Camauër, Leonor

Ethnic Minorities and their Media in Sweden: An Overview of the Media Landscape and State Minority Media Policy

Nordicom-Nordiskt Information Center for Media and Communication

Elements of the project/report 'Minorities and their Media in the EU: A Mapping.' L. Camauër(2002)

Dr. Leonor Camauër, the author, is a senior lecturer in media and communication studies, in the department of humanities at the University of Örebro; in Sweden. Currently, she is teaching Media Theory, Qualitative Research Methods, Gender and the Media, Media in the Multi-ethnic Society, and Inter-cultural Communication. Camauërs' research areas are of media in the multi-ethnic society and media and gender; with over fifteen publications in the form of articles, reports and projects. As of now, she is working on an analysis of Swedish talk shows, with a focus on the discursive construction of “cultural difference.”

Örebro University- School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences.

Leonor Camauërs' article, Ethnic Minorities and their Media in Sweden: An Overview of the Media Landscape and State Minority Media Policy, focuses on minority media which is poorly researched in Sweden; when it comes to their conditions of production and status as objects of the state integration policy and cultural and media policies. Camauërs' inventory consisted of catalogues, programming schedules, different organizations' declarations of principles, and official documents from governmental agencies.

The inventory of minority print publications was collected from the catalogue Invandrar-och minoritets tidskrifter (Immigrant and Minority Periodicals). The inventory of minority radio programs was compiled from community radio (CR) concessionholders provided by RTVV (the Swedish Radio and Television Authority), and from the public service company Sveriges Radio SR (Swedish Radio). The inventory of minority television programs was built from information available from the public service company Sveriges Television, SVT (Swedish Television), the public access channel Oppna Kanalen, the commercial channel DTU7, the television program Miniatyr and the cable operator Comhem Kabel TV.

The immigration to Sweden from the end of the war to today has comprised of three groups: labor force from Nordic and Western-European countries, refugees from Eastern Europe and the Third World, and relatives of immigrants and refugees who had already been granted the right to stay in Sweden. In 1967, the governments immigration policy stated that foreigners could arrive in the country as tourists, find work and obtain a residence permit. Soon after, the policy became more and more restrictive. The government's policy was without any doubt connected to the economic growth. The indigenous minorities and the growing immigrant minorities began demanding a support for the perseverance of their cultures.

The policies affecting the newspapers' publications that are directed to and/or produced by minorities are: the press subsidies, the grants to “arts and periodicals,” and the organization subsidies. The minority press is produced by many unpaid enthusiasts who produce four to six issues per year; which often experience many financial problems which lead to the cessation of the publications. For radio, the programs must be locally produced, and the reach of the community radio stations is limited to a range of five kilometers from the sender. As well, the concession holders are expected to pay the costs for the operation. Although it is relatively cheap, the costs for individual associations is expensive; and advertising income is very low so the maintenance of the program is placed on the shoulders of the associations idealistic work.

For television, the current legislation states that each operator of a cable network reaching over one hundred homes must put one channel at the disposal of a local, non-profit cable channel. The company is also responsible for taking on the needs of linguistic and ethnic minorities into account. The majority of the individual public access channel companies struggle with economic problems and cannot afford employees. Their source of income are comprised of members fees and broadcasting fees; and they are not entitled to state subsidies.

After Camauërs' research, it is clear to see the conditions of production of minority media and the polices that affect them. They have a high dependency on state subsidies, volunteer work, and/or public service broadcast assistance. They also receive a low degree of commercialization. The end of the article posed two questions. One, “Why do you think they rely so heavily on state support and volunteers?” and “Why is there a scantiness of commercialization?” (Camauër 84).

Without state subsidies, most of the newspapers would not be able to survive. With the minority groups being less powerful than the others, they are forced to compete “on equal conditions” (Camauër, 84) with those apart of the majority society; the conditions are not equal when the participants are so diverse. However, this reliance on state support can pose as a potential problem. In the 1970s, newspapers were issued every second week and were entitled to press subsides for a short period of time. Today, the requirement for qualifying for the subsidy is weekly publications. This just shows that the subsidies are inconsistent so it is important to not overlook the dangers involved in too heavy of a reliance on the states' support. The scantiness of commercialization is due to the size of potential readership or audience that relates to the size of a specific minority group. The specific policy regulations such as the limit reach of the community radio stations could potentially discourage advertisers. (Reviewed by Precious Wheat)