Media building community: audience engagement in a micro-nation
Media building community: audience engagement in a micro-nation

Author(s): Carl-Gustav Lindén
Subject(s): Media studies, Theory of Communication
Published by: Masarykova univerzita nakladatelství
Keywords: Local journalism; local society; local media; newspapers; Finland; radio;
Summary/Abstract: Local journalism plays an important role not just in everyday life, but also in framing the past, present and future of local societies. The aim here is to explore how local media – in this case newspapers – use notions of history, traditions and identity to construct meaning, to gain attention, and thus to increase audience engagement. This chapter captures the dynamics of a somewhat special case in local media, a small but affluent autonomous region of Finland, namely the Åland Islands with 6,500 islands and less than 30,000 inhabitants. Despite the limited size of the community, people can choose from a complete offering of local media: two newspapers, a public service broadcast corporation, a commercial radio station and several magazines. This is a Swedish-speaking part of a country where the majority speaks Finnish.

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