Carlson, Ulla. (Ed.). Public Service Media from a Nordic Horizon.

McAnany, Emile G.

Carlson, Ulla. (Ed.). Public Service Media from a Nordic Horizon. Goteborg, Sweden: Nordicom, 2013. Pp. 177. ISBN 978-91-89471-60-2 (paper) SEK 200, 22 [euro].

This recent volume on public service media in Nordic countries reflects the continuing struggle of the public media to adjust to changes in commercialization, globalization, and digitization. The great shift in European media began in the early 1980s when satellite TV brought outside content across borders within the EU. Then the commercial television interests began to erode resistance to a dual public/commercial system. With this barrier breached, global companies like Disney, Time Warner, and others began to show a global rather than a European face to audiences. Finally within the last decade, the whole broadcast medium was overtaken by digital platforms from websites to non-broadcast media that carried content as with cell phones and tablets. All of these very rapid changes placed the public broadcaster (radio and television) under pressure to compete for previously monopoly audiences. This book is a current assessment of the ongoing struggle in five Nordic countries (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland) that in some way reflects a similar struggle in the greater European Union to maintain a public service system that has been in place since the 1920s.

After a brief introduction by the editor, Chapter 1 by Christian Nissen tries to give a succinct summary of the public service media (PSM) system that, according to the author, rests on "technically advanced and stable political systems" (p. 10), "cultural homogeneity and high social trust" (p. 11), "broad political support for public media" (p. 12), and "close cooperation among Nordic PSM companies" (p. 13). To this very positive summary, he adds some serious challenges: pressure from local commercial media, a significant dominance of American and other global content, and concerns about continuing public and political support especially for the funding source in the license fee. The chapter ends with the concern that the most important constituency of the young audiences seem to favor the kind of global content that is far from the original remit for PSM in these countries.

Chapter 2 by Taisto Hujanen, Lennart Weibull, and Eva Harrie is a long and detailed history of PSM in Nordic countries. The argument is partly premised on the detailed data that show the impact of commercial competition and the loss of audience especially in the 1990s as well as the stabilization of audience share in the 2000s. The fact that the combined population of the five countries is only about 20 million means that the economies have a difficult time supporting the production of much local content. As a consequence of this cost/audience size conundrum, the commercial media have mostly focused on entertainment and mostly with imported content. This gives the PSM an advantage because their mandate is to reflect national and regional issues. However, this advantage is a talking point for commercial interests with political parties that it is an "unfair advantage." The chapter, somewhat in contrast with the previous one, is a more optimistic reading of the current situation, the authors concluding that the PSMs have adapted well to digitization and have maintained public trust.

Anker Lund and Gregory Lowe in Chapter 3 make an effort to clarify the exact nature of the challenge from commercial rivals in the Nordic countries. They begin with the argument that "a robust, healthy dual system is considered essential for meeting the broadest range of needs in the respective societies" (p. 55) and thus make it clear that they are not just defending the PSM but looking at the needs of society and including commercial media into the equation. They proceed to the more theoretical argument from Hallin and Mancinni's classic book (2004) on comparative media models which argues that the liberal model (that of the U.S.) seems to be the tendency for many if not all countries. They argue that this is not necessarily the case in the Nordic countries because of challenges in media production (commercial companies can't afford local production), challenges in media distribution (the PSMs have been leaders in new media technologies adoption and digital platforms), and media management (the tradition of strong executive leadership in the PSMs and the political trust of the government) that the Nordic countries have successfully challenged. This defense of the dual market solution of PSMs and commercial media is clear and persuasive, and provides a clear rationale for continuing to seek a "balance."

In a relatively brief Chapter 4 by Hallvard Moe and ole Mjos, the argument is made about the regulatory environment of the public service media. Using the "Arm's Length Principle," the authors argue that in "running the public broadcasters" organizations, this principle has meant that the organizations have been relatively free of interference; and the supervisory committees' appointment by parliaments have functioned well without undue interference; but in the "funding the public broadcasters," they believe that the political and economic pressures can affect the license fees or taxes collected and that this has become increasingly vulnerable to outside political influence. This is a point raised elsewhere in the book but highlighted here as one challenge that has not been overcome for the PSMs.

Lars-Ake Engblom's Chapter 5 continues the last point about funding and goes into detail about the variety of mechanisms that the five countries use, from traditional license fees to the media tax that people in Iceland pay and to some form of joint funding proposed elsewhere. What is clear is that the fee is under pressure and that funding is a very political issue that promises to be so in the future. Henrik Hartman in the following chapter recounts the very broad history of cooperation among these five countries from program exchange (1,027 programs exchanged in 2011), co-productions (especially in children's programs and fiction production), and general sharing of ideas and research.

Chapter 7 by Gunn Sara Enil and Elisabeth Staksrud deals with what the PSMs have done in production for children, one of their important production mandates. After a brief history of children's programs in the five countries, the authors detail the challenge that the arrival of Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network had on the local PSMs. The shift in the approach has not been to directly compete with these global companies but to provide alternatives in national programming, adding entire children's channels and in emphasizing both education and entertainment. In addition, the local public stations emphasized research on children and media, which the commercial channels simply could not do. Even though the competition remains high, the local public service channels emphasize the advantage of content with emphasis on local language development and cultural values relevant to children and their development.

The final two chapters, one by Ingegerd Rydin on immigrant media and another by Henrik Selin on the influence of EU policy on PSM wrap up the book. Rydin brings up a vexing problem as the four European Nordic countries have allowed immigrants whose entry calls the historical model into some question. There does not seem to be a simple solution, and the author cites more problems than solutions, leaving the conclusion very much unresolved. Selin's chapter is less important as it deals with the EU regulations as they impact the PSMs, an impact that seems less pressing than the many challenges brought up in previous chapters.

What an outsider might view as a communication issue less compelling than the anxiety expressed in the book, the authors and editor would surely respond that the reader did not comprehend what the issue is. Looked at from their perspective, the mass media have remained something of central political and cultural importance since their founding more than 80 years ago. The recent theory of mediatization (Hjarvard, 2013) indicates that media are even more important today and that the challenges to the public system are seen as crucial to the survival of values, cultures, and languages with special inflection for the small countries of this book. It serves as a reminder for other countries of parallel issues in their own cultures that perhaps are not so obvious or have not become so central politically. In short, the book contains a valuable lesson for all readers.

The book has references and notes at the end of each chapter but unfortunately no index.

References

Hallin, D., & Mancini, P. (2004). Comparing media systems: Three models of media and politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hjarvard, S. (2013). The mediatization of culture and society. London and New York: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group.

--Emile G. McAnany

Santa Clara University