Compared with most other European countries, Finland remains ethnically homogenous. Although immigration to Finland has increased in the last ten years, the proportion of foreign-born population (7%) remains below the EU average. In addition to the official languages Finnish (native language for 87% of the population) and Swedish (5%), the constitution of Finland specifically mentions Sámi, Romani, and users of Finnish sign language (alongside a reference to “other groups”) as minorities with a right to “maintain and develop their own language and culture”.
With its own established media institutions, it can be stated that the Swedish-language media in Finland constitutes an institutionally complete media system (Moring & Husband, 2007), including several daily regional and local newspapers, periodicals, and significant public service programming in Swedish on television and radio. In 2017, however, the public broadcaster Yle’s dedicated channel for Swedish-language programming was merged with another channel.
Yle is obliged to provide services also in Sámi, Romani, sign language, and, when applicable, other languages used in Finland. The supply of products in the Sámi language includes television news broadcasts (Oddasat), a regional radio channel (Yle Sámi Radio), and an online news portal. Yle also has a multilingual radio channel and provides news portals in English and Russian (Ministry of Transport and Communications, 2019).
The Ministry of Education allocates public subsidies to minority-language media. Some EUR 500,000 is annually allocated to minority-language newspapers, magazines, and online services in Swedish, Sámi, Romani, or Karelian languages. Overall, while media services for recognised “old minorities” in Finland are relatively extensive, only a few media services are available for immigrants in Finland. The representation of ethnic minorities also remains marginal in the workforce of mainstream media houses (as was the case a decade ago; see Karppinen et al., 2011).
Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike) also allocates subsidies (around EUR 1 million annually) to cultural and opinion journals to “maintain diverse public discussion about culture, science, art or religious life”. Non-profit actors have a presence in print media and magazines, but in television and radio, alternative media outlets remain few and they receive little public support. Only two genuine public access and community radio stations exist locally, as non-profit broadcast media houses have increasingly moved online. Alternative media outlets of civil society organisations and other non-profit actors are thus increasingly confined to the Internet.
