Alcohol and Communications Policies as Cultural Protectionism

Abstract

The article compares alcohol policy to electronic media policy as forms of cultural protectionism. This protectionism has coincided with an era of economic protectionism, which in Finland started after World War I and the Finnish Civil War in 1918, and which is now ending as a result of the GATT agreement and Finland's membership of the European Union. During that era, the Finnish nation has not only been protected against imports of foreign agricultural products. The Finnish common people have also been constructed as a populace in need of civilization, and that is why the borders have been closed to bad influences, such as cheap liquor and mass culture. The article discusses the way in which this ‘bio-policy’ (Foucault) affecting peoples' living conditions has formed the Finnish culture, and its notions about art, mass communication and alcoholic drinking. As to notions of alcohol, it is predicted that the meanings of protest aroused by state control policy are gradually fading, and will give way to notions of drinking problems as evidence of a disease.