Perspectives: Cross-Pressures on Public Service Media

Abstract

Through online services, the Scandinavian public service broadcasters have managed to retain strong positions as public service media (PSM) among the audiences in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Social and political changes in the Scandinavian populations influence the ways PSM involve themselves in conflicts that relate to religion. The growing cultural and religious diversity of the Scandinavian countries, along with digitalization and commercialization, shape PSM publics with varying, and perhaps conflicting, interests and needs. This has put the PSM under political pressure to alter their programming. On the one hand, their obligation to provide a common, and perhaps even a unifying, public space for the whole nation, in some cases, has become more pronounced. On the other hand, they are encouraged to take into account the multiplicity of voices and subcultures that exist among their audiences and users.