[Commlist] Call for Papers: Skam - 10 years on

    Call for Papers: Skam - 10 years on

/Norsk medietidsskrift/ invites submissions for a special issue on 
/Skam/ (NRK 2015–2017). It has now been over ten years since the 
immensely popular web drama /Skam/ premiered on NRK, and with this 
special issue we invite reflections on the series’ significance, legacy, 
and influence on the occasion of the ten-year anniversary of its 
conclusion. Guest editors for the issue are Synnøve Skarbø Lindtner and 
Gry C. Rustad. We are open for contributions in English for this special 
issue.

/Norsk medietidsskrift /always publishes open access, with double-blind 
peer review, professional language editing and no APC.

/Skam/ was an innovative television series, created for social media, 
yet produced by a public service broadcaster with a conscious ambition 
to both educate and entertain young audiences. Over time, the series 
developed into a cultural phenomenon that seemed, at least at moments, 
to be followed by the entire world. It became Norway’s largest cultural 
export since A-ha, attracting millions of viewers worldwide, including 
more than four million viewers in China. Its popularity was initially 
expressed through audience engagement, discussions, and—crucially—the 
production and sharing of fan art on social media, alongside extensive 
activity in the comment sections on /Skam/’s own websites. This, in 
turn, generated significant media attention, both nationally in Norway 
and internationally.

The series received coverage in outlets such as /The New York Times/, 
/The Guardian/, and /Vanity Fair/, and was hailed as “the future of 
television”. In addition to generating a considerable amount of 
celebrity journalism—for example, in 2017 the characters Even and Isak, 
who carried the narrative of season three, were voted TV Couple of the 
Year by the American celebrity magazine /E! Online/—/Skam/ was also 
widely regarded as a text that addressed key issues of its time. The 
series set the public agenda on topics such as sexual assault and the 
Norwegian graduation celebrations (/russetid/), mental health, minority 
experiences, and feminism, and inspired numerous opinion pieces, 
newspaper debates, news stories, and podcasts, to name but a few.

/Skam/ also became the object of extensive scholarly attention across a 
range of disciplines. These include television and media studies (Sundet 
2020 and 2021; Rustad 2018 and 2025; Redvall 2018); youth culture and 
sociology (Krüger and Rustad; Lindtner and Dahl 2019; Hormoen et al. 
2022); fan studies (Sundet and Petersen 2019 and 2021; Bachman 2021; 
Duggan and Dahl 2019); gender and feminist studies (Lindtner and Dahl 
2022; Dhaenens 2023; Pacalis 2025); religious studies (Hannell 2021; 
Aboulaoula 2025); ethics and pedagogy (Lindtner and Skarstein 2018; Vik 
and Tønseth 2018; Torill 2021; Kvamme 2021); linguistics (Andersen and 
Paulsen 2019); and social work. In short, the series became a key point 
of reference for research on youth media, identity, social norms, 
gender, and psychosocial processes, as well as a prism through which to 
understand the present and how it is shaped by—and reflects—youth 
culture, and perhaps especially new forms of digital life.

Now, ten years on, it is time to look back. What traces has /Skam/ left 
behind, both as a television series and as a field of research? What 
kind of afterlife has the series had, for both its creators and its 
audiences? The series received widespread acclaim—but is the time now 
ripe for critical reassessment as well? Could the series have been made 
today?

These are the kinds of questions we wish to explore in this special 
issue, and we invite contributions from scholars writing in Scandinavian 
languages or in English . We also welcome shorter scholarly articles of 
between 4,000 and 6,000 words. The aim of this special issue is to take 
stock of /Skam/ and /Skam/ research ten years after the series ended.


      Suggested themes for articles include, but are not limited to:

  * The significance of /Skam/ as a television series. What are the
    consequences of the aesthetic innovations introduced by /Skam/, such
    as its use of social media as a distribution model?
  * The significance of /Skam/ for teen television fiction then and now.
    How has teen fiction developed since /Skam/?
  * The significance of /Skam/ research. Can /Skam/ be understood as a
    research field in its own right, and if so, what characterises it?
  * The significance of /Skam/ for teenage culture, and how /Skam/ may
    have shaped the generation that grew up with it in relation to
    digital lives, and beyond. Have changes in teenage culture and
    culture more broadly altered how /Skam/ is read and understood today?
  * The significance of /Skam/ for representations of minority
    experiences and feminism. How, for instance, has the
    /Skam/ generation moved from Noora’s feminism to celebrating “trad
    wives”?

In the first instance, we invite extended abstracts (maximum 750 words, 
including references) for potential scholarly articles.

Abstracts should be sent to *(gryrustad /at/ gmail.com) 
<mailto:(gryrustad /at/ gmail.com)>* and *(Synnove.Lindtner /at/ uib.no) 
<mailto:(Synnove.Lindtner /at/ uib.no)>* by *1 May*. Authors will receive 
feedback in early June, and full articles must be submitted by *1 
December*. The special issue will be published in *May/June 2027*, ten 
years after /Skam /concluded.

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