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This book describes and analyses the dramatic changes in television in Western Europe during the 1980s and 1990s. In particular, it charts how Swedish television, conceived as a large socio-technical system, has shifted from a traditional public service system to a more open and mixed system. In addition to traditional public television broadcasting, it has now come to encompass several commercial channels distributed through an expanding combination of technical and market alternatives, including satellite television. Specifically, this works examines the entrepreneurial actions of the Swedish industrial group Kinnevik in establishing the satellite channel TV3. This process is analysed in relation to (1) the particular characteristics of the traditional Swedish broadcasting system, (2) the development of cable-TV in Sweden, and (3) the history of satellite television. The author explores a range of vital questions concerning the (re)construction of socio-technical systems. Emphasis is placed on how and why it was possible for a new actor to successfully challenge, gain access to and help transform a well-established system that had remained relatively stable for a long time.

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Lena Ewertsson is researcher at the Gothenburg Research Institute and the Section for Science and Technology Studies in the Department of Sociology at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

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