The Legacy of SKAM

Open guest lecture on ’The Legacy of SKAM’ by Vilde Schanke Sundet from the University of Oslo.

Abstract

For television producers aiming to reconnect with younger audiences, online drama published in real time has become an attractive new format. This is especially true for the Nordic countries, where several successful real-time online drama series have been produced. In short, playing with time and platforms has become an essential strategy for many storytellers trying to reintroduce a sense of liveness and realness. What are the pros and cons of this way of producing and publishing online drama? And what can these digital-first, youth-targeted productions teach us about television as an always-changing medium that constantly has to ‘youthify’ itself to stay relevant? This talk positions online drama and real-time storytelling within a larger frame of how streaming is changing the television industry and its production cultures, publishing models and industry-audience relations. It builds on an in-depth study of the Norwegian public service broadcaster (NRK) and some of its game-changing drama productions—including the hit show SKAM and blank, NRK’s first successor after SKAM. The study draws on more than a hundred interviews with television experts and fans, hundreds of hours of observations, and unique access to industry conferences, meetings, working documents, and ratings.

Short bio

Vilde Schanke Sundet (PhD) is a researcher at the Department of Media and Communication, University of Oslo. She has published extensively on topics of television production, media industries, media policy and audiences/fans in journals such as New Media & Society, Media, Culture & Society, European Journal of Communication, Poetics, Television & New Media,Critical Studies in Television, Media History, International Journal of Cultural Policy, and Journal of Fandom Studies. Her recent book is Television Drama in the Age of Streaming (Palgrave, 2021). See more: Vilde Schanke Sundet's homepage.