Norway ReimaginedPopular geopolitics and the Russophone fans of Skam

Abstract

In this article, I discuss the geopolitical underpinnings of Russophone fans’ response to the Norwegian hit teen series Skam [Shame]. Starting from the wide-spread distribution of Skam through informal horizontal networks, my article highlights the context specificity of fan participation in meaning-making around global television. Employing multimodal discourse analysis to the social media platform VKontakte, I examine how Russophone audiences of global television imagine the country of origin of their object of fandom, and how spatial imaginations embedded in this process contribute to popular geopolitics of Norden – that is, to geopolitical reasoning of narratives and representations of Nordic countries available through popular culture. My analysis shows how Norway and its positioning in the world provides an important symbolic resource for further discussions on identity and belonging. A close examination of mediated transnational cultural exchange through fan communities advances our understanding of the meaning of popular geopolitics in the age of global television.