The Icelandic news media in times of crisis and change

Abstract

The news media around the world has experienced drastic changes in recent decades, and the Icelandic media is no exception. These changes originate in political, economic and not least technological developments. In this article we map key developments in the Icelandic media system and illustrate the changes it has undergone in the first decades of the 21st century. Journalism and media studies are under-researched fields of study in Iceland, and the country is usually absent from comparative work in these fields. Often it is simply grouped together with the other four Nordic countries. We argue that the Icelandic media system differs from those countries in several ways. Whilst it has moved towards the liberal model there are also indications of increased partisanship in the media in the last decade. The smallness of the media system has made it more vulnerable to the increasing competition and commercialisation in the digital era, and Iceland was particularly badly hit by the financial crisis in 2008. News media companies in Iceland are struggling financially, several media outlets have come and gone, mergers have been frequent and trust in the media is low. The view that some sort of public support is required to secure an independent media and high quality journalism is gaining ground in Iceland. This could lead to its media system becoming more similar to the democratic corporatist Nordic countries than is the case now.

Factoring Size into the Equation: Media studies, politics, and small states

“…Aside from the size issue, recent research has shown how Iceland differs from the other Nordic states in numerous ways when it comes to its political and media systems (cf. Jóhannsdóttir & Ólafsson, 2018).…”

“…One frequent area of exclusion in the literature on media and communication in the Nordic countries is research from Iceland -a country that is routinely absent from comparative studies. Despite this, it is often mentioned alongside the other four, much larger, Nordic countries and defined as some sort of "Nordic model" (Jóhannsdóttir & Ólafsson, 2018). This is not without its problems.…”

Framing the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Icelandic media: What were the key concerns and who could raise them?

“…We excluded local papers, since COVID-19 has commonly been a national news story. 2 As the Icelandic media landscape is quite small (Ólafsson & Jóhannsdóttir 2021;Jóhannsdóttir & Ólafsson 2018), we could include a high proportion of news media outlets, resulting in a good reflection of the Icelandic media. More specifically, we included the following outlets: Morgunblaðið, Mbl.is, Stöð 2, Fréttablaðið, Frettabladid.is, Stundin, Stundin.is, Kjarninn.is, Viljinn.is, Utvarpsaga.is, RÚV, Ruv.is, Rás 1, Rás 2, DV, DV.is, Viðskiptablaðið, Vb.is, Frettatiminn.is, Bylgjan, and Visir.is.…”

Icelandic newsrooms in a pandemic mode

“…The Icelandic media system has been shown to possess the important qualities of a hybrid system with old and new media logics simultaneously at work (Guðmundsson 2019). However, the small size of the Icelandic media market has intensified the impact of the megatrends and made the country even more sensitive to them than is the case in larger societies (Guðmundsson 2018;Jóhannsdóttir & Ólafsson 2018). Icelandic media was hit hard by the financial crisis of 2008 and although media companies faced some financial difficulties before the crisis, difficulties have been felt even more acutely ever since.…”

“…Although a high number of journalists retained their membership after layoffs, the number of members shrank from 638 in 2007 to 566 in 2012 and there were only 569 members in April 2020, considerably lower than in 2007 (Blaðamaðurinn 2007. The Icelandic media market is thus economically vulnerable and ownership transitions, mergers and volatility has been particularly evident (Jóhannsdóttir & Ólafsson 2018). The annual balance sheets for example for 2018 of most media companies in Iceland reported losses and even though departments in some of the companies showed profit that did not change the general picture (Björnsson 2019).…”