Media Studies the Nordic Way: Formations and futures

Based on an overview of Anglo-American stocktaking of media and communication studies, this article situates Nordic media studies as a third route staked out between academic binaries of administrative and critical approaches. The key argument is this: Nordic media studies displays distinctive features of development that are shaped by Nordic welfarist ideals from the 1970s and 1980s rather than by international trends in the academy. Furthermore, these ideals are worth holding on to if the field of media studies is to thrive with quality and relevance in a globalised, connected, and deeply datafied platform society. I take media studies – not communication studies – as my point of departure, since this is the most feasible umbrella term when studying current modes of communication that are technologically mediated in ways that can be stored, shaped, and shared across time and space.