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Lately, there has been massive media coverage of gang-related criminality in 'exposed areas' in Sweden. Politicians have blamed the illegal drugs trade without questioning the country's prohibitionist drug policy. This study analyzes how cannabis is constructed in Swedish newspaper articles that mention both organized crime and cannabis. We ask how the drug and its buyers and sellers are described, what discourses are drawn upon, and discuss the relationship between media coverage and drug policy. We analyzed recent (2021) articles from four newspapers (n = 71) through Critical Discourse Analysis. Cannabis was constructed as a commodity linked to violence and deviance. Agency was attributed to people with power and status (e.g. gang leaders), and recreational cannabis users were described as guilty of feeding organized crime. A combination of economic and moral discourses was used to make the reported events meaningful, and to motivate both prohibition and decriminalization/legalization. The study shows that assumedly neutral journalistic voices emphasized the link between cannabis and violence and problematized cannabis buyers and sellers. This homogenous media coverage will probably contribute to keep the question of cannabis law reform discursively lifeless in Sweden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses significant changes in the political rationality underpinning Sweden's official reading policy between the 1940s and 1980s. Using official inquiry reports as empirical material and drawing on a discourse analytical method, we examine policy changes regarding ideal readers (what reading should result in) and administrative practices (what policy actions could be used) and the kinds of academic knowledge that was used to justify specific measures. It is found that official reading policy ceased to be limited to distributing literature and expanded to include active reading promotion. The replacement of sociological perspectives by cognitive viewpoints as constituting knowledge is also noted. It is concluded that changes in the political rationality had consequences for how the individual reader was construed, from a subject with the potential to change society to a subject who had to adjust to society. We argue that the cultivation of readers evident in reading policy constitutes a specific technique of governance not sufficiently considered in previous cultural policy research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wind power production is expanding globally and with this comes social resistance. In this article, we study controversies concerning the expansion of wind power in Sweden between 2009 and 2022. To this end, we study national press coverage and local press coverage from Sweden's 290 municipalities. Despite previous studies showing that Swedish people are generally in favour of expanding wind power, our results show that this policy is controversial and often is met with significant local resistance. We identify a clash between two environmental concerns: developing national policies to mitigate the effects of climate change and local opinions calling for the preservation of natural landscapes, which are often coupled with concerns about whether expansion of wind power leads to positive climate effects. We analyse national and local discourses through a multi-level governance perspective, a view that argues Sweden's market-oriented and decentralized wind power planning regime feeds the controversy. In conclusion, the dispersal of power throughout the planning system facilitates scaling up of local resistance to an energy policy issue of national concern, creating significant uncertainty about the expansion of wind power in Sweden. • Material on the debate on wind power resistance in the case of Sweden is analysed focusing on national and local actors. • A national opinion in support for wind power development is challenged by local resistance towards the same energy source. • The controversy threatens climate objectives as well as the electrification of Swedish industry and transportation sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]