Communicating the North: Media Structures and Images in the Making of the Nordic Region

ISBN-13: 9781409449485 / Angielski / Twarda / 2013 / 382 str.

Jonas Harvard;Peter Stadius

Opis

What makes a magazine in South Africa promote Scandinavian unity among its immigrant readers and why does a Swedish king endorse attempts to influence pan-Scandinavian opinion through a transnational media event in Sweden, Norway and Denmark? Can portraits of exotic Lapplanders in the British press, enthusiastic accounts of the welfare state in post-war travel literature and descriptions of the liberal Nordic woman as a metaphor for a freer society in Franco Spain really be bundled together under a joint label of 'Nordicness'? How is it that despite the variety of images of the Nordic region that are circulating, we still find this recurring idea of a shared Nordic identity? These are some of the questions the current volume seeks to answer. Covering the time period from the early nineteenth century up until the present and encompassing case studies from Britain, Spain, Poland, and South Africa, as well as from the Nordic countries, contributors to the volume investigate the images that have been presented of the Nordic region in the media in and outside of the Nordic countries, how such images have been shaped by mechanisms of mediation, and the channels through which they have been distributed. The chapters address both specific cases such as media events and individual publications, as well as the structural and institutional settings for mediating the Nordic region.

Spis treści

Contents: A communicative perspective on the formation of the North: contexts, channels and concepts, Jonas Harvard and Peter Stadius; Nordic media systems 1850-1950: myths, mixtures and metamorphoses, Lars Nord; Connecting the Nordic region: the electric telegraph and the European news market, Jonas Harvard; Media Scandinavianism: media events and the historical legacy of pan-Scandinavianism, Jonas Harvard and Magdalena Hillström; Nordic solidarity in print: the Nordens Frihet Association and its magazine, 1939-45, Tora Byström; Expressions of pan-Scandinavian sentiments in the magazine Fram among Scandinavian migrants in South Africa, 1914-1954, Erlend Eidsvik; ’One Valhalla for the free’: Scandinavia, Britain and Northern identity in the mid-19th century, Andrew G. Newby; Selling the Sami: Nordic stereotypes and participatory media in Georgian Britain, Linda Andersson Burnett; The Valkyrie in a bikini: the Nordic woman as progressive media icon in Spain, 1891-1975, Elena Lindholm Narváez; Unity exposed: the Scandinavian pavilions at the world exhibitions in 1967 and 1970, Nikolas Glover; Happy countries: appraisals of interwar Nordic societies, Peter Stadius; A Swedish Norden or a Nordic Sweden? Image politics in the West during the Cold War, Carl Marklund; Constructing a Nordic community in the Polish press - past and present, Kazimierz Musial and Maja Chacinska; Conclusion: mediating the Nordic brand - history recycled, Jonas Harvard and Peter Stadius; Index.

O autorze

Jonas Harvard is Manager for the Nordic Spaces research programme at the Centre for East European and Baltic Studies, Södertörn University, Stockholm, and Research Fellow at the Department of Humanities, Mid Sweden University. Peter Stadius is Lecturer in Nordic Studies and Culture and Area Studies at the Department for World Cultures, Helsinki University, Finland.