Denmark Broadcaster Uses Meme-Based Journalism To Reach Younger Audience

TV2 Østjylland is one of the eight regional stations of Danish broadcaster TV2. In recent years they've faced a challenge familiar to news broadcasters around the world: a declining and ageing viewership. Their solution? Shifting their storytelling onto platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, and using techniques such as memes to attract younger audiences.

Viral, visual storytelling

Memes are images, typically with humor, designed to spread a message quickly across social media channels. They often feature famous people or memorable scenes from popular culture.

In this instance, TV2 Østjylland uses the infamous moment Steve Harvey crowned the wrong winner of Miss Universe to help tell the story of Aarhus University having to tell 200 education students they may not have graduated after a misinterpretation of academic rules:

You could be forgiven for thinking that TV2 Østjylland are trying to reach a target group that isn’t interested in news. But head of news Louise Pettersen says that’s not the case. “Young Danes are absolutely into journalism. The problem is that traditional media are reluctant to publish stories on modern platforms where young people prefer to consume content, using appropriate language. It’s our problem, not young people’s problem," she says.

Pettersen adds that as a small country, it's essential for Denmark to push Danish language media as an alternative to all the English language visual content available on the likes of Instagram and YouTube. She believes not only that this approach is the way to achieve that, but it's part of the organisation's public service remit.

"We are financed by Danes for all Danes, so it’s important for us to be relevant to all target groups. Our traditional TV audience is getting older and smaller so if we want to keep our relevance in ten years time, we have to make the effort to reach a younger audience now," she explains.

The growing importance of using visual language

Paul Bradshaw teaches Multiplatform and Mobile Journalism at Birmingham City University. He agrees that media organisations need to be alert to the ways in which communication is changing among audiences: “Many are already working on this. You can see mature mainstream organisations like the Wall Street Journal and BBC both using emojis in their mobile alerts and elsewhere,” he says.

Bradshaw has also seen visual techniques like memes used by factchecking organisations in order to tackle misinformation more effectively. “Far too many organisations either fail to take visual language seriously enough, or assume that younger employees will be able to take up the mantle on their behalf,” he adds.

In another example, a striking image is used to highlight service cuts on suburban routes. The text reads "When one waits for the bus in the outskirts."

Although some other Danish media organizations were quick to mock TV2 Østjylland when the project first began, Pettersen says it was the natural course to follow: “We couldn’t take the traditional narrative and just put that onto Instagram or Facebook. We had to define a new way of communicating with a younger audience."

While the Instagram and Facebook projects are targeting those aged 25-35, a second Instagram profile has been launched to target an even younger demographic.

The station isn't abandoning its traditional audience or forcing modern visual storytelling on to them, but the success of the meme project has made a wider impact within the organization. "The memes have helped us slowly change our narrative on TV. It's not been a revolution, but we do use graphics more than before," adds Pettersen.