Norway is a constitutional hereditary monarchy in the northern–western part of Europe, established in 1814. It gained full independence in [Page 1276]1905, following 90 years of union with Sweden and, before that, 400 years under Danish rule. Consequently, Norway was comparatively late in establishing its own political institutions and media system; a shared cultural, linguistic, and political history with the other Scandinavian countries has resulted in their having largely similar political and media systems.

Table 1 Media Use in Norway, 1991–2016

Like Sweden and Denmark, Norway is a parliamentary, one-chamber multiparty system, has a strong welfare state, and scores consistently high on commonly used international indexes of income per capita, human development, democracy, and press freedom. The Norwegian population, more than 5 million in 2018, is still ...