(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
This spring there have been a number of debates about the Norwegian public's conditions, quality
and way of working in the capital's cultural and journalistic environment – something that has several sources: Morgenbladet has new owners and expects a solid injection of money, a Nordic edition of the radical French newspaper Le Monde Diplomatique is about to establish itself, the press support is (as usual ) under attack, Samtiden has proposed a semi-private freedom of expression fund to support concrete measures in the small public, the magazines have grown, which has caused the alarm bells to ring in a handful of professors for fear of tabloidization, and Klassekampen has strengthened as a cultural and debattavis.
In other words, there is movement in the part of the Norwegian public that can be called "the counter-public", or "the critical public", which admittedly in reality consists of a number of smaller public – Klassekampen, Ny Tid, Dag og Tid, Morgenbladet, Samtiden, Syn og Segn og Prosa are the most well-known publications (and they have different, but partly overlapping audiences) – but which are nevertheless in common opposition to a commercial and tabloid mass public, with VG, Dagbladet and Aftenposten in the lead.
At the same time, this commercial and tabloid public itself has changed in recent years. Two trends are prominent: First, increasingly concentrated ownership forces place ever greater demands on earnings. Secondly, a professional ideology has emerged – journalism – which to a small extent makes these media arenas where opinions are broken and contemporary diagnoses are tested. These two tendencies have unification as a relentless result. This has just as necessary as ritual spawned a lot of more or less well-placed media criticism. At times, it has taken the form of cultural pessimistic whining. The perspective I take here is different. The first requirement for a good media debate is that one takes on the holistic character of the public: The counter-public and the general public are in interaction with each other. For example, essays in Samtiden give rise to debates in Dagbladet. One cannot understand one part, or attack a single publication, without looking at it function the publication fills in the public as a whole. There is no unambiguous tendency here: on the one hand, differentiation processes threaten to make the counter-publicity less relevant. On the other hand, Samtiden, Prosa and Klassekampen have recently created debates that have also reached the major media.
Despite the many debates so far this year. Last Monday, the stage was set for another public debate in the capital. The question that was asked was: "What should the left-wing newspaper look like?" The four in the panel – Bjørgulv Braanen from Klassekampen, Hilde Haugsgjerd from Dagsavisen, Hege Duckert from Dagbladet and Alf Van Der Hagen from Morgenbladet – could not come up with a good answer, but positions and dividing lines became clearer. And perhaps more importantly: Some paradoxes and weaknesses in the debate about the Norwegian public suddenly became very visible.
Dagbladet is an interesting phenomenon in that respect because the newspaper itself has long since stopped seeing itself as part of a counter-publicity, while strong forces in the counter-publicity have wanted a Dagblad that takes a step away from VG and brings out the best in its own tradition. The newspaper had a prominent role as a central debate arena in the past. The commercialization and tabloidisation of Dagbladet has therefore become a symbol of "decay" in the Norwegian media. The system for expressing such criticism was Jan Erik Vold – the poet who under the headline "Newspaper we would not lose" in the last issue of Dag og Tid complained about being dumped as a member of Dagbladet's supervisory board, and asked the newspaper to the question of what is a realistic circulation for a quality newspaper in Norway. ” "They must find the answer and act accordingly, if they want to create Norway's best newspaper," said Vold. He was supported by Dag og Tid editor Svein Gjerdåker, who in a leading position in the same issue wrote: “Dagbladet is the only newspaper in this country that has the potential to be a large nationwide quality newspaper. That is why Dagbladet has a great responsibility – far beyond circulation figures and financial incentives. If Dagbladet does not deliver, no one can take over. "
Dagbladet also changed the newspaper last autumn. They said they wanted "up in the market", and focused on debate and culture to reach the socially engaged readers. However, this has not happened to a large enough degree. This is indicated by Gjerdåker's leader, and the undersigned has shown this in a longer article in the last issue of Samtiden. (I reviewed Dagbladet's debate pages in January and February. The results are rather discouraging with regard to social diagnoses, cultural and ideological debates.)
A common argument with which such media criticism is met is that the Norwegian public has a distinctive division of labor, where a vibrant magazine culture takes care of the social diagnoses and the cultural and ideological debates, while the daily newspapers can stick to the daily news coverage. This was visible in Dagbladet's debate editor Gunnar Ringheim's answer to the undersigned in Dagbladet on 14 May, and it was a visible premise in the debate last Monday. Bjørgulv Braanen said, for example: “Dagbladet and Dagsavisen can be broad and popular newspapers. The class struggle must be directed at those who are above average interested in politics, ideology and culture. ”
The four editors gradually became relatively satisfied with being able to divide the market between them. Such arguments are very easy and a little cowardly to hide behind. Especially from the broad daily newspapers.
The second requirement for a good media debate is therefore that consideration for democracy becomes governing. In such a perspective, it does not hold that the social diagnoses and the cultural and ideological debates take place in the small spaces in the counter-publications' publications. They need to enter the general public. Hege Duckert said in the debate that "Norwegian newspaper structure is special because the elite and the people read the same thing." That is probably no more than partially true. But even if it were so, it does not strengthen democracy until one can prove that content in these newspapers keep a high enough level, and that perspectives represents a breadth that also makes room for contemporary diagnoses.
One of many paradoxes is the left's critique of the commercial media. It takes value-conservative forms. While in the old days it was Dagbladet that led the fight against dark men of various kinds – whether it was sexual morality or Georg Brandess' right to lecture at the University of Oslo – and thus placed itself in a radical (and not least liberal) tradition, they today criticized by a left that detests the development of the commercial media. "Dagbladet is an independent cultural radical newspaper that caters to socially engaged readers of both sexes," said Hege Duckert during the debate. And the concept of cultural radicalism is central. Hege Duckert defined it as follows: Cultural radicalism consists of two concepts – future optimism and hospitality. ”
This sounds hollow to my ears. The third requirement for a good media debate is therefore a constructive one orientering. The counter-public must be built up through constructive competition and constructive cooperation. A competition that raises the quality so that the impact is greater, and a collaboration that makes the overall scope of the counter-public greater. Debates in the smaller counter-publics undoubtedly have an intrinsic value, but there must also be a common will to make these debates more visible in the wider public. This is where opinion formation, policy development and public enlightenment reach broad population groups.
This is the seed of a cultural radical project today. A project that the various actors in the counter-public must continue to develop. I therefore end by making Knut Olav Åmås' words from the leader in the last issue of Samtiden to mine: “The potential of the independent public lies in a more offensive construction of environments and institutions, both physical and virtual – institutions that last, independent of individuals. They have a great potential for improvement in their ability to communicate and willingness to influence. To make the marginal less marginal, the elitist more inclusive. To combine the sharpest from academia with the best from the media world. To make the public space larger, more knowledge-oriented and more polarized. ”
