Communication Strategies of the Fovse Activists: Telling the Story of the Fovse Case Protests in the Nordic Public Sphere

The Fovse protests took place in Oslo in 2023 and were fronted by young Sámi activists protesting the inaction of the Norwegian government to follow up on a Supreme Court verdict from 2021 that had ruled that the building of wind power plants in reindeer herding pastures conflicted with the human rights of the Sámi. This study shows how the protesters used strategic communication tools and how the actions were reported by the Sámi divisions of the public broadcasters in Norway, NRK, and Finland, Yle. The media coverage is analyzed by a close and systematized reading and categorizing of the news reports and comments of the protests. The analysis shows that the Sámi activists employed traditional strategic communication tools, e.g. demonstrations, occupation, celebrity endorsement, networking and alliance formation, to organize the protests, attract attention and media coverage to put pressure on the Norwegian government to accept and enact the Supreme Court ruling. In this respect, the Fovse protests also challenged the idea of the Nordic model as being inclusive, egalitarian, and just, as the protests were rooted in the Norwegian government’s disregard and neglect of Sámi human rights.