Since my last update, the right-wing coalition government has appeared to have solidified their lead, and as such, are all but certain to be re-elected.
You may be wondering how you can watch the election live. I'll detail how I find the answer to this, as, simply giving you a fish is less efficient than teaching you how to fish.
First off, note the time zone difference. Norway is in Europe, which, generally, is an hour beyond the UK. This means a 5 hour difference with Toronto.
Elections can begin at varying times. Some places start counting as early as 6pm and others as late as 10pm, and still others, even later. 8pm seems a generally good estimate. Given that we are talking about a 5 hour difference, it means results can be expected to begin at 3pm here in Toronto, give or take the aforementioned two hour window.
As for how to watch, I find the "media of" pages on wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_of_Norway
From here I'd go to Television, and when possible, Newspaper as well.
NRK appears to be the top broadcaster and after a quick visit to their wiki page, you can easily get the link to their actual website.
Now this is when a problem hits that I've become used to but that you may not have necessarily realized. None of this is in English. I use google chrome which translates a lot of this for me automatically. Doing so leads me right to the news tab from which I can see a tag that says "election 2017"or "vlag 2017" in the original norwegian.
A quick click and we get to the meat and potatoes.
Norwegian parties use legally approved acronyms. In fact, many countries do this. While in Canada you may see CPC for the Tories, Elections Canada does not enforce that, and the Communist Party of Canada is free to use CPC if they wish. Many countries, however, have strict limits on acronym use. Wikipedia provides a guide to who is who. Additionally, the colour scheme for the parties is consistent across multiple platforms.
At this time, the H party, light blue, is on 24.2% in the polls. These are the Conservatives. FRP is on 17.0% with their dark blue, these are the progressives. AP, red, or Labour, are on 25.8%, with SP, light green, or the Centre Party, are on 9.6%
This is when a solution hits that, again, I've become used to but which not everyone may necessarily have realized; elections are numbers. To a degree it does not actually matter if you understand the words around the numbers so long as you understand what the numbers themselves mean.
In fact it becomes obvious the little graphic on the right with the poll bars is some kind of polling bank. Clicking on it confirms this. It shows you all the various coalition possibilities given the current polls.
Now there is an issue with "watching the election". It will all be in norwegian. Personally, I watch anyway, numbers are numbers and they'll show them on the screen, even if I can't understand a word they are saying. Sometimes, with larger countries, you'll get lucky and find an english feed. France 24 had an english feed for the French elections, for example, but for countries like Norway, you can forget about it. This is why, sometimes, you want newspapers.
While TV networks are great at making video, they are not always the best at making easy to follow content full of numbers. By that I mean content like this, from the UK's Guardian newspaper about the 2016 US election. Maps, numbers, graphics.
These are the general strategies I use to find live results coverage video on the date of elections in various countries. Another prime source is actually youtube. Increasingly, more and more major media outlets are realizing the benefits of streaming their election coverage to youtube, and more are doing so. For the New Zealand elections on the 23rd this is what I plan to use, as it's almost certain TVNZ will stream to youtube.
For the German election on the 24th I will look for an english stream, and if I find one I'll share it, but in the past I've had no luck. German TV however tends to have streams, and there is a website I consistently forget about until I need it that has truly excellent graphics and information about all german elections, national or state.
Regardless, I hope these skills serve you well in watching your own international elections.
No comments:
Post a Comment