Det fri Aktuelt

Det fri Aktuelt
TypeDaily newspaper
FormatTabloid
Founder(s)Louis Pio
Founded22 July 1871
Political alignmentSocial democratic
LanguageDanish
Ceased publicationApril 2001
HeadquartersCopenhagen
CountryDenmark

Det fri Aktuelt was a daily newspaper published in Copenhagen, Denmark, between 1871 and 2001. It was the first socialist[1] and the earliest newspaper published by a labor union in the world.[2] In addition, it was the last major social democrat newspaper in Denmark.[3]

History and profile

The newspaper was established under the name of Socialisten (Danish: the Socialist)[4] by the cofounder of the Social Democratic party, Louis Pio, in 1871.[5][6] Its first issue appeared on 22 July that year.[7] The paper was the organ of the Social Democratic party.[5][8] Its headquarters was in Copenhagen.[9] In the mid-1970s, the owner of the paper was A/S FagbevægeIsens Presse, a limited liability company.[10] Then It became owned by the trade union movement until 1987, when it declared its independence and freedom.[6] The paper was published by the Labour Movement Press during its final years.[8]

The paper was published under different names.[5] The original name, Socialisten, was changed into Socialdemokraten in 1874.[4] It was used until 1959, when it began to be published under the name of Aktuelt.[5][11] In 1987, the paper was renamed as Det fri Aktuelt.[5]

Aktuelt had a Sunday edition which was published in tabloid format from 1966.[10] In 1973, the format of the paper was also changed to tabloid.[5]

Det fri Aktuelt ceased publication in April 2001.[2][4][12]

Political stance and contributors

Being an official media outlet of the Social Democratic party the paper had a social democrat political leaning.[10][13] At the end of the 1880s it discouraged the immigration of Swede workers to Denmark.[4] However, its attitude towards them totally changed in the 1890s, and it supported the right of poor Swede workers to obtain Danish citizenship.[4] The paper followed the decisions taken in the Second International and adopted a positive approach towards labor immigration to the country until World War I.[4] It also supported the immigration of the Russian socialist refugees and Jews to the country from 1905 to the end of World War I.[4] The paper suggested in 1975 that East Germany was one of the places for Danish families to visit during the summer holidays.[14]

Emil Wiinblad was appointed editor-in-chief of the paper in 1881.[15] At the beginning of the 1930s the editor of the paper was H. P. Sørensen.[16] Carsten Jensen was among its contributors.[17][18] As of 1997 Lisbeth Knudsen was the editor-in-chief.[19]

Circulation

In 1901 the circulation of the paper was 42,000 copies.[1] From 1911 to the 1950s the paper had a fixed circulation of 55,000 copies.[5] During the last six months of 1957 its circulation was 39,445 copies on weekdays.[20] The paper sold 41,000 copies in 1963.[4] Its circulation was 39,400 copies during the first half of 1966.[21] The paper sold 53,000 copies in 1973 and 54,600 copies in 1983.[4]

The circulation of Det fri Aktuelt was 47,000 copies in 1991 and 45,000 copies in 1992.[22] The paper sold 41,300 copies in 1993.[4] Its circulation was 40,000 copies in 1994, 39,000 copies in 1995 and 37,000 copies in 1996.[22] It further fell to 36,000 copies in 1997, to 30,000 copies in 1998 and to 28,000 copies in 1999.[22] Its circulation was 26,000 copies both in the first quarter of 2000 and in 2000 as a whole, making it one of the top 20 newspapers in the country.[22][23]

Legacy

The photo archive of the paper is kept in Arbejdermuseet (Danish: the Workers' Museum).[24][25]

References

  1. ^ a b Casper Andersen; Hans H. Hjermitslev (2009). "Directing Public Interest: Danish Newspaper Science 1900-1903". Centaurus. 51 (2): 143–167. doi:10.1111/j.1600-0498.2009.00145.x.
  2. ^ a b Per Jauert; Henrik Søndergaard (2007). "The Danish Media Landscape". In Georgios Terzis (ed.). European Media Governance: National and Regional Dimensions. Bristol; Chicago: Intellect Books. p. 84. ISBN 978-1-84150-192-5.
  3. ^ Mark Blach-Ørsten (2013). "Political Journalism in Denmark". In Raymond Kuhn; Rasmus Kleis Nielsen (eds.). Political Journalism in Transition: Western Europe in a Comparative Perspective. London; New York: I.B. Tauris. p. 96. ISBN 978-0-85773-479-2.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Bent Jensen (2001). "Foreigners in the Danish newspaper debate from the 1870s to the 1990s". CiteSeerX 10.1.1.694.9410.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Bernard A. Cook, ed. (2001). Europe Since 1945: An Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. New York; London: Garland Publishing, Inc. p. 302. ISBN 978-0-8153-4057-7.
  6. ^ a b Alastair H. Thomas (2010). The A to Z of Denmark. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. p. 33. ISBN 978-0-8108-7205-9.
  7. ^ "Mediestream AvisID oversigt - København" (in Danish). Det KGL Bibliotek. Retrieved 8 July 2023.
  8. ^ a b Jose L. Alvarez; Carmelo Mazza; Jordi Mur (October 1999). "The management publishing industry in Europe" (PDF). University of Navarra. Archived from the original (Occasional Paper No:99/4) on 30 June 2010. Retrieved 27 April 2015.
  9. ^ Jan M. Olsen (6 November 1994). "Neo-Nazi Migration to Denmark From Germany Stirs Anger, Protests". Los Angeles Times. Kollund. Retrieved 2 January 2015.
  10. ^ a b c Å. Erhardtsen (1978). Evolution of Concentration and Competition in the Danish Newspaper and Magazine Sector. Commission of the European Communities. ISBN 978-92-825-0463-5.
  11. ^ Bent Jensen (2008). The Unemployed in the Danish Newspaper Debate from the 1840s to the 1990s. Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark. ISBN 978-87-7674-374-1.
  12. ^ Henrik Søndergaard; Rasmus Helles (2010). "The case of Denmark". In Federica Casarosa (ed.). Media policies and regulatory practices in a selected set of European countries, the EU and the Council of Europe. Athens: The Mediadem Consortium. p. 378.
  13. ^ Hans Rask Jensen (2001). "Staging Political Consumption". Asia Pacific Advances in Consumer Research. 4.
  14. ^ Thomas Wegener Friis; et al. (2012). "The Face of the Enemy? The Image of the GDR in the Danish Media". In Michael Scholz; Robert Bohn; Carina Johansson (eds.). The image of the Baltic: a Festschrift for Nils Blomkvist. Vol. 10. Visby: Gotland University Press. p. 128. ISBN 978-91-86343-06-4.
  15. ^ "Factsheet Denmark" (PDF). Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark. January 2007. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 October 2013. Retrieved 9 May 2015.
  16. ^ Kasper Braskén (2021). "'Make Scandinavia a bulwark against fascism!': Hitler's seizure of power and the transnational anti-fascist movement in the Nordic countries". In Kasper Braskén; Nigel Copsey; David Featherstone (eds.). Anti-Fascism in a Global Perspective. London: Routledge. p. 98. doi:10.4324/9780429058356. ISBN 978-1-138-35218-6. S2CID 225309963.
  17. ^ "The World Today". BBC. Retrieved 2 January 2015.
  18. ^ "Jensen, Carsten". Baltic Sea Library. Archived from the original on 2 January 2015. Retrieved 2 January 2015.
  19. ^ "Information Society: Final Report of the High Level Group of Experts". European Commission. Brussels. 1 July 1997. Retrieved 2 January 2015.
  20. ^ Britt-Mari Persson Blegvad (1964). "Newspapers and Rock and Roll Riots in Copenhagen". Acta Sociologica. 7 (3): 151–178. doi:10.1177/000169936400700302. JSTOR 4193580. S2CID 144443862.
  21. ^ "Daily Newspapers 1966" (PDF). Danmarks Statistik. Retrieved 12 April 2015.
  22. ^ a b c d "Culture" (PDF). Danmarks Statistik. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 May 2015. Retrieved 9 May 2015.
  23. ^ "The 20 largest daily newspapers 2000" (PDF). Danmarks Statistik. Retrieved 15 February 2015.
  24. ^ "Arbejdermuseet Museum and the Labour Movement Library and Archives". Europeana. 21 December 2012. Retrieved 2 January 2015.
  25. ^ "The Workers' Museum: Home to History". Digital Meets Culture. Retrieved 2 January 2015.