ABSTRACT
This chapter establishes a common, Nordic narrative with an eye to cases and events in each country. It also focuses on the Norwegian case open up to a wider, Nordic overview in the third phase. The history of the Nordic media research before World War II needs to note the special case of Finland where Newspaper Studies was introduced as an academic discipline as early as in 1925. In Nordic countries, the German tradition of newspaper history would became more important as inspiration for postwar political science research on political mobilization and opinion formation. Compared to the other Nordic countries, Norway was probably the least developed when it came to initiatives for media and communication research before World War I. In the period before World War I, literature and art played a more significant role than academic research for the general understanding of media in modern society.
