ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the history of Scandinavianism from a media perspective. It proposes that any periodization should take into account the shifting media strategies of the major actors. The hypothesis is that discounting the differences in media use makes the rise-and-fall narrative disappear, revealing instead a continuity with regard to the efforts of the leading Scandinavianists, including adaptability to the changing media landscape. The political backdrop of the pan-Scandinavianist movement was the power alliances in northern Europe. Since the Treaty of Kiel in 1814, the Danish monarchy had been divided between Denmark, Holstein and Schleswig, the latter holding a Danish- and a German-speaking population. In the Scandinavianist movement, many of the leading figures were active as newspaper editors or writers and were thus familiar with the practices of news circulation, using it to their benefit when promoting their ideas. The coverage in the newspapers also drew on other forms of expression that were typical for the Scandinavianist movement.
