Iceland is a very small country with a population of just over 360 thousand people (Statistics Iceland, n.d.). It´s an island, situated in the North Atlantic Ocean, midway between America and Europe. The Icelandic language is distinct, though related to Scandinavian languages.
Iceland is an affluent country and stable parlimentarian democracy. Its political and socio-economic structures differs in some respect from the Nordic welfare model, with a more limited welfare system, less developed corporatism and a confrontational rather than consenusal political culture (Kristinsson, 2018; Jónsson, 2014). The country became a sovereign state in 1918 but remained in a royal union with Denmark until 1944, when the parliamentary republic was founded. Historically there have been four main parties in the Icelandic party system; a conservative party; an agrarian/center party; a social democratic party and a left-socialist party (Önnudóttir & Harðarson, 2018; Harðarson, 2008). The global financial crisis in 2008, which hit Iceland particularly badly, caused economic and political turmoil, and although the economy recovered remarkably quickly (Jónsson & Sigurgeirsson, 2017) political unrest lasted longer. In the last decade elections have been more frequent and new political parties have gained foothold alongside the four traditional ones. Today there are eight parties represented in Althingi (Jóhannsdóttir & Ólafsson, 2018). The present government is a three party coalition of an unsual combination, as it is the first coalition encompassing both the conservative party and the party furthest the left.
Freedom House Global Freedom: Status “free”. Score: 94 out of 100 in 2020, down 3 points from 2017. Iceland’s country report 2020 is not available yet, but in the 2019 report (score 94) links between elected representatives and business interests are said to be a concern, as does the concentration of private media ownership (Freedom House, 2020, 2019).
According to V-Dem (V-Dem Institute, 2020) Iceland is as an Electoral Democracy (ED+), down one level from 2018. It ranges in the Top 10-20% bracket (rank 23 of all countries).
The Icelandic media systems shares characteristics with the Democratic Corporatist countries (Hallin & Mancini, 2004), like a tradition of widespread newspaper reading and strong public service broadcasting. It is however also characterized by a combination of high levels of political parallelism and commercialization and a less developed and weaker journalistic profession than in the other Nordic countries. Private media has not been burdened with public service requirements nor has it received subsidies (Jóhannsdóttir, 2019).
Perhaps the most striking characteristic of the media system is its small size. All media companies in Iceland are small in international comparison. The landscape is also dominated by national media. There are several regional and local papers published in the country, but local media has always been weak in Iceland (Guðmundsson, 2006; Statistics Iceland, n.d. ). On the national front there are two daily newspapers, one of which is a free paper but free newspapers have had a somewhat uniquely strong position in Iceland (Bakker, 2013). In additon there are four weeklies, two of wich specialise in business news, and one biweekly newspaper. Legacy media have all firmly established themselves online. Online news sites with no links to legacy media also play an increasingly prominent part in the news provision. There are several TV and radio stations, but only two operate news services. Iceland is tecnolocally advanced and has been at the forefront in the development of IT infrastructure (International Telecommunication Union, 2017). Internet access is almost universal (Stats, n.d.) and in addition to domestic media, Icelanders have access to countless foreign media of all kind. For example do 72% subscribe to Netflix (Markaðs- og miðlarannsóknir, 2019.) The Icelandic Public Broadcasting Service, RÚV, enjoyes a strong and stable postition in the media market. Its has one TV channel and it´s audiencce share has seldom been less than 50% and now around 65%. RUV´s Radio one and two combined have just under 40% audience share (Gallup, n.d.). Trust in RÚV is also consistently higher than in any other media. RÚV is financed by a broadcasting tax, and advertisments account for approximately one-third of its revenue (Jóhannsdóttir and Ólafsson, 2018).
For the last decade the private media is been a turmoil, and ownership changes and mergers have been frequent. Most private news media companies have been run with a loss or very meager returns for years. At the time of writing there are three private media companies that together with RÚV, dominate the media market in terms of revenue, audience share and number of journalists employed (Ólafsson & Jóhannsdóttir, 2020). These are; SÝN, a publicly traded telecompany, that ownes several TV and radio stations, among them Channel 2, the only commercial TV channel with a news desk. SÝN also ownes the second most read online news site, visir.is. The media house Torg ownes the free national daily, Fréttablaðið; an associated website, frettabladid.is; DV a weekly subscription newspaper, and a TV station which mostly produces lifestyle and consumer magazine shows, and current affairs talkshows. Torg´s sole owner is an investor with ties to a center-right political party. The third big private media company is Árvakur which publishes Iceland´s oldest newspaper, Morgunblaðið, and mbl.is – Iceland´s most read online news site, and runs the radio channel K 100. The company has historical links to the conservative party, and is now owned by a group of investors with ties to the fishing industry.
As noted above media subsides have been absent in Iceland, but last year the Minister of Education introduced a bill in the parliament, proposing public support for private media (Mennta- og menningarmálaráðuneytið, 2019). The bill has not yet been passed and perhaps surprisingly, has mostly been opposed by MP´s from the government´s own ranks. Private media companies have also critised it heavely for not limiting RÚV´s position on the advertising market
Leading news media sample 2020
Our media sample for MDM 2020 consists of media outlets from the four biggest media houses in the country, discussed above, which represent different types and ownership. These are the private Channel 2 and visir.is (owner SÝN); Fréttablaðið (owner Torg); Morgunblaðið and mbl.is (owner Árvakur) andRÚV, the Public Broadcasting Service. Our sample also included a small, national news organisation, Stundin, and Vikurfréttir, a regional newspaper. Stundin was founded and is owned by journalists. It runs a subscription based online news site and biweekly printed paper. Vikurfréttir and it´s online version, vf.is, was also founded by a journalist who is the paper´s editor in chief. It recently ceased the print publication and is only available online.
Editors in chief and journalist from the above outlets were interviewed and also the chairman of the National Union of Icelandic Journalist.
COVID-19 pandemic
On March 13th the Government imposed several restrictions on liberal freedoms in order to curb the spread of the COVID 19 virus. The restrictions were not as strict as in many other countries, for example were the borders not closed (but arrivals instructed to a 14 days quarantine), primary schools stayed open, as did shops and services and public gathering of 10 people or less were allowed. Most of these restrictions have been gradually lifted over the past weeks and public gathering of up to 500 people f.ex. allowed from June 15th .
During this time the use of and trust in tradional media seems to have increased, at least momentarily (Gallup n.d.; Markaðs- og miðlarannsóknir, 2020). In general the Icelandic news media is belived to have risen up to it´s public service oblications, and has been prased for it´s extensive coverage and mediation of neccessary information about the pandemic to the concerned citizens (visir.is, 2020). Financially, the COVID 19 pandemic has however made a bad situation even worse for the commercial media. Advertising revenue decreased considerably due to the economic setback that has followed the pandemic (RÚV, 2020A). So far the news media companies have not laid-off any journalists, but Fréttablaðið has cut down it´s publication days from five to sex days a weak. The biggest magazine publisher has laid off 14 of its staff (RÚV, 2020). Mid May the Parliament passed laws providing substantial and unprecedented financial support various sectors of the Icelandic economy. Private news media was included and will receive 400 million ISK, approx. 2,6 million euros in the coming months (Fjármála- og efnahagsráðuneytið, 2020).
Furthermore, the Icelandic National Security Council has established a special working group to map the extent and nature of information disorder concerning the COVID 19 pandemic in the country. The working group is also supposed to suggest actions to facilitate people´s access to reliable sources and information about the pandemic (Forsætisráðuneytið, 2020).
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