THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE NORWEGIAN PRESS*
Authors: Höyer Svennik 
Published: April 2008

In this article we have tried, first to outline the more simple features of growth in the Nonvegian press in the course of a century, and then to apply some simple propositions on how expansion and contraction in the audience‐market have affected editorial strategies in the voter‐market.

As we came to see it, expansion in the press followed from a modernizing economy which started in the 1850s. Technical innovations in the printing trade faciliated this expansion and slowly set in motion a process making the printed media into a social institution. In the wake of economic progress came electoral mobilization and the foundation of a party system.

The timing of these events has a special relevance to our theoretical problems. Technology opened the market for new entries with the consequent spreading of publishing activity throughout the nation. Sales, however, were probably lagging somewhat behind this activity, which required publishers to adopt a more conscious and active market strategy. Electoral mobilization seems to have been instrumental in expanding the circle of newspaper readers, as it provided publishers with a cause which easily combined with a more pragmatic strategy: either to keep a given audience or to evoke attention and demands from a new and accessible, albeit unexplored part of the community market, namely the middle class and the petite bourgeoisie. The less developed habit of regular reading and the high level of political tension at the time prevented newspapers from achieving both goals simultaneously. This eventually resulted in a diversification of newspapers throughout the country, leaving newcomers on the local markets with the task of expanding readership and of mainly becoming Liberal in outlook. We have termed this situation the first stage in the formation of a party press.

The pattern of establishments in the Labour press is most easily explained from the fact that only a few privately‐owned newspapers sided with the Labour party when it appeared at the turn of the century, which left the initiative to the local party representatives. This second stage of development in the party press, then, spring essentially from the dynamics of the voter‐market and party politics. It may, however, also be explained from developments in the audience‐market proper. The social spectrum of newspaper readers during this phase of expansion probably did Rot include much of the working class at first. Furthermore, the tern of trade for established newspapers did not force them to go out for an additional target group under the threat of defections from the ranks of present readers. The less inviting prospects of this expansion found an ideal challenger in the more tightly organized Labour party. The requirement of party ownership, however, may have frightened away other newcomers from joining efforts in this respect.

This makes the mechanism of expansion and ensuing mobilization of the audience‐market during the second stage rather analogous to that of the first one. In both cases newcornem on the market were mainly left with the risks of exploring new and unknown possibilities and in both cases they found a cause and a target group within the voter‐market. From this pattern of editorial strategy it also follows that electoral mobilization became an important factor both in expanding and in diversifying the Norwegian newspaper industry.

As long as the audience‐market expands it may contain enough resources to allow for a steady diversification of newspapers within districts along with the party system. A dominance of the party press by itself invites initiatives from the parties. But it is also clear that a business rationale for political involvement is primarily confined to the audience‐market. Thus a hidden dichotomy between more pragmatic strategies and party commitments was conceived along with the technological and economic progress of the trade. What has saved the system of commitments from disintegration is the additional resources which were partly found in the parties and partly came from advertising. Parties counteracted declines in their press with a bargain including subsidies to newspapers and positions within the political Clite for journalists. The inertia of the tradition was not seriously challenged, because parties controlled the behaviour of smaller newspapers, because the market became closed to newcomers with potential independent platforms, and because market‐leaders continued to grow undisturbed by fluctuations in the voter‐market.

A dilemma between alternative strategies has only recently come out into the open. As the audience‐market approaches a level of saturation, a trend towards simpler structures of mass communication has also become dicernible, e. g., in readership patterns, which is further amplified by the strategies of advertisers. The demand for technological and economic efficiency as well as journalistic proficiency has raised the price of status quo in the party press. This extends to the amount of support needed to keep the weaker parts of the party press alive as well as to the potential losses of attention for the surviving giants.

In this situation the government is asked to provide the necessary capital to save the institution of the party press. However, as soon as support is released from its more direct links to the voter‐market—in this case by a more automatically functioning system of subsidies—the editorial policies will probably drift closer to developments in the audience‐market. Whether the government becomes the benefactor of smaller newspapers or not, the mechanisms of the audience‐market under the present terms of trade will drive editorial policies in this direction anyway and will probably do it faster. This development may open a new market for political journalism more consciously geared to supporting the parties among periodicals and magazines, which are rarely committed to any political cause.