Community Media and Identity: Case of Finnish-Swedish Television

The study concerns the identity formation among the directors of community media serving a minority in Finland. The research material consists of 12 interviewees from 10 Swedish-language local television stations and two interviewees from the national Finnish-Swedish television service located in the capital, conducted in January and February 2005. The talk of the directors of Finnish-Swedish television stations is researched in relation to Finnish-Swedishness and they ways they relate themselves and their television station within the possible Finnish-Swedish identities. The factors behind this study are, on one hand, the changes that new technology has introduced by facilitating cheaper costs of television programme production and the multiplied media space in which the television stations or online television channels can work. On the other hand the study looks at the increased movement of immigration that is considered to accumulate the importance of community identities in the future. In the interpretation of the research result for instance Stuart Hall’s views concerning the formation of identity are used. Moreover, in the part of the analysis of the research result related to manifestation of Finnish-Swedishness in the Finnish-Swedish television I have used the Finnish-Swedish identity symbols defined by Bo Lönnqvist. The most important identity dispositions appeared to be the Swedish language and the views concerning heterogeneity or homogeneity of the group of Finnish Swedes in relation to the others in their group and also to the other groups, such as the Finnish-speaking Finns. While the differences are considered essential definers of the group of Finnish Swedes, the interviewees still perceive their identity dispositions through common systems of meanings, which they also use in explaining the television stations they work for. Key words: community media, identity, minorit