Toril Aalberg

Communicating Politics : political Communication in the Nordic Countries Toril Aalberg

Modern politics is mediated politics, and the media constitute the most important source of information and channel of communication between the governors and the governed. Media and politics are thus inextricable linked together, with the media playing an important role in contemporary democracies and for political processes. While this is true for virtually all advanced democracies, there are still important differences between countries depending on, for example, their media systems and political systems. The purpose of Communicating Politics: Political Communication in the Nordic Countries is consequently to describe and analyze both the political communication systems and cases of political communication processes in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Taken together, the chapters explore differences as well as similarities between the Nordic countries, and provide a broad view of political communication systems, practices and research perspectives in the Nordic countries.