Abstract:

Regional and local newspapers in Norway, as elsewhere, are threatened by developments within the newspaper market itself, by developments in the wholesale and retail trades, and by expected developments in the electronic media field. In this situation management, in Advertisement Sales, Circulation and Editorial, needs to re-define the role and function of the newspaper by studying the influence of these developments on the position of regional and local newspapers within the media structure. For this purpose the participation of regions' and local newspapers in syndicated media research is essential. In this paper we shall be summarizing the methods employed by different countries to find solutions to this problem, and we shall describe three different types of survey employed in Norway between 1969 and I960. We shall be concentrating on the third type of survey, MMI's HandelsomraadeundersOkelse 1980.