Abstract
This anthology has emerged from a research project titled ‘Researching Young Audiences: Serial fiction and cross-media storyworlds for children and young audiences’ (RYA), and has chapters contributed by Danish, Norwegian and Swedish scholars. It is an important contribution to the scholarship on media and young audiences in the platform era and proposes two significant premises: firstly, the importance of children and young audiences in shaping the media production cultures and policy frameworks in Scandinavian countries; and secondly, the relevance of an overview of the Scandinavian media landscape in understanding the reach and popularity of transnational media platforms among children and young audiences.
The introductory chapter provides an overview of the current Nordic media ecology for young audiences. The authors note that Scandinavian countries have, historically, mainstreamed children’s visibility and interests in their media content. They refer to the monetary budget allocations by state-funded organisations to produce films and media for children. The discussion then moves to the changes that have impacted this ecology since 2020 with the arrival of transnational streaming platforms and the changes in production, distribution and reception of children’s programming thereafter. This anthology addresses these changes in the context of five specificities – medium, national, institutional, technological and audience. The book extends this conversation through different case studies related to the five specificities in the ensuing chapters.
In the second chapter, Christensen analyses interviews conducted with the commissioning editors at the Danish public service children’s television (DR) to understand how they acknowledge children’s agency and position. She contextualises this discussion through the theoretical binary of positioning “children as beings” and “children as becoming” and presents a historical overview of Danish public service television for children as focussed on the latter. Only the competition from another television service made DR start to focus on providing more entertaining content to children. This change in the commissioners’ perceptions of children has further transformed in the multiplatform era since, as Christensen states, ‘DR – to catch the attention of children – must compete with players like YouTube, Disney+, and Netflix’ (p.31). DR has therefore collaborated with children to test the perception of their content in the production phase itself, thus reorienting from ‘transmission-based to a demand-oriented’ (p. 39).
In the third chapter, Anders Lysne’s analyses a Swedish Film, Fucking Åmål/Show me Love (1998) and a Danish drama series, Puls/Pulse (2020) in an examination of contemporary queer representations in the Scandinavian context and the popularity of the “coming out narrative” in youth screen media. The author argues that these representations are more nuanced and complex than those in the Anglo-American context. In Chapter 4, Redvall uses the example of a live action series Oda Omvendt/Oda Upside Down (2018-20) to discuss how niche content can find success through ‘talent development, affordable volume fiction, and portable brand characters (used in different ways), in television, online, and in real-life settings’ (p. 63). This series developed out of workshops organised in collaboration between a Danish writer, the Danish public service broadcast company, and a production house to train new talent in writing for children and helping them develop original ideas. This innovative collaboration led to the production of successful content for young audiences.
In Chapter 5, Vilde S Sundet studies the case of ‘NRK 4ETG’, the YouTube programme of Norway’s public service media, to explain how a legacy media network adapted to social media logic when creating content for young audiences and to discuss the impact of this change on policy debates. Sundet raises concern about the understanding of terms like public service among the new producers, but also argues that alternative production cultures guided by the social media and industry logics help retain young audiences.
Chapter 6 focusses on a Norwegian series, Rådebank (2020-22) based on the subject of men dealing with mental health issues. Ewa Morsund interviewed the professionals at the public service media organisation to understand how an otherwise unaddressed subject found space on the network and how they negotiated with the dilemma of entertaining yet ethical representations. The chapter also discusses the Public Service Media’s strategies to use digital tools to expand its audience base.
Andreas M Qassim, in the seventh chapter, discusses the Swedish context through the case study of SWT Barn, the digital platform of the Swedish public service broadcaster. It is interesting to note that Sweden’s digital-first policy has brought all the focus on to its streaming platform, SWT Barn, rather than legacy broadcasting. The chapter analyses a series, Kär [In Love] (2020), which was produced to be streamed on mobile phones. Using a media industry studies framework, the author interviewed media professionals and concluded that the key factors leading to the success of this series were technological sophistication, short-form content, a data-driven approach and responsible media content in accordance with the ethos of public service media.
The last chapter by Jensen and Petar Mitric discusses the findings of a survey conducted with eight-to-7-year old Danish children and teenagers, and examines the implications of these findings on the curatorial practices of the Danish public service broadcasters. Their study found that, despite the preference for international streaming platforms, children remain open and exposed to Danish media content as they grow older. The authors concluded that the curatorial practices of Danish public service media should take note of children’s content preferences and adapt to it: ‘If Danish YouTubers can appeal to Danish children and adolescents, it is likely that changed curatorial practices and quality criteria . . . could change the children’s attitudes to Danish films and series, and that the future of domestic audio-visual fiction is to be found not only in traditional formats but also in shorter narrative formats’ (p. 160).
The book, meticulously, captures the shifting landscape of multiplatform era in Scandinavia that is transforming public service television for children and young people from a cultural institution into a professional media institution.