Norwegian Sami Students’ Streaming of Indigenous Media Services

As a public service broadcaster in Norway, NRK, and specifically the NRK Sápmi department, has a legal obligation to broadcast media content of linguistic and cultural relevance to the Sami community in Norway.  This content is currently provided via television, radio and internet technologies.  The main focus of the television programming produced by NRK Sápmi, which was just under 278 hours in total in 2013, is a 15-minute daily news programme, coproduced between the Sami public service broadcasters in Norway, Sweden and Finland. This programme provides information of relevance to Sami citizens in Norway (see Skogerbø, Josefsen and Bhroin, 2015). According to the Norwegian Media Barometer, in April 2016, the amount of television viewing in Norway had dropped significantly, from 80 to 67 percent, between 1991 and 2014.  Correspondingly, the level of Internet use increased significantly to 87 per cent in 2016 (SBB online, 2017).  As relatively recent innovations in media production and consumption technologies, streaming services such as Youtube, Netflix, and Apple TV have disrupted established television market infrastructures.     While the Norwegian Media Barometer measures and analyses statistics relating to the Norwegian population, no research to date has analysed the impact that these services might have for the broadcasting and reception of indigenous media content in Norway.  The present paper addresses this research gap. It reports on a study that is methodologically inspired by Susan Leigh Star’s notion of ‘inverting infrastructure’; a process by which the elements of an infrastructural system (broadly considered) can be rendered visible by studying interactions between its various relational and ecological components (cf. Star, 1999).  Specifically, the study combines methods of content analysis of the television and Internet-TV programmes broadcast by NRK Sápmi in January and February 2017, with four focus group interviews undertaken with Sami students; two at the Sami University College in Kautokeino, and two the University of Tromsø in March and April 2017. One in-depth interview will also be conducted with the editorial team at NRK Sápmi in Karasjok in April 2017.  This mixed method approach aims to explore the relations of production and consumption that exist in the ecological system of indigenous media broadcasting in Norway. By organising focus groups with students at the Sami University College and the University of Tromsø, the study ensures the identifying and participation of relevant members of the Sami community, that most likely use or have access to streaming services, in the study. The paper provides insights both into how indigenous media broadcasters are managing the impact of disruptive media innovations in their daily operations, and in turn how these innovations are used by Sami students, and how this impacts their reception of indigenous media content.  The findings of the paper are relevant beyond the specific case of the production and reception of television content for the Sami community, as they highlight more general areas of interest and concern with regards to the impact of global media streaming services for national public service broadcasters.