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Background Negative portrayals of schizophrenia in media can prompt the condition's stigmatization. However, because research on language stigmatizing schizophrenia has focused on paper-based media, its results have limited generalizability to contemporary media. Also, research on interventions to guide media professionals in accurately depicting schizophrenia has been scarce. The present study had two aims: (1) to assess how print, web, and radio/TV news media in Sweden portray schizophrenia and (2) to evaluate a campaign targeting media professionals' responses to information about schizophrenia and the consequences of stigmatizing language. Study Design Using data from Retriever's database, considering media types and topics, the terms "schizophrenia" and "schizophrenic" were examined in the past 20 years, whereas analyses of stigmatizing reporting of these terms used media from the past 10 years. Media professionals' responses and actions in the anti-stigma information campaign StigmaWatch were also evaluated. Study Results Between 2002 and 2022, "schizophrenia" was mentioned 34 141 times in the dataset and "schizophrenic" 10 058 times. However, no trends were statistically significant. All media topics and most types of media contained stigmatizing reporting. Of the 230 media professionals who received informative emails from StigmaWatch, 77 (33%) responded. Most responses were supportive, and 14% of the professionals reported taking corrective measures (eg, revising erroneous descriptions of schizophrenia) following the email. Conclusions No media topic was free of language stigmatizing schizophrenia. The anti-stigma information campaign seemed to have been effective, for most media professionals who responded were supportive, and a sizable proportion reported taking corrective measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the position of press secretaries to ministers has become routinized, we still know little about their everyday life in the political executive. This article, based on in‐depth interviews with press secretaries and an inventory of social media use conducted among ministers and press secretaries in Sweden, explores what press secretaries do and the roles and functions they fill. It addresses the overarching question of what it is really like to be government press secretary. It engages with this question through a combination of methods, mapping, and explaining patterns of behavior across related fields and strategic spaces. We argue that existing research and role typologies, while still useful, must be developed by accounting more for how press secretary work changes through new techniques and digitalization. We conclude that press secretaries fill a mix of roles and these are quite stable, but social media impacts on the daily routine of the press secretary and are a part of the work that is difficult or impossible to control. In addition, this study of Swedish press secretaries helps to redress a geographical imbalance in political communication (system) research where the focus usually is on Anglo‐American‐based scholarship and systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In 2012, the world's probably first regional transnational news agency was founded in the Øresund region between Denmark and Sweden. News Øresund, as the agency is called, delivers free transnational news pertaining to the Øresund region to Danish and Swedish media. Such a transnational agency can ensure that the media publish more or different transnational journalism than they would otherwise do, because the news media then does not need to do the transnational reporting themselves (Grieves, 2012). Th is article examines Danish media in the period before and after News Øresund, and it is argued that certain changes in the media content from the Øresund region can be traced before and after News Øresund. The changes in the media content can to a certain extent be attributed to News Øresund, as interviews with journalists on the examined media show that News Øresund is used daily in the newsrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

News reporting about mental illness lack perspectives of the mentally ill themselves and it is almost exclusively psychiatrists who are accessed when healthcare staff is consulted. The perspective of mental health nurses might contribute to the public understanding of mental illness. The purpose of this study was to describe mental health nurses' experiences of how mental illness is portrayed in media. Eight semi-structured interviews were conducted with qualified mental health nurses. A qualitative content analysis resulted in three categories: Negative portrayals of mental illness, Inconclusive images of mental illness and Biased dissemination of different perspectives. The conclusion of this study is that mental health nurses experience media portrayals of mental illness as negative and misleading with too much emphasis on the medical perspective while a holistic mental health nursing perspective is heavily obscured. Mental health nurses need to take a more prominent role in public reporting on mental health to resolve the current lack of relevant facts regarding mental illness. Further research is needed regarding portrayals of mental illness in social media and how the current lack of perspectives affects public perceptions of mental illness. In addition, further studies regarding the viewpoints of journalists reporting on mental illness are required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on rhetorical arena theory, this study investigates the variations of content across communication channels (subarenas), guided by different media logics, during the 2014–2015 Ebola outbreak. Restricting the study to one country, Sweden, a content analysis was conducted of two national newspapers (in total 848 articles), their posts on branded Facebook pages (47) and user comments on these Facebook posts (1,661). Some conclusions to be made are, that content differed between subarenas, with Facebook news being more sensational and focused on human interest stories, and Facebook comments to a greater extent related to other current socio‐political issues. Also, news media were more alarmist than Facebook comments, although alarmism declined on all subarenas as the danger became more tangible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates contemporary cultural policy reforms enabled by paid digital media distribution services, taking the case of the integration of Spotify into the Swedish public media system. Specifically, it reflects on the conflicts arising over the prioritization of digital distribution over cultural preservation, during the gradual substitution of the Spotify digital services for the services provided by the traditional material media archive, the Grammofonarkivet. It considers the factors influencing changes in the Swedish cultural policy environment and the nature of the complaints and human rights claims made by employees of the Grammofonarkivet to UNESCO regarding its structural transformation. It also postulates a "Spotification" model of public service media emerging in Sweden but potentially affecting other countries with public media systems served by traditional media archives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In democratic societies, news media play a key role - not least during election campaigns - as a central source of political information and forum for public debate. This makes it crucial to understand how and why people use and perceive news media. This includes immigrants. Despite the fact that immigrants constitute a relatively large group, and indications that immigrants and the Swedish majority population differ in ways that might have societal implications, there is however limited research on media use and media perceptions among immigrants in Sweden. To help remedy this, the aim of the current study is to explore how immigrants used and perceived Swedish news media during the election campaign 2018. Findings from focus group data display a great deal of variation regarding characteristics and motivations for media use. Further, four different trust dimensions that participants evaluated, and based their perceptions of news media on, are identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on how the Swedish news media depicts the functioning of the social services and the situation of social workers. The empirical material consists of 586 articles published online during the years 2010–2015. A discursive approach makes up the theoretical and methodological framework. The aims of the article are to identify and categorise media narratives about social services and social workers, how they are portrayed, what is conveyed and how the stakeholders' (politicians, managers and social workers) negotiate the question of responsibility for the situation in the social services. The study identifies and categorises seven different types of media narrative. In these narratives, social workers are portrayed in various ways, such as unwilling to stay in the profession, concerned, hardworking, etc. Reports on the crisis in the social services tend to dominate, e.g. how the social services fail to follow-up cases of child abuse, social workers' heavy workload and that legal security cannot be guaranteed. Stakeholders, faced with reported criticism, maintain credibility by taking some responsibility and/or displacing liability by using various rhetorical resources. The media produces a public image of the lack of responsibility for solving the problematic situation. In this respect, the take-action-narratives are central to the debate, which argues for joint action to be taken to find solutions. Although the media is a powerful and scrutinising tool, it also needs to report on the improvements that have been made in order to give a more balanced picture of the social services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to investigate to what extent social service organisations (SSOs) conceive news management as a means to promote organisational self-interest as opposed to achieving democratic openness. The study is based on a nationally representative telephone survey with persons responsible for communication or public relations in Swedish SSOs (n =91). Against the background of descriptive statistics, the aim is pursued by qualitative analysis of four open-ended questions. The literature on the relations between social work and media has largely painted a negative picture. This study suggests a different image. The statistical analysis of survey data revealed that respondents were largely satisfied with their relations to journalists. It is concluded that increasingly professionalised news management in SSOs has largely served the function of protecting organisational self-interest, at the expense of democratic openness. This is expressed in how respondents talked in terms of promoting the positive aspects of organisational performance, how they applied a marketing perspective and how the goal of addressing criticism was to deflect it rather than embrace the potential it had for improving performance. This approach is problematic and scholars and practitioners alike need to be more detached from the interests of the social work profession and its organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural journalism is a unique and underresearched subfield of journalism. This article presents the first systematic study of Swedish cultural journalism, quantitatively mapping content from four decades, zooming in on the years 1985, 1995, 2005, and 2015. We study conceptions of the world outside Sweden during times marked by geopolitical turning points, globalization, and rapid structural transformations in the journalistic market. Employing content analysis of a representative sample from the press and public service radio, we explore geographical and scalar aspects, with a focus on political and global dimensions. Although we found evidence for Eurocentrism and domestication--staples of Western journalism overall--results show that Swedish cultural journalism was a steady conveyor of transnational narratives during all studied periods, which together with a primarily nonconflictual approach, sets cultural journalism apart from foreign news and decreases the risk of misframing in a globalized world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has pointed to the fact that ideological images of geographies are bound up with the ongoing struggle for economic and social resources, and that moral values and emotions are central in rendering such images intelligible and accepted. To explore this further, we critically engage with the ways in which moral values and emotions contribute to the (re)production of centres and peripheries in the Swedish news press reports of public-sector job relocations. We deploy the discourse theoretical notion of ideological fantasy to critically explain the forces that make particular moral and emotional judgements comprehensible. We identify two discourses in the news press material – one about competence and one about compensation – built up by morally and emotionally charged articulations. We argue that ideological fantasies worked as driving forces both in this moral and emotional news debate and also in the ongoing constitution of geographies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AIMS - The purpose of the study is to describe and analyse how cannabis is constructed in Swedish print media and if this has changed over time. Sweden is known for its prohibitionist cannabis policy, but this approach seems increasingly challenged on both international and domestic arenas. It is therefore important to see if and how this international change is mirrored and processed in a key arena such as print media. METHODS - Newspaper material from two years, 2002 and 2012, was included to analyse continuity and change. The theoretical backdrop for the study is social constructionism, and methodological concepts such as discourse and subject positions from discourse theory were used to investigate how cannabis and cannabis problems are constructed. RESULTS - The analysis showed that print media in both years seem to draw mainly on a juridical, a social problems and a medical discourse when portraying cannabis. It is through these discourses that some subject positions become relevant as users (e.g. youth) and as experts (e.g. police). Despite a strong continuity in these cannabis constructions, the analysis also shows signs of change. For example, in 2012 there are articles drawing on economic and recreational discourses, and there is a global outlook enabling new cannabis constructions. CONCLUSION - The Swedish print media generally has a crime-centred and deterrent approach towards cannabis, with prohibition at the heart of the reporting. International events do however introduce discursive alternatives in 2012. It remains to be seen if these new ways of writing about cannabis will strengthen or challenge prohibitionist constructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The specific aim of this study is to investigate how a group of migrant rights activists in Sweden are positioned in news discourse. The more general aim of this study is to understand the conditions under which activists participate within news discourse. Through a critical discourse analytical (CDA) framework, with specific focus on the use of epistemic and dynamic modalities in the presentation of activists’ statements, the analysis shows what kinds of knowledge claims can be constructed and from what discursive position. Furthermore, the analysis shows what kind of political claims the activists can make. The activists are positioned as ‘dreamers’ in relation to political possibilities and as ‘experiencing individuals’ in relation to knowledge claims. The main conclusion of the article is that journalistic discourse has inherent ideological resources to include activist voices: at the same time, it is able to exclude the political relevance of activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the changing journalistic norms and roles in terms of mobile and sedentary news work at the end of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The analysis draws on the research into the small everyday tools of bureaucracy and science. The focus is on the quill, the scissors and paste pot, the body of the reporter and the computer. Journalistic neutrality and truth seem at any given time to be defined in line with the practices made possible by the available tools. A change in tools makes new practices possible, meaning that the norms have to be redefined. Journalism was once synonymous with mobile reporters reporting on events they themselves witnessed. Journalism today, however, is often sedentary copy-and-paste work, much resembling the scissors-and-paste journalism of the nineteenth century. Comparison reveals that such transmission of texts and images produced by someone else always runs the risk of reproducing the voices of the elites. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The present paper examines the debate on the future of public service broadcasting (PSB) in Norway and Sweden in the 2000s. I have analysed the discourses on PSB that dominate the public debate in the two countries, the cultural policy related to PSB, as well as the legitimizing rhetoric of the Norwegian public service broadcaster Norsk rikskringkasting (NRK) and that of the Swedish public service broadcaster Sveriges Television (SVT). Theoretically, the analysis draws on normative theories on the role of PSB in promoting democracy, culture and a well-functioning public sphere, as well as theories on democracy and the public sphere per se. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current recession of the printed press highlights the role of the state in relations to the media. This article analyses the public opinion on the Swedish press support - one of the oldest and most extensive press subsidy systems. Building on theories concerning the factors shaping public opinion in political issues, the article shows that the press support has increasingly evolved into a non-issue with the Swedish populace. Two explanations appear paramount. Firstly, the recent transfer of several supported newspapers from party to private ownership has been accompanied by a demobilization of the public opinion on the support on the basis of party preference. Secondly, the decreasing consumption of newspapers in general has been followed by increasing levels of indifference concerning the support to struggling newspapers. The findings provide yet another indicator that the printed press is gradually losing its long-time position as one of the keystones of civil society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates caricatures of clergymen in the nineteenth-century Church of Sweden. It offers the first attempt in Sweden to study these images as an enduring historical source. As case study, six caricatures of bishops from 1790–1870 will be analysed in terms of both their motifs and their significance. The bishops have been selected as the object of study because of their visibility as ex officio members of Parliament and leaders of the clergy. It is argued that graphic satire was used as a medium to criticise the bishops' influential position in the government and their defence of the Parliament of the Estates. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that as the techniques used to produce caricatures improved during the period, the images were more widely spread and had a greater impact on Swedish society. Finally, it is shown that caricature in Sweden reached a peak in the middle of the nineteenth century thanks to the extended debate on parliamentary reform and restrictions on press freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to analyse the cultural information on (Olympic) sports presented in Swedish media coverage of the London Games 2012. A starting point for the analysis is that the media plays an important part in shaping a majority of the viewers' ideas about what sport is, and who is a real sportsman or sportswoman. In that way, the media gives cultural information on sports. The article focuses on a quantitative analysis of media representations, exploring how coverage intersects with gender and nationality, and devotes special attention to a comparison between the ways in which Sweden and Britain are represented in the media. The study demonstrates that there was a higher percentage of articles on Swedish sportswomen participating in the London Olympic Games compared to previous Olympics. A possible explanation is that the Swedish gender equality discourse has permeated the Swedish media, influencing it to cover sportswomen more than before. In addition, the cultural information presented to the Swedish readership about the London Olympic Games is, in short and oversimplified, nationalism rather than internationalism; that women, and especially Swedish women, practise sport; that track and field, swimming, handball, equestrian sports and football are very important and that they are performed by both men and women; and, finally, that in Britain, men play football and women are not involved in many sporting activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relations between the media and their corporate sources have become increasingly routinized and organized. In contrast to traditional perspectives on news making this article introduces an embeddedness perspective on business journalism and reports on the findings from a study of the way the major Swedish corporations and financial analysts contribute to and participate in the production of business news. Through a qualitative analysis of two cases we show that such production is organized and carried out in a stream of continuous and well-coordinated activities and structured interaction settings – that is, in a system of recursive mediation. Our analysis further illustrates how this system is maintained through the technological, relational and situational embeddedness of the activities and settings. Through our studies we show how news production has developed outside the journalistic domain. One implication of our findings is that the possibility of individual actors influencing the content of the news is likely to be limited. Instead, it is the actors’ ability to join the organizational and technological settings in which news material is generated that gives them the opportunity to actively participate in news production. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This explorative case study investigates how the continuous publication cycle and the immediacy of online news affected the Swedish news media framing of the swine flu epidemic between April and May 2009. The findings suggest that media framing changes continuously, several times a day, effectively painting different frames of the crisis. Consequently, an organization involved in this crisis may face stakeholders that have encountered contrasting frames depending on when they accessed the latest news. Furthermore, the results show that the speed of modifications seems to be highest in the initial stages of reporting when the flu was perceived as more dangerous. Because the crisis frames change constantly, this provides both a challenging crisis communication environment and an opportunity to influence and shape the frames by organizations that are aware of them and act swiftly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the reception of German film star Kristina Söderbaum in her native Sweden. Söderbaum reached the heights of superstardom, becoming one of Germany's top box office stars of all time. Until 1945 she appeared exclusively in films directed by her husband, Veit Harlan. The Swedish press closely monitored Söderbaum's career, though her most infamous film Jud Süss/Jew Süss (1940) was banned by Swedish censors. After the war, she tried unsuccessfully to resume her career, among other places in Sweden. Taking into consideration her close collaboration with Joseph Goebbels, the Swedish press, though negative, treated her surprisingly gently. In fact, Söderbaum's role in Germany during the war was never really discussed in Sweden. This article suggests several reasons for this relative silence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there is a large body of research on news values and news selection, most research does not clearly distinguish between the concept of news and news selection, on the one hand, and news values and criteria of newsworthiness on the other. These concepts are often treated as synonymous. This is problematic, as there may be many other factors aside from news values or criteria of newsworthiness that determine what becomes news, and as there may be differences between what journalists think should be, and actually is, important when deciding what's news. Against this background, this study investigates what Swedish journalists think is, and should be, important event properties when deciding what's news, and whether there are differences across journalists working for different kinds of media and depending on whether they work with online publishing. The results show that there are significant differences between the perceived normative and actual importance of investigated event properties when deciding what's news. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The aim of this article is to analyse attitudes towards news on old and new platforms. Our study used two types of independent variable: generation, which - along with age - is one of the most important factors explaining news media practices; and news consumption, which is strongly related to attitudes. We utilised a national mail survey of 3000 people in the Swedish population (aged 16-85) to conduct the study. The response rate in the 2010 study was a little over 60 percent, and the survey gives a significant picture of news attitudes in the population. The findings generally show a strong degree of support for traditional news media such as television and printed newspapers. However, this support is far stronger among the older generations than the younger - who, to a larger extent, express support for other forms of news distribution, in particular the internet and social media networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, popular press coverage of summer and winter Olympic Games in Swedish popular and illustrated magazines during the 1950s and 1960s is analysed as part of a process of everyday affirmation of national and gender identity. First, it is shown how Swedish male athletes are represented in the media as active and forceful male bodies, competing for national honour. The article then moves on to an analysis of representation of female Olympians, and how ‘our’ Swedish girls are discursively linked to a Western, attractive and modern womanhood. In the Cold War context of the 1950s and 1960s, female athletes from Communist states were held out as contrasting examples. Media representation focusing on the good looks and attractiveness of female athletes is read as cultural negotiations of the challenge of women's sport. It is argued that female Olympians were visually and textually represented as women rather than as athletes. This is related to the Swedish historical context, where the female body was a crucial site and symbol for the separation of gendered spheres. The article concludes that the configuration of femininity does not, as in the decades around 1900, refer to biology but rather to social and cultural necessities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The purpose of this article is to show how the battle for the citizens' opinions and actions regarding climate change has been played out via language, i.e. via written documents or oral statements, in the media in the U.S. and in Sweden. The results show the importance of language and discourse in our understanding of science and of the relations of power between consensus scientist and contrarians. They also show how these groups have a different resonance in the media as a result of the media logic, the journalistic narrative form and the journalists' professional ideologies as well as of the journalists' and ordinary peoples' lack of knowledge when it comes to the conditions and restrictions of science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on Bourdieu's theory of social capital, this article analyses Swedes' willingness to vaccinate during the swine flu outbreak in autumn 2009. The analysis is based partly on responses to a survey of 3,000 Swedes that was conducted when the virus was spreading, and partly on a comprehensive content analysis of the largest Swedish news media's coverage of swine flu. The starting point is a model where people's vaccination willingness is analysed against the background of their social capital, media consumption, perceived concern about catching the virus, and trust in how the authorities were handling the influenza virus. The results show that social capital in terms of class affiliation, education and profession in covariance with media consumption impacted both the perception of concern and trust in the authorities, and that, in this case, trust in the authorities had greater significance for the rate of vaccination than the perception of concern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how the powerful mechanisms of nation-state discourse in the news media obscure emerging constructions of transnational political thought and action. With the aid of empirical examples from qualitative media studies on critical events extensively covered by the news media, the article demonstrates how national identity in the news media represses transnational political identities of the intentional as well as the unintentional kind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our paper examines how field structures moderate the effect of the business press on organizational outcomes. Prior research suggests that the business press shapes organizational outcomes, but the question of how these effects depend on organizations’ positions in a field has attracted limited attention. We address this theoretical limitation in an analysis of how mutual funds in Sweden were affected by periods when the business press increased its negative coverage of mutual fund fees. First, we expect that negative coverage influences the way customers evaluate mutual funds. Second, banks have long occupied a dominant position in this market, and we thus expect banks to be less affected by the negative coverage of fees than other mutual fund managers. We find support for our argument in a longitudinal quantitative analysis of financial net flows into mutual funds. The findings indicate the value of contextualizing media effects and considering how field positions moderate the effects of cultural processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

•As a pervasive historical construct that is both foreign and familiar, the USA has a looming presence in Swedish media discourse. Swedish journalists’ views of the USA can best be described as ambivalent — critical of a unilateral or too passive US foreign policy, while at the same time being heavily influenced by many aspects of the American economic model and culture. This article presents the results of an analysis of Swedish editorials, debate, commentary and cultural articles about the USA in time periods between 1984 and 2009. During these three decades USA actions are broadly framed against the backdrop of Cold War, globalization and cultural contestation paradigms respectively. The USA is seen as a formidable power, one that should be checked by others on the international stage. Cultural symbols based on historical European narratives about the US are called upon to illustrate reckless unilateralism (‘Space Cowboy’ Reagan) or the future-oriented entrepreneur as a role model for Sweden (during the Clinton years). The final decade under the cultural contestation paradigm is also ambivalent — the role of religion in the USA appears foreign to Swedish eyes, whereas the USA’s cultural misunderstandings with others appear familiar. • [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While the histories of opinion polling and the news media have been closely intertwined ever since the invention of polling, the question as to whether the media's reporting on opinion polls should be considered as detrimental or beneficial from a democratic perspective is still open and contested. The purpose of this paper is thus to investigate the publication of opinion polls in the Swedish media during the last three election campaigns, with a focus on how the media used opinion polls and whether or not the media, at the end of the day, mainly used opinion polls to give voice to the people - or to the media and the journalists themselves. Among other things, the results suggest that more often than not, polls serve as vox medial rather than vox populi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores news media discourse about COVID-19 during the spring of 2020 in Sweden, aiming to provide an understanding of how moralising discourse is employed in narratives about public health risks and responses. We investigate print news media content about the corona virus and COVID-19 during the early stages of the outbreak, guided analytically by framework focusing on the relationship between moral panics and moral regulation. We direct attention, first, to how both moral majorities and villains, i.e., 'folk devils', and heroes are constructed in the news. Secondly, we look at how visions for interventions are produced discursively in relation to such constructions. Our findings suggest that moralising discourse largely target risk behaviours and health care claims of middle-class groups. We also find that news media discourse about the pandemic in Sweden is marked by attacks on government interventions that are distinctly different from observations in other contexts. In conclusion, we discuss these observations in relation the political and discursive context, and the potential impact of moralising discourse on the legitimacy of public health interventions and the welfare state. Finally, we also discuss how our findings can inform theoretical discussions about political populism, moralising discourse and public health. • Moralising discourse marked Swedish news media narratives about COVID-19. • Calls for interventions by 'moral entrepreneurs' targeted risks among 'folk devils'. • It was different in character to discourse emerging in other contexts. • It was also characterised by traits associated with medical populism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether commercialization can explain the extent to which the Swedish news media during the 1998 and 2002 national elections framed politics as a game, followed an interpretive journalistic style and allowed politicians to speak for themselves. Six hypotheses were derived from the claim by Patterson (2000) that commercialism is the driving force behind the framing of politics as a game and, by implication, the increasing use of an interpretive journalistic style and shrinking sound- or inkbites. Taken together, the results show only mixed support for the hypotheses. The results thus indicate that perceiving commercialism as the crucial independent variable is too simplified. Moreover, it must certainly not be a universal truth that commercialism is driving the changes of election news coverage, or that there is always a contradiction between the media functioning in the marketplace of ideas and the marketplace of money. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The chapter outlines the theoretical premises of the Swedish Media Election Studies and some principal empirical findings. The role of the media in democratic societies is to contribute to free opinion formation by fulfilling two normative functions: to inform the citizenry and to scrutinize those who govern. On the descriptive level three functions are distinguished: to supply different opinions, to provide information on issues, and to expose misbehavior. These descriptive functions correspond to three normative demands: fairness, informativeness and scrutiny. Empirical conclusions are based on analyses of the medias' impartiality, their information value and informativity score, and the quality of their scrutiny. Swedish news media in general, and the public service broadcast media in particular, fulfill the demands made of them to a considerable degree. On balance, after nearly thirty years of empirical study in the Swedish Media Election Studies project, my assessment of the performance of Swedish news media is largely positive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The basic theme of the essay is gender and power in the field of journalism in Sweden. It is not controversial to assert that journalism, historically speaking, evolved as a maledominated field. Despite the high level of gender quality in Sweden, however, this pattern remains the case. Drawing on Bourdieu's theories on habitus, capital and field and Toril Moi's "appropriation" of Bourdieu, the article looks at the structure of the field of journalism during three periods: the Era of the token woman (1900-1950), the Era of the critical mass (1950-1985), and the Era of feminization (1985 onwards). The field of journalism is defined at the nexus of three overarching social forces - political, economic, and professional forces and dynamics - and the gender order of the field reflects the relative weight of these forces at any given point in time. The empirical analysis of the field is centered around four main questions: (1) which positions men and women have been given access to during different time periods, (2) what forms of capital have men and women accumulated, (3) how images and perceptions on what constitutes "good" journalism have become gendered over time and which positions, media, and genres of journalism have been associated with status/prestige as well as to what extent this social status branding is gendered, and (4) to what extent the struggle in the field has been gendered and what strategies and tactics have been employed in that struggle. Inclosing, the article discusses some conclusions about the gender logic of the field of journalism. The main finding is that status, prestige and power have been associated with conceptions of masculinity and these conceptions, in turn, have been associated to the beliefs that underpin the field - the image of the journalistic "mission". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past research has shown that official actors have an advantage when it comes to accessing and framing political issues in the news media. This study examines the dynamics of official dominance and event-driven news from a comparative perspective, focusing on the Muhammad cartoons controversy. A model of official dominance and event-driven news, taking media system factors into account, is developed and tested using a quantitative and qualitative research design. The results show that an intolerance frame dominated over a freedom-of-speech frame in both the Swedish and the American elite press. Furthermore, although dramatic events opened windows of opportunity for unofficial actors, the consequences of intensified coverage for the ratio between unofficial and official voices were more profound in the United States. Finally, there is some evidence of more active journalistic framing in the Swedish papers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research into press reporting on young people has tended to concentrate on young people as offenders. In contrast, this article focuses on press coverage of teenagers as victims. Reports in two Swedish newspapers (a morning broadsheet and an evening tabloid) were studied over a period of four months and subjected to a qualitative analysis of discourse on teenagers as victims of various forms of violence and ill-treatment. It was found that danger and threats to the teenagers were seen as gendered, and as emanating from their own age group and from outside the home and family. The class background of the victims was not salient and child welfare issues were seldom mentioned. Copyright © 2006 The Author(s). Journal compilation © National Children's Bureau. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a study of Swedish news media, 1912-84, a distinction is made between news values, regarded as more or less permanent, and changing news ideologies, conceived as an outflow of other ideologies. In statements concerning the broadcasting media three periods of different news ideologies are identified. They all seem to have had a strong impact both on the selection of news and on the selection of perspectives applied in the news. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the evolution of Press Councils (PCs) worldwide. It states that the first PC was established by the Swedes in 1916 but have only multiplied since the early 1960. It says that the PC is a way of using public opinion to pressure the media in serving the convenience, necessity, and interest of the people. It mentions three major types of PCs including the pseudo-PCs, semi-PCs, and true PCs. It adds that people can complain to most PCs whether they are hurt personally or not by the press.

The article offers the author's insights on a study on how daily newspapers in Sweden cover the U.S. presidential election campaigns in 1968. The author states that the study involved ten daily papers published in Swedish metropolitan areas which are subscribed to the Associated Press (AP) and United Press International (UPI). He says that the comprehensiveness of the news accounts were measured in terms of column centimeters, key developments addressed and key issues covered. He states that the findings suggest that daily metropolitan press in Sweden gave a comprehensive coverage of the election campaigns. He adds that the study provides an example in which editorial decisions on election campaign news can be evaluated.