Aviaq Fleischer's PhD defense

In this article based PhD thesis, different aspects of media development from 1970s Greenlandic society are investigated through different analyses.

The PhD thesis focuses on the creation of Greenlandic simultaneous television, the content of the media analyzed discursively, and the state and content of media archives in KNR-TV and the former local TV station Tusaat tv-Aasiaat, respectively.

The four articles of the dissertation all show an aspect of media history in Greenland.

The first article is an analysis of the portrayal of the Norwegian Danish missionary Hans Egede in the Greenlandic media over the course of 50 years from 1971 to 2021.

Within this time span a shift in the perception of authorities in the Greenlandic society can be seen.

In the second article, the cooperation between DR and KNR-TV in the creation of simultaneous television in 1982 is analyzed from a power perspective. This article sheds light on an unequal power relationship between the starting KNR-TV and the influential Danmarks Radio.

In the third article, the viewer’s perspective on KNR-TV's archives becomes the focal point of a reception analysis, of how the viewers perceive old broadcasts and rebroadcasts.

In the last and fourth article, the focus is on Tusaat TV-Aasiaat's media archives, which are now stored in the local museum in Aasiaat. The content and condition of the media archives are described, and in this context the Archives Act and the Cultural Heritage Act in Greenland are discussed.

The dissertation sheds light on how Greenlandic is affected by media both from within and from outside of the society, and on how the media influence has taken place from the beginning of simultaneous television in 1982.

From a media imperialist point of view the media influence has taken place at roughly the same level as all other countries outside of America.

The dissertation discusses what the future of television may look like in Greenland, and how the Archives Act and the Cultural Heritage Act can be revised if the modern Greenlandic history via TV media is to be preserved.

The empirical material in the thesis has been methodically collected through sources like Greenlandic media (radio, newspapers, TV, online news and social media), research articles, fictional and factual literature, legal texts and executive orders, reports, collaboration agreements, qualitative interviews with artists and KNR employees and, not least, from quantitative studies of viewers via a questionnaire survey.