The global success of Norwegian TV episodes Skam
Nowadays, the cross-cultural circulation of TV programs has been increasingly evident. Although TV programs produced by American media such as Netflix are continuously the most influential cultural products, there have occurred some TV dramas from other countries that gained great global success, like the Norwegian TV series Skam.
Skam, which means shameless in English, is a Norwegian teen drama series produced by the Norwegian government-owned NRK P3 in 2015-2017. It is about the daily life of high-school teenagers in West End Oslo. Each of four seasons is told from different person’s perspective, focusing on various topics including relationship difficulties, homosexuality, mental health issue and sexual assault.
Despite the original envision as mainly appealing to adolescent girls, Skam is proved to have universal appeal to the worldwide audience. Not only has Skam broke all streaming records in Norway, but also it has been remade and “localized” in 8 different cultural contexts, including neighbouring countries France, Italy and even UK and the U.S.
So why is Skam so popular all over the world?
First of all, a distinctive feature of Skam is called “concurrent narration” (Andersen & Linkis, 2019) —every character has his or her own Instagram and Facebook accounts to post some screen dumps from text messages. From my perspective, this form of narration not only makes audience more close to the series but also conforms to the young and popular social media culture which has swept the whole world. Therefore, Skam has the potentiality to become transnational.
In addition to this innovative way of narration, its globalization of content also contributes to its unprecedented international success. “Common to all mass culture successes, no matter what the country, the first requirement is that they fit the existing culture” (Kottak, 1990). Although the high school life differs from regions to regions, the problems teenagers were once confronted with are similar and some typical ones have been reflected in the Skam, making large audience feel as if they were the characters in the Oslo. A review on imdb said, “the show mirrors all of us, and lets us look at our own hidden fears and prejudices in a clever way.” For instance, season 3 is about the process that Isak realize and confess his sexual identity, but, for me and maybe other audience, it is also an experience of learning how to accept the authentic “yourself”.
Therefore, to some extent, what makes Skam stand out phenomenally is the notion of “cultural shareability” (Singhal & Udornpim, 1997), such as the use of some universal themes and archetypes. Therefore, although I’m from China, I still feel that Skam resonates with me. And I think that’s the most significant reason for its phenomenal global popularity.
Reference:
– Andersen, TR; Linkis, ST 2019, ‘As We Speak: Concurrent Narration and Participation in the Serial Narratives ‘@I-Bombadil’ and Skam’, Narrative Vol. 27 no.1, pp. 83-106
– Kotak, CP 1990, Prime-time society, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
– Singhal, A & Udornpim, K 1997, ‘Cultural shareability, archetypes and television soaps: ‘Oshindrome’ in Thailand’. Gazette, vol.59, no. 3, pp 171-188.
– IMdb ‘Review of Skam’ https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3612508/?ref_=tt_urv [viewed August 12]
ThisisAngela 