Generally about FST as national Finnish-Swedish television

FST is a part of the public broadcasting services of Finland. The funding of FST is arranged by the public broadcasting company YLE that, in turn, is funded by watching fees paid by every household that has a television set. Thus, while FST has its own budget, the source of funds for both YLE and FST is the same.

The weekly output of FST is over 60 hours of programmes. In total, FST broadcasted 3235 hours of programmes in the year 2005. In comparison to the year 2004, the programme output of FST, has decreased in the analogical channels (YLE TV1 and TV2) some percentage, but in total FST offers

Gösta, EKENÄS TV AB: ”Örn, semmonen iso lintu”

LH: ”(.) kotka ja haukka vai”

Gösta, EKENÄS TV AB: ”No jaa kotka juu ja hän yritti sitten tää lähettää tämän ohjelman tonne tai hän lähetti sen Finlands Svenska TV Helsinkiin ja he sanoivat että he eivät halua tuo hän lähetti sen Ruotsin Tv ja sieltä se nyt on tullut ainakin kolme kertaa”

LH: ”Ahaa”

Gösta, EKENÄS TV AB: ”Ja hänelle maksetaan joka kerta sitten (.) oliko se nyt viis mä en muista paljonko se oli oliko se tuhat euro ööh kruunua”

LH:” Ahaa joo joo onks se siis”

Gösta, EKENÄS TV AB: ”Siellä se kelpaa mut ei täällä Suomes”

more programme hours now, because of increase in the output of the digital FST channel. Together the digital and analogical FST offer a full-service in Swedish language including news, factual programmes, children programmes, culture programmes, sports and fiction programmes. Some part of this are imported programmes that are subtitled in Swedish. Moreover, the Swedish-language programmes in the analogical channels (YLE TV1 and TV2) are also subtitled in Finnish. In the speech of the interviewees FST is seen to present matters of general interest concerning the group of Finnish Swedes, such as information about Swedish language based schools and elderly care.

The personnel working at FST is characterised by professionalism and an adequate background in studies is required from the employees (http://www.yle.fi/svenska/svenskayle.php ). Moreover, exact numbers of the people working for FST are not available, but in the year 2005 there worked 439 full-time employees in both FST and the two YLE's Swedish-language radio channels.

As a part of Finland's public broadcasting service FST is based on the must-carry principle and it is available for all the inhabitants of Finland via terrestrial and/or digitally. In relation to the audience size, YLE conducts an annual audience research, which indicates that 9 percent of the daily

television viewing of the Swedish-speaking audience is dedicated to FST's programmes (analogical and digital) (http://www.yle.fi/svenska/svenskayle.php ).

FST offers the audience a possibility for a feedback given via email, phone or letters. According to an interviewee, the call centre of FST takes 30-40 calls every week during the feedback hours.

Furthermore, the feedback is usually given by the Finnish Swedes, and its quality varies from positive to negative. Negative feedback is given by the Finnish Swedes in such situations that, for instance, there has been a Finnish-speaking interviewee in a programme.

Gunilla, FST: Yeah, well we get all sorts of, we do get from the Finnish Swedes get this kind of feedback that we have interviewed a Finnish-speaker and in our (...) channel that cannot be done (.) but sometimes we just have such a situation that a person just cannot speak Swedish but he or she is the only expert in that field and therefore we have to interview specifically him or her, something like this might also come (...) might also come for this kind of purely linguistic issues that we say something wrong or so this kind of feedback might come¹⁰

10Gunilla, FST: "Juu, siis meillehän tulee kaikenlaista, meillehän tulee siis ruotsinkielisiltä tulee tämmöistä palautetta että meillä on haastateltu joku suomenkielinen ja sitä meidän (...) kanavalla ei sitt voi tehdä (.) mut joskus meillä on vaan sellainen tilanne, että henkilö ei kerta kaikkiaan puhu ruotsia, mutta hän on sen alan ainoo (...) erikoistuntija ja sen takia hänet on nimenomaan haastateltava, tämmöistä voi tulla myöskin (...) voi myöskin tulla ihan tämmöisiä

kielellisistä asioista, että me sanotaan joku asia väärin tai tämmöistä palautetta voi tulla"

Moreover, also the Finnish-speaking part of FST’s audience gives both negative and positive feedback. The negative feedback related to Finnish-Swedishness, such as why the Finnish Swedes got so much media hours as they are a tiny minority, has become more common especially after the introduction of the feedback possibility by e-mails. However, the Finnish-speaking Finns are

considered some ways less critical towards FST as a television station of the Finnish Swedes than are the Finnish Swedes themselves, which is expressed in the following speech of an interviewee.

Gunilla, FST: we get a little bit different feedback really from the Swedish-speakers and from the Finnish-speakers, so that in a certain amount (.) we are more praised because of some specific programmes which (.) the Finnish-speaking population adopts maybe even better than does the Finnish-Swedish population (.) that exactly something like Bettina S. or some Strömsö or (...) Bettina S. is quite a good example of that only in that moment when Bettina S. became popular (.) among the Finnish-speakers (.) you could call it a brand and they started to speak about her it was only after that when the Finnish Swedes could (...) adopt this that, a-ha, also we can make talk show (.) so that in a way also the Finnish-Swedish audience is in a way also quite harsh on us (.) and they do watch over very much what we do¹¹

There is some level of co-operation between FST and other Swedish-language media in Finland. In thinking about the Finnish-Swedish media, the cooperation is most common, besides other YLE's Swedish language media services such as radio, with the Finnish-Swedish newspaper, which FST promotes, according to the interviewees, by making puffs about them. In relation to Swedish language media, cooperation exists also with other Nordic Countries and these countries produce in cooperation a Nordvision collage programme. Moreover, according to the speech of the

interviewees from FST, there is no actual co-operation between FST and the local Finnish-Swedish televisions, while such co-operation is considered possible at least in rhetoric, as the following sample suggests.

Jens, FST: At the moment we have (.) actually no cooperation should I say with them (.) but there is no programme node which they are after probably probably from these local television stations

11 Gunilla, FST: "meille vähän erilaista palautetta todella ruotsinkielisiltä ja suomenkielisiltä, että meille tulee tietyssä määrin (.) enemmänkin kiitosta tietyistä ohjelmista, jotka (.) suomenkielinen väestö ehkä jopa omaksuu paremmin kuin mitä suomenruotsalainen väestö (.) että just joku tämmöinen kun Bettina S. tai joku Strömsö tai (...) Bettina S. on aika hyvä esimerkki siitä, että vasta siinä vaiheessa kun Bettina S.stä tuli suosittu (.) suomenkielisten keskuudessa (.) voisi sanoa brändi ja hänestä puhuttiiin niin vasta sen jälkeen suomenruotsalaiset osasivat (...) omaksua tämän, että ahaa, ett mekin voidaan tehdä talk show'ia (.) ett siinä mielessä että tietyllä tavalla myöskin suomenruotsalainen katsojakunta on tietyllä tavoin myöskin aika ankara meitä kohtaan (.) ja vahtii kyllä hyvin paljon sitä mitä me tehdään."

that they should with pleasure find a programme time at FST to which people could send send send material which they have done but at the moment there isn't any (...) and the local-tv people who have contacted me have heard in their forums about interest so I have asked them simply send material what the question was about and concrete programmes and so have we done nu (...)¹²

From the perspective of earlier research on community media (Jankowski 2002:7) FST does not have the characteristics of a typical community media in a sense that the personnel of FST are paid professionals and its audience is located in a relatively large area and its distribution methods are of high status. Moreover, since it is only partly owned by the members of the community, that of Finnish Swedes, it does correspond with the typical community media presented in earlier research.

However, since the personnel are members of the community and FST is essentially

non-commercial it does have some other characteristics mentioned by earlier research. Furthermore, regardless of that the content of FST’s programmes does not correspond the typical content of community media programme, which is characterized by locally produced programmes, FST can still be considered have some general characteristics of community media, since it aims to provide news and information relevant to the needs of community members and to engage these members in public communication (Ibid: 7).

My interviewees from FST presented in their speech several systems of meanings and many identities, such as Finnish-Swedish identity and Finnish identity. In my work I concentrate in understanding what kind of positions my interviewees take or build for themselves and for others in relation to Finnish-Swedish identity and how they form this identity or the discourse dispositions in their speech I shall concentrate on how Finnish-Swedish identity is constructed in the speech of the interviewees.