Our Nordic newsletter reports on current research and studies on media developments in the Nordic region. Below are some examples of content in this issue (pdf):
Youth and News, a Nordic-Baltic research anthology, sheds light on what implications the digitalisation has had for how children and young people consume news.
Media use on digital platforms continues to grow, but there are still differences between the generations. According to a Swedish study, the majority of the elderly still prefer traditional media, whereas the youth prefer digital media services. But a Danish study shows that the older age groups are also increasing their presence on social media.
Digitalisation is also affecting the media economy. In Norway, an estimated half of the ad investments go to global tech giants like Facebook and Google; and the figures are even higher in Sweden, with approximately
two-thirds of ad investments going this way.
Newspapers is the sector most affected by the digital competition. National analyses of the media economy in Finland, Norway and Sweden show that newspaper revenues continued to decline in 2017, while the situation for television and radio was generally positive. The largest growth was in online advertising. In Iceland, unlike other Nordic countries, printed newspapers are still the most important advertising medium.
As news media loses advertising money, the harder it gets for journalism and media content. The question of what can be done to strengthen quality journalism in the Nordic countries was raised at an expert meeting organised by Nordicom and the Nordic Council of Ministers in November. The seminar can be streamed from Nordicom’s website.
Freedom of expression is an ever-important issue. The newsletter's international outlook reports that the freedom of the Internet is decreasing around the world, but Iceland and Estonia are ranked as the countries where net freedom is the highest.
Eva Harrie