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.
Covering a 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 this 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.
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 Hillstrƶm; Nordic
solidarity in print: the Nordens Frihet Association and its magazine,
1939-45, Tora Bystrƶm; 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 NarvƔez; 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.
Jonas Harvard is Manager for the Nordic Spaces research programme at the Centre for East European and Baltic Studies, Sƶdertƶrn 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.
