Prioritising National Competitiveness over Support for Democracy? Finnish Media Policy in the 21st Century

• Authors: Marko Ala-Fossi , Mikko Grönlund , Heikki Hellman , Katja Lehtisaari , Kari Karppinen , Hannu Nieminen

Abstracts

EN

Ever since the launch of the World Press Freedom Index almost 20 years ago, Finland has always been among the top five countries of that index. According to the annual Reuters Digital News reports, Finnish people also have the highest level of trust in the news media and one of the highest levels of press readership in the EU. Most of the media companies are doing quite well, while Google and Facebook have a much less dominant role in the advertising market than elsewhere in Europe. In this context, you might expect Finland to have a comprehensive and visionary media and communications policy to support democracy. However, our meta-study of Finnish media and communications policy based on two recent reports to the Ministry of Transport and Communications, other earlier studies, along with official documents as well as statistical data suggests that is not the case. Our analysis shows that most decisions have been pragmatic ad hoc solutions serving economic interests rather than any specific media and communication policy goals. A closer examination also proves that Finland does not fi t into the Nordic Media Welfare State model either, despite a long, shared history and cultural ties.

Keywords

EN

Media Policy; Regulation; State Support; News Media; Finland

• Publisher: Centre for Europe, University of Warsaw
• Journal: Studia Europejskie-Studies in European Affairs
• Year: 2022
• Volume: 26
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 149-175

Dates

published

2022

Contributors

author

Marko Ala-Fossi

• Tampere University

author

Mikko Grönlund

• University of Turku

author

Heikki Hellman

• Tampere University

author

Katja Lehtisaari

• Tampere University

author

Kari Karppinen

• University of Helsinki

author

Hannu Nieminen

• University of Helsinki

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Identifiers

DOI

10.33067/SE.4.2022.6

Biblioteka Nauki

2165502