Jennifer Smith

Q: Tell me a little bit about yourself. Name/age/occupation/where you are currently living. How long have you been/were you in Iceland?

A: Name: Jennifer Smith   Age: 35   Location: Isafjordur, Iceland, population ~2600

Occupation: 50% Educational coordinator, 50% fish sales in the fish shop my partner (a native Icelander) owns.

I am not a native Icelander, but I live with one. I have lived here for more than six years. I hold dual US and UK citizenships, hopefully Icelandic in the next 1-2 years.

 

Q: How do most people get their news/information in Iceland? Who controls the media?

A: Most people I am involved with get their news from TV, radio, national newspapers, local newspapers,

and Facebook. There is one government-funded public broadcaster, RÚV, which produces television and radio broadcasts. The other main television station that produces news is Station 2, which is privately owned (don’t know who). With regard to the national newspapers, most are connected to various political parties, and the connections are extremely obvious. The biggest newspaper, Morgunblaðið (mbl.is), is connected to Iceland´s centre-right Independence Party. Its current editor-in-chief, Davið Oddsson, is a prominent leader in the Indepence Party and was the prime minister at the time of the 2008 financial crisis (the guy who said ´God bless Iceland´). Another paper, Bændablaðið, focused more on agriculture and farmers´ issues, is connected to the Progressive Party, another centre-right party. These are connections of which all Icelanders are aware. As for local news, the local media outlet in the Westfjords, BB.is, is owned by one person. I am not sure who this is. This type of local media provides news about regional developments and issues, and it also lets people know about events happening in towns (like if there is some gathering or event I want to publicize, I can ask the BB to write a little article about it).

 

Q: What social media is used most there? News outlet? How commonly do people use RUV?

A: Everyone is on Facebook. It serves as an essential community tool, as it is how all community events are advertised and organized. And it is also how most news is shared, local, national, and international.

 

Q: How do you think people from other countries view Icelanders based on what they see in the media?

A: I think people see what they want to see in Iceland. Many more progressive types want to idealize Iceland, and there are a lot of very simplified articles about Iceland in the international press that try to depict the country as a mystical, totally egalitarian, environmental utopia. According to these narratives, everyone believes in elves, Iceland put its bankers in jail and crowd-sourced a new constitution after the 2008 collapse, and Iceland runs on 100% renewable energy. There is some truth to these…some people here are pretty spiritually minded and there is little judgment about things like belief in ghosts, new age philosophies, etc. Some bankers did go to jail (for like a year). The new constitution was written by a group of randomly selected people with input from the rest of the country, but it has been languishing in a draw since the populace elected the parties responsible for the crash back into office in 2013. Anyway…the views are highly simplified and idealized.

 

Q: How does media and technology play a role in family life (children especially)? Work life?

A: I am not completely sure as I don’t have children, but it seems like children spend a lot of time in front of screens, especially using ipads and such. Kids do go outside to play a lot here, and most of their play is pretty much independent and unsupervised. But I have seen a lot of children who seem very distracted and absorbed by technology. In working life, for people working in offices, I get the feeling everyone is spending a lot of work time Facebook. For people working in more manual labor jobs (quite a large proportion outside of the capital area), such in fisheries, agriculture, and such, the technology used is of course more related to these industries.

As for media…RÚV has a news program specifically for children, called Krakkafréttir. Different industries often have their own newspapers, for example the aquaculture sector has its own newspaper.

 

Q: Are there any important cultural, economic, racial, or political rifts/tensions within the country? (These could be based on money, race, language, religion, ethnicity, gender, age, etc.)

A: The ones most obvious to me are economic: 1) worker unions against the government (for example about tax brackets) and against industry employers (higher minimum wages), and 2) those who own capital against those who do not.

For the owners of capital, the tensions I am talking about concern, for example, people who have made a lot of money because they own fishing quota (the so-called “sea barons”) following the implementation of the individual transferable quota system of fisheries management in 1984. Those who own fishing quota own the right to fish commercially. This remains an incredibly contentious issue today, as the consolidation of fishing quota (the right to profit from fishing, essentially) following the implementation of this system led to greater wealth inequality nationwide, employment losses and population decreases in formerly booming fishing villages. One will normally see that supporters of the Independence Party support the quota system (and often who profited from the system), and people in other parties, such as the Social Democrats, are against it. However, it is almost impossible for a politician to really speak out publically against the system. It is a very touchy issue.

There is a great deal of literature on this (look up Karl Benediktsson or Gisli Pallsson if you want to read more. I also published a paper that touches on this (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/302483401_Where_Are_All_The_Fish_Local_Fish_Networks_in_the_Westfjords_of_Iceland). Similarly, more wealth inequality is being generated now from the growth in the tourism industry, with for example a small number of individuals owning and profiting from running a lot of AirBnBs (I have heard that only a few individuals operate the majority of AirBnBs in Reykjavik, but I am not sure if this is correct). At the same time, nobody can find an apartment to rent because those who own the properties want to rent them for more money to tourists. t6.