Ole J. Mjøs
Professor and author at the University of Bergen, Norway. He specializes in the fields of international communication and global media in the 21st century.
Latest book
Schibsted: The Digital Transformation of a Nordic Media Giant
“Mjøs does a terrific job at mapping out the internal and external complexities that come with attempting to build an international media corporation that aims to become a Nordic, European, and global media corporation.”
Jonathan Hendrickx, Media International Australia, 2026.
#1 Routledge Top 500 Best Seller research book.
The first book on the digital expansion of Schibsted, 1989-2025, one of the largest media and newspaper companies in the Nordic region, which is today considered a regional and international digital media pioneer. It is a story of countering platformization and fostering digital and media sovereignty.
Published by Routledge, 2025.
Books
Schibsted: The Digital Transformation of a Nordic Media Giant.
Routledge, 2025.
The first book on the digital expansion of Schibsted, 1989-2025, one of the largest traditional media and newspaper companies in the Nordic region, which is today considered a regional and international digital media pioneer.
The book examines the rise and role of Schibsted - an early mover and proactive media company in terms of technology adoption and online expansion, but also its power and influence.
Drawing on a wealth of sources, including original interviews with senior Schibsted executives throughout this 35-year long period, allow unprecedented insight into the company.
“Ole J. Mjøs constructs an overall captivating and convincing narrative of the various twists, turns, trials and tribulations that come with launching, growing, safeguarding, and, ultimately, splitting a large legacy media corporation.”
“Mjøs does a terrific job at mapping out the internal and external complexities that come with attempting to build an international media corporation that aims to become a Nordic, European, and global media corporation.”
Jonathan Hendrickx, Media International Australia (23 January 2026)
The Media Welfare State: Nordic Media in the Digital Era.
Co-written with Trine Syvertsen, Gunn Enli, and Hallvard Moe
University of Michigan Press, 2014
"The Media Welfare State has been extremely influential since its publication – in fact, it is hard to find any academic work about Nordic media affairs that doesn’t cite, discuss, and critique it."
Kim Schrøder, Nordicom Review, 2025.
"The book will likely become a standard reference for researchers and students who work with media in this region, and that will be well-deserved."
Aske Kammer, European Journal of Communications, 2016.
A dynamic examination of the media system in the Nordic countries during the transition to today's digital environment.
The book introduces the concept of the “Media Welfare State” to argue for the distinctiveness of the Nordic media system in an international perspective.
Taking a comparative perspective, the book comprehensively addresses the central dynamics of the digitalization of the media system in the Nordic countries—Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland—and the ways it is transforming in the digital era.
Bloomsbury Academic, 2023
“The book makes a strong contribution to the contemporary domain of knowledge on global media by drawing on a wide range of theoretical approaches to illustrate the diversity of media systems around the world.”
Vikas Pathe, European Journal of Communications, 2023.
A rigorous introduction to the field of international communication and global media, focusing on the 21st century.
The book outlines the key changes taking place as the global media landscape evolves, and the main theories of the field, that explain these developments.
It shows how the field is characterized by a continuity of critical concerns in relation to power, influence, and domination; media user empowerment and exploitation; and social and sustainable development and democratic conditions, as well as geopolitical shifts, in a global context.
An Introduction to Global Media for the Twenty-First Century
Music, Social Media and Global Mobility
Routledge, 2012
An early ethnographic study of the adoption of platforms by music artists and a critical perspective on the integration of platforms in the music industry.
This book is about the relationship between music, media and communication, and globalization, explored through the unique empirical study of electronic music practitioners’ use of the global social media: MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. To understand the significance of the emerging nexus between social media and music in a global context, the book exploresvarious aspects of production, distribution and consumption among electronic music practitioners as they engage with global social media, as well as a historical, political and economic exposition of the rise of this global social media environment.
Drawing on interview-based research with electronic music artists, DJs, producers and managers, together with the historical portrayal of the emergence of global social media this pioneering study aims to capture a development taking place in music culture within the wider transformations of the media and communications landscape; from analogue to digital, from national to global, and from a largely passive to more active media use. In doing so, it explores the emergence of a media and communications ecology with increased mobility, velocity and uncertainty. The numerous competing, and rapidly growing and fading social media exemplify the vitality and volatility of the transforming global media, communication and cultural landscape.
Media Globalization and the Discovery Channel Networks
Routledge, 2010
"(T)his book is an excellent, specific case study of the rise of Discovery. It spells out the specifics of globalizing television better than any other recent book. It can be of particular use to students in classes on globalization and television.”
Global Media Journal, Spring 2012
”Mjos’ book is a significant resource for scholars.”
Richard Collins, European Journal of Communications, 2010
The is the first account of the global expansion of the Discovery firm and its media power and impact on the factual television genre.
The book explains the relationship between media and globalization and Discovery Communications, spearheaded by the Discovery Channel, one of the world’s largest providers of factual television programming and media content. The book argues that the study of Discovery's relationship with globalization provides both a specific and a more general practical and theoretical understanding of how the processes of increased linking and interweaving of media and communications unfold and develop, as well as the consequences of this.
Talks and presentations
Ole J. Mjøs has presented and been part of panels at conferences in the US, Nordics and Europe. He speaks Norwegian and English fluently.
Mjøs’s current speaking topics include:
The Dynamics and Consequences of the Global AI Race;
The Challenges to Europe’s Digital Sovereignty and How it Fights Back;
Why Nordic News Media Persist In The Platform and AI Era?
The Nordic «Media Welfare State»: The Key to the Region’s Media Competitiveness
Please get in touch to discuss topics and bookings.
Photo: Torill Henriksen
Biography
Ole J. Mjøs is Professor in Media Studies and author, University of Bergen, Norway.
He specializes in the fields of international communication and global media, focusing on the media, cultural and communications industries, in the 21st century
Ole is the author of Schibsted: The Digital Transformation of a Nordic Media Giant (Routledge, 2025), An Introduction to Global Media for the Twenty-First Century (Bloomsbury Academic, 2023), Music, Social Media and Global Mobility (Routledge, 2012) and Media Globalization and the Discovery Channel Networks (Routledge, 2010), and is co-author of The Media Welfare State: Nordic Media in the Digital Era (with Trine Syvertsen, Gunn Enli and Hallvard Moe, University of Michigan Press, 2014).
He is member of the international advisory board of the academic journal Global Media and Communication, and elected member of the International Council of the International Association for Media and Communications Research, 2024-2028.
Ole has been a visiting researcher at the Centre for Mobilities Research, Lancaster University, UK, and Visiting Scholar at the Center for Global Communication Studies, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, USA.
His previous professional experience in the media and creative sector includes work in television documentary production, and as producer of many records within the wide genre of electronic music.
Ole received his PhD in Media and Communications from University of Westminster, UK, and an MA in Transnational Communications and the Global Media, Goldsmiths College, University of London.