant supplement to news journalism to a family of genres that today dominates newspapers. The present article explores the growing importance of feature journalism and attempts to understand its social function, how it has changed and why it has become so important. Based on an analysis of influential textbooks on feature journalism, the paper argues that feature journalism has traditionally been dominated by a literary discourse, and discourses of intimacy and adventure – discourses that thus have become increasingly important for newspapers, thereby transforming the social function of news in general. Today, however, the genres of feature journalism are undergoing significant changes, reflecting the technological, social, economic and cultural changes that affect the media industry and the role of journalism at large. The present article is framed by a social constructivist view of genre, and it outlines possible scenarios for future transformations of feature journalism.</abstract>

The Featurization of Journalism

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Journalists face plenty of challenges when covering innovation topics. Because innovation stories combine elements from several traditional beats, they are often left “homeless” in the media. The general lack of resources in the media affects specialty areas in particular. On top of that, innovation topics are often difficult to write because the issues are complicated and unpredictable. The risk of engaging in PR is particularly high when writing about innovation. Journalists can try to cope with these challenges, for instance by networking with experts, doing collaborative stories between desks, appreciating the fact that innovation stories take their time and finding a personal involvement in the topic to make it more appealing to the reader. The data in the present article consist of 69 thematic interviews with press journalists from the US, Japan and Finland.</abstract>

Challenges in Covering Innovation Topics

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Based on a close reading of Ridley Scott’s war film Black Hawk Down (USA 2001; BHD), the present article investigates the formal properties through which a certain strain of war and action movies discursively constitutes the other – the enemy – as less than human. I develop the argument that the emergent relation between friend and foe in these films can be read through the concept of the border as an epistemological barrier that keeps the other incomprehensible, inaccessible, and ultimately ungrievable. Having demonstrated how BHD sets up such epistemological barriers, I widen my focus and show that similar formal properties can be found in other audio-visual media, such as video games or news items.I then proceed to investigate how the societal impacts of this audio-visual rhetoric might be conceptualized. Do the mass media constitute a logistics that organizes audiences’ perceptions of war, violence, and the other? Does the barring of the face of the enemy from the public sphere of appearance render particular lives ungrievable and therefore unprotectable?The main theoretical frame of the paper consists of an application of the discourse theory of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe to an analysis of audio-visual media, and of the approaches of Judith Butler, James Der Derian, and Paul Virilio to conceptualizing impacts of media representations on political discourse and practice in times of war.</abstract>

Borders, Barriers and Grievable Lives

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The present article takes its points of departure in medium and modernity theory (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_nor-2017-0115_ref_022_w2aab2b8b2b1b7b1ab1ac22Aa">Meyrowitz 1985</xref>), as well as in the research on the special meaning patterns in developed broadcasting referred to as “para-social interaction” (Horton &amp; Wohl 1956) and “flow” (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_nor-2017-0115_ref_031_w2aab2b8b2b1b7b1ab1ac31Aa">Williams 1974</xref>, <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_nor-2017-0115_ref_005_w2aab2b8b2b1b7b1ab1ab5Aa">Ellis 1982</xref>). The empirical focus is on the early years of radio broadcasting in Norway (1925-1940). Through a detailed analysis of the relation between radio’s production and distribution technologies, on the one hand, and the formation of the medium’s textuality and discursive roles and relationships, on the other, the article assesses which stage in the fostering of a new sense of time and place Norwegian broadcasting had reached when the 1930s ebbed out. It is shown that very little in the way of the “blurring” of traditional distinctions between here and there, live and mediated, personal and public had become realities in the Norwegian context of the 1930s.</abstract>

Time and Space in Early Norwegian Radio

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Globalizing poses particular challenges to <italic>likhet</italic> – Norwegian conceptualizations of alikeness – and with it the Norwegian conceptualization of individualism, because globalizing advances a different conceptualization of equality than the one on which <italic>likhet</italic> is based. The present essay explores cultural identity negotiations within Norwegian globalized consumer culture and addresses culturally expressed aspects of globalization as they emerge in negotiations of local identities in cultural texts. TV commercials are analyzed via a critical cultural theoretical framework. Specifically, three patterns that speak to <italic>likhet</italic> as a site of tension in a globalized context are discussed: exoticization, utilization, and juxtaposition.</abstract>

Tensions of Consumer Individualism

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Nordicom Review

About the journal  Since 1980, Nordicom Review has been a journal devoted to new Nordic media and communication research. The journal is published by Nordicom, a centre for Nordic media and communication research at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers. 　   Nordicom Review follows a double-blind peer review process where all submitted manuscripts are made anonymous and judged by at least two independent and external anonymous scholars appropriate for the subject. Reviewers are asked to state their recommendation about whether the article should be published when submitting their review. Reviewers are also encouraged to provide comments that are for editors only, including concerns about misconduct or problems adequately assessing all parts of the manuscript. Reviewers are requested to disclose any potential conflict of interest. The comments provided by the reviewers inform the decision of the editorial team to publish or refuse the submission.  The journal is included in Scopus, the largest abstract and citation database for peer-reviewed research.  Aims &amp; scope  Nordicom Review is an international peer reviewed journal that provides a dedicated forum for articles that contribute to a wider understanding of media, mediated communication, and journalism in the Nordic region. This includes research on the Nordic countries as well as research with relevance for the Nordic context.　  Nordicom Review publishes original articles and book reviews on topics such as journalism, popular culture, media audiences, media history, political communication, public service media, media and information literacy, media education, and media production, structure, policy, and economy.　  Nordicom Review welcomes interdisciplinary submissions from a worldwide authorship, including both empirical and theoretical articles.  Publications ethics and publication malpractice statement  Nordicom Review applies several editorial policies that all editors, reviewers, and authors are expected to adhere to throughout the publication process. These policies are based on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines. In instances where these editorial policies are breached, COPE guidelines will be followed.    Visit COPE's website to learn more  Visit the publisher to read the editorial policies   