This study analyzes the journalistic construction of the ongoing international renegotiation of cannabis, with the aim of contributing to the theorization of how journalism mediates between hegemonic and counter-hegemonic positions at times of crisis of hegemonic values. The study perceives the many ongoing attempts of legalizing and decriminalizing cannabis for recreational use as providing a disequilibrium to the hegemonic view of the substance as a dangerous narcotic that is rightly banned, and as intensifying a hegemonic struggle over the meaning of cannabis. Swedish print news journalism about cannabis legalization in different countries and contexts is studied, using critical discourse analysis. The analysis shows that journalism allows for debate between positive and skeptic discourses about the effects of recreational cannabis consumption and its medical benefits, and that voices that argue for cannabis legalization to combat organized crime are given important framing power. This means that a measure of legitimacy is given to discourses that counter the prohibitionist hegemony in Sweden, which means that mainstream journalism in this specific case serves as an arena for challenging hegemonic values that are in crisis.

Maps showing immigration into Europe are a potential source of journalistic bias. Limited time and funding to create maps of migration can lead to dependence on data from institutions dedicated to controlling migration, in effect promoting a logic of surveillance directed at immigrants rather than a logic of hospitality based on respect for human rights. There are organizational and logistical barriers to overcome if migration is to be portrayed in ways that support thoughtful, democratic, rights-based deliberation but efforts need to be made to map migration in ways that reveal the geographical experiences of individual immigrants including their movement paths and the risks they face. This article examines unusual maps of migration, drawing on examples from news media as well as from non-governmental organizations, research teams, book authors, private companies, and entertainment media based in several European countries. The examples provide a foundation for concrete recommendations regarding the responsible use of cartographic visualization as a component of immigration news.

On the basis of Scandinavian journalism research this article discusses the changing political roles of news organizations and journalists after the fall of the party press and the dissolution of broadcasting as a state-controlled monopoly. Given these institutional changes, we ask the following: what new roles, if any, are news organizations and journalists playing in the political system? What are the characteristics of these new roles, and how do news organizations use their newfound political power? We address these questions in the context of an institutional approach to the news coupled with Hallin and Mancini's analysis of media systems.

In contrast to the majority of European countries, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Swedish authorities did not put the country in lockdown, but mainly presented relatively mild recommendations to work from home and not gather in groups of over 50 persons. Thus, much of the decision-making and restrictions to prevent the spread of the virus had to occur at the organizational level, i.e., within companies. This paper reports the findings from an online survey carried out in June–September 2020 (n = 196), in which Swedish media managers were asked to focus on perceived media leadership during the COVID-19 crisis. The results indicate that Swedish media managers acted with confidence in their remote leadership and engaged in crisis management leader tasks in line with previous crisis management research. While managers learned to appreciate remote work, they stressed the difficulty of being an inspiring leader in a remote setting and the challenge of motivating creativity, one of the most important components in managing journalism and media work.

This paper examines the BBC's strategy and discursive practices with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It triangulates critical linguistic analysis of the BBC's English and Arabic online reports, with the results of extensive interviews with BBC editors, articles by mainstream media as well as the BBC's guidelines and the editors' blogs. The aim behind the triangulation is to see whether the corporation's beliefs, norms and assumptions vis-à-vis the issue have a hand in the shaping of its discursive features. In order to understand why and how news is differently structured and patterned, Fowler urges critical linguists to contextualize their studies by examining discourse-related moments other than the text itself. The contextualization of the linguistic representations of the conflict demonstrates that BBC language reflects to a large extent the views, assumptions and norms prevalent in the corporation as well as the unequal division of power and control between the two protagonists despite the corporation's insistence on impartiality, balance and neutrality in its coverage of the conflict.

While classic market economic theory argues that competition among media is better for consumers, preliminary research in emerging media markets suggests otherwise. High levels of competition in markets with limited advertising revenues may lead to poorer journalistic performance. This study tests that argument using secondary analysis of data from a purposive sample of countries where measures of news media performance and market competition exist. The authors find a curvilinear relationship between competition and the quality of the journalistic product, with moderate competition leading to higher-quality journalism products and higher levels of competition leading to journalistic products that do not serve society well. The implications of the findings for media assistance initiatives are discussed.

In this article, I argue that the emergence of transnational crises and threats such as the Muhammad cartoons controversy, the avian flu epidemic and climate change, calls for new ways of analysing news. The point of departure is that news media content seems to be becoming more and more deterritorialised, involving complex relations and flows across national borders and continents. In a globalising world, news on politics, ecological processes, agriculture etc. could thus become endowed with a global outlook on social reality, something which has by tradition only been associated with financial news. Even if it seems difficult to estimate more exactly the extent to which everyday news media content has become global, the indications are that it has become harder to categorise news texts as either solely domestic or foreign news. This, in turn, argues for the potential usefulness of the concept of global journalism, which transgresses and transcends the traditional domestic-foreign dichotomy. In news media and journalism studies, the concept of global journalism is under theoretical development, and still in need of a more stringent definition. The purpose of this article is therefore to theoretically define global journalism as a distinctive news style in order to facilitate empirical analyses of it, preferably news text analyses. The suggestion is that this news style rests on a distinct epistemology (the global outlook) when it comes to the representation of space, power and identity.

This article analyses how objects of investigative journalism challenge journalistic authority and knowledge production from the textual space of their own platforms. Drawing on theories of image repair discourse, legal defense strategies, and socio-moral meaning making, a thematic analysis is used to research how the defenses criticize the investigations, what type of dialogical socio-moral meaning making they initiate, and what challenges that meaning-making poses to journalism. The article identifies three positions vis-à-vis the accusations: disclaiming, mitigating, and character boosting. The positions represent journalism respectively as either malevolent adversary, legitimate censor, or associate moral champion, and the stances criticize investigations for being either wrongful, exaggerated, or a distortion of character. The defenses challenge investigative journalism to substantiate accusations, justify methods, renegotiate guilt, acknowledge the validity of excuses and justification, and give credit for alleged moral qualities. The study ends with a discussion on the importance for journalism to engage seriously with defenses to uphold its role as a just and fair institution of accountability, and as a relevant actor in the construction of societal moral.

The article considers the role of conversational analysis in the study of journalism. The author argues that conversation is inherent to the very being of journalism, whether it be conversational exchange in broadcast journalism or the conversation engaged in by print journalists in their news gathering activities. The article offers a brief history of the field of conversational analysis. Of particular interest in conversational analysis for journalistic study is the role of institutional interaction. The author discusses the role of communication and conversation in news legitimacy.

This study, based on Swedish data from three elections (2002, 2006 and 2010) and on a revised version of Clayman's and Heritage's conceptualization of aggressive questioning, examines bias in election campaign interviews with leading political figures. In the first part of the study, the prevalence of partisan bias is explored, and this analysis confirms that such bias does not exist. Informed by Conversation Analysis, a limited number of interviews from the 2006 election are investigated in the second part. This analysis also involves questions scripted by journalists, and it compares both quantitatively and qualitatively the differences between the manuscripts and live interaction. The results question the assumption that bias is solely related to journalistic values and actions. The level of aggressiveness in the interviews is also dependent on how the politicians manage the interview questions.

Political accountability is defined as an important aspect of scrutiny. By analysing newspapers at three different points in time (1961, 1981 and 2001), this study suggests that the kind of scrutiny often mentioned in the literature, characterised by thorough investigations and disclosures of political wrongdoings, barely exists in the local press. By identifying other forms of scrutiny more closely related to ordinary news reporting, the study shows that one-third of the 1500 articles analysed display some degree of scrutiny. The local press plays an important role in communicating information and critique concerning the ways in which local authority service provision works and how political responsibilities are fulfilled. This study indicates that this role has been strengthened during the second half of the 20th century.

Based on a mixed-method approach, this article aims at exploring the specialized forms of interviewing that are used as resources in television broadcast news production. Interviews are analyzed as functionally specialized forms of interaction (cf. Heritage, 1985) with various functions in different phases of the news production. We assume that interviews are organized and carried out as communicative activities oriented towards specific tasks, identities and contexts of interaction. In contrast to established definitions of the archetypical on air news interview, we argue that broadcast interviewing is only partially produced for an “overhearing audience” (ibid.). Taking into account the entire process of producing and presenting news, journalism harbours a multitude of interviewing practices and activities which remain invisible if only the taped and transcribed broadcast talk is analyzed. Our study clearly indicates that news interviews contain more diversified and hybrid activities of communication than has been described in previous research.

In recent years, fake news has become central to debates about the state and future of journalism. This article examines imaginaries around fake news as a threat to democracy and the role of journalism in mitigating this threat. The study builds on 34 qualitative interviews with Danish journalists, media experts, government officials, and social media company representatives as well as 42 editorials from nine national Danish news outlets. Drawing on discourse theory and the concept of metajournalistic discourse, the analysis finds that media actors mobilise fake news to support opposing discursive positions on journalism and its relationship with falsehoods. While some voices articulate established journalism and journalistic values, such as objectivity, as the antithesis to fake news, others blame contemporary journalistic practices for potentially contributing to misinformation, calling for change and reform. These contrasts are particularly notable between the public stances of editors-in-chief, expressed through editorials, and reflections based on personal experience from news reporters and media experts. The paper concludes that fake news functions as a floating signifier in Danish metajournalistic discourse, mobilised not only to attack or defend journalism, but also to present conflicting visions for what journalism is and ought to be.

This paper explores the increasing trend of adopting native advertising in the digital editions of traditional news media outlets. Native advertising is defined here as a form of paid media where the commercial content is delivered within the design and form of editorial content, as an attempt to recreate the user experience of reading news instead of advertising content. Methodologically, this study examines 12 news websites of legacy newspapers from Sweden, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and analyzes the adoption of native advertising during the span of January 2015. Subsequently, these advertisements are analyzed in terms of type, form, function, integration, measurement, disclosure, and authorship. The results show that while the degree of implementation is still modest, the way in which it is implemented is uneven across countries.

The article discusses the meanings of transmedia journalism, which involves the expansion, not the repetition, of news content and then presents the development of a new analytical model that focuses on the coverage of planned events in news media. Planned events are temporal occurrences that are normally well schematized and publicized in advance. The proposed model addresses the fundamental features involved in transmedia strategies for media coverage to contribute to scholars’ analytic needs and to guide journalists in developing transmedia strategies in the context of the news coverage of planned events. Multiplatform news media production is already a reality that, although probably more modest than comprehensive, will inevitably grow and improve. 

Journalism education in Sweden emerged in the late 1950s after more than 50 years of discussions. This historical process is analyzed in this article as an interplay of forces, where different interest groups tried to shape how journalists were to be educated once the existing apprenticeship system was replaced by journalism schools. Using the work of sociologists Pierre Bourdieu and Margaret Archer, this study closely follows the struggle inside the journalistic field, and between the journalistic field and the academic field and other interest groups, about how journalists were to be trained and by whom. This study reveals how conflicts over journalism education tended to migrate; from who would run a journalism school in the postwar years to the governmental investigations of the 1960s and the prevailing internal conflict between theory and practice at the two national Journalist Institutes in the 1970s. This article discusses what is commonly understood to be the professionalization of journalism. However, from another perspective, it can also be viewed as a trade losing control over its education.

This article provides a discussion of some of the recent research on media trust focusing on arguments for why media trust matters. What are the arguments for why trust is important? Are there reasons to accept these arguments? We identify three distinct arguments in the literature. First, that it is important for media organizations and for the media as an industry. Secondly, that media trust is essential for democratic citizenship and for bringing forth informed individuals with the capacity for political engagement. Lastly, that media trust is similar to other forms of (social) trust and connected to a wider existential discussion on ontological security. None of these arguments are totally convincing when inspected more closely and in light of empirical research. The article thus concludes that there is a lack of strong arguments for why falling levels of trust in the news media are legitimately described as a crisis or a problem. A supposed “trust crisis” mainly exists when viewed from what must be described as a rather narrow ideological and normative perspective.

This article provides a discussion of some of the recent research on media trust focusing on arguments for why media trust matters. What are the arguments for why trust is important? Are there reasons to accept these arguments? We identify three distinct arguments in the literature. First, that it is important for media organizations and for the media as an industry. Secondly, that media trust is essential for democratic citizenship and for bringing forth informed individuals with the capacity for political engagement. Lastly, that media trust is similar to other forms of (social) trust and connected to a wider existential discussion on ontological security. None of these arguments are totally convincing when inspected more closely and in light of empirical research. The article thus concludes that there is a lack of strong arguments for why falling levels of trust in the news media are legitimately described as a crisis or a problem. A supposed "trust crisis" mainly exists when viewed from what must be described as a rather narrow ideological and normative perspective.

This study investigates the kinds of transparency that appeal to different parts of the public and the extent to which transparency can be a remedy for declining trust in journalism. It uses a representative survey of Swedes, and the results show that there are three distinct forms of transparency, including the previously unreported ambient transparency, and that they appeal to different people. News consumption or social media use has little or no effect on transparency. The strongest positive effect on transparency comes from appreciation of the current quality of journalistic performance, high trust in journalists and media, and having news media and authorities as the preferred channels of information. Those most skeptical about journalism are also least positive about transparency. The results suggest that transparency has very limited reach as a cure for declining trust in, and the trustworthiness of, journalism, possibly since the acts of transparency themselves remain non-transparent.

Transparency has been suggested as a new norm in journalism. However, few studies have investigated how the overarching notion of transparency is utilized in everyday news. The purpose of this study is to identify and compare how leading mainstream online news media in the United States, United Kingdom and Sweden make use of transparency techniques in news items. The results show that transparency has begun to affect online news but that current journalism practice is a long way from a fully fledged transparency norm.

Journalism's appeal to the public is in decline and the causes and remedies for this are debated in society and academia. One dimension that has garnered attention is that of journalistic norms and how they are performed; it has been proposed that a journalism based on a different, more transparent, normative base can better connect with citizens, compared with the current prevailing norm of journalistic objectivity. However, the opinions of citizens themselves have been remarkably absent and, in order to inform the debate, this study inductively investigates how citizens view and relate to the notion of good journalism. Drawing upon a theoretical framework of Bourdieu's concept of doxa, journalistic role performance, and social contract theory, this study is based on the results of 13 focus groups. The findings suggest that the respondents’ views about good journalism are quite in accordance with the traditional norms of the journalistic field; however, there is more emphasis on stylistic and linguistic qualities. Few calls are made for transparency. The results suggest that a remedy to the decreasing trust in news may not lay in the changing of norms, but rather in how already established norms and values of the journalistic field are performed.

This longitudinal study compares the development and implementation of multimedia on Swedish broadsheet and tabloid online news sites between 2005 and 2010. It also seeks the reasons behind these developments by interviewing journalists working on the sites. The results show that the initial implementation of multimedia was slow but increased sharply in pace between 2007 and 2008. By 2010, on average, one in four news items had some element of multimedia attached to them. Furthermore, results show that it was the quality papers that were the quickest off the mark rather than tabloids. The antecedents for this advance seem to be a mix of technological capacities, professional norms and economic needs.

Transparency has emerged as an ethical principle in contemporary journalism and is contended to improve accountability and credibility by journalists and scholars alike. However, to date, few attempts have been made to record the public’s views on transparency. This study enriches current knowledge by using data from an experiment, survey and focus groups in Sweden collected between 2013 and 2015. Overall, the results suggest that the respondents are not particularly moved by transparency in any form; it does not produce much effect in the experiments and is not brought up in the focus groups. While that is the key finding of this study, it should also be noted that various forms of user participation are evaluated negatively, while providing hyperlinks, explaining news selection and framing, and correcting errors are viewed positively. Implications for journalism practice and research are discussed.

Transparency has been proposed to both change the way journalism is being produced and increase its credibility. However, little research has been conducted to assess the connection between transparency and credibility. This study utilizes an experimental setting (N=1320) to measure what impact transparency have on source and message credibility from the user perspective. The results reveals an almost absence of any transparency effect on both source and message credibility although some small significant effects could be observed primarily regarding internal hyperlinks, comments and contextual information. Although further research is desperately needed in this area the study suggest that transparency does not affect the credibility of journalism in the eyes of the contemporary audience and thus have limited appeal as a new norm in journalism.

It has been suggested that transparency will change the way journalism is being produced as well as increase its credibility. However, little research has been conducted to assess the connection between transparency and credibility. This study utilizes an experimental setting with 1320 respondents to measure what impact transparency has on source and message credibility from a user perspective. The results reveal an almost total absence of any transparency effect on either source or message credibility, although some small significant effects could be observed primarily regarding internal hyperlinks, comments and contextual information. Although further research is needed in this area, the study suggests that transparency does not affect the credibility of journalism in the eyes of the contemporary audience and thus has limited appeal as a new norm in journalism.

This essay argues that there are overlooked yet important journalistic beliefs, norms, rules and practices regarding, aesthetics, automation, distribution, engagement, identity, and proximity that could be a part of formalized codes of ethics. There are four reasons why these should be formalized. First, making the implicit normative dimensions explicit allow for a shared understanding of journalism, cutting across institutional borders. Second, it promotes a more unified and homogenized understanding of journalism across the institution based on those shared explicit norms (normative isomorphism). Third, it reduces the fuzziness of these codes and sharpens their functions as boundary objects, simplifying the negotiation between journalists and audiences. Fourth, and finally, these implicit codes might be an untapped resource that could make journalism better connect with citizens and increase its legitimacy. The paper offers two main contributions to journalism studies. First, it shows that elements of journalistic practice and culture that seem disparate in fact play similar institutional roles, forming boundary objects as sites of tension where codes are negotiated by different actors. Second, systematizing these informal codes into the style of traditional codes of ethics renders them more visible and could help journalism scholars understand the uneven formation and evolution of journalistic norms. 

According to previous research, two characteristics of online news as opposed to traditional news are interactivity and immediacy. However, most research in this area has focused on the news site-level of analysis, and there are only a few studies on how interactivity and immediacy affect online news on the news story-level of analysis. The main reason for this appears to be that the very nature of online news makes observation by traditional research methods, such as quantitative content analysis, problematic. Against this background, the overall purpose of this paper is to explore methodological approaches for the study of interactivity and immediacy on the news story-level of online news. The paper develops a three-pronged strategy for freezing the flow of online news to enable systematic content analyses of interactivity and immediacy, and tests this strategy in a comparative analysis of the online news sites Guardian.co.uk in Britain and Aftonbladet.se in Sweden.

According to previous research, two characteristics of online news as opposed to traditional news are interactivity and immediacy. However, most research in this area has focused on the news site-level of analysis, and there are only a few studies on how interactivity and immediacy affect online news on the news story-level of analysis. The main reason for this appears to be that the very nature of online news makes observation by traditional research methods, such as quantitative content analysis, problematic. Against this background, the overall purpose of this paper is to explore methodological approaches for the study of interactivity and immediacy on the news story-level of online news. The paper develops a three-pronged strategy for freezing the flow of online news to enable systematic content analyses of interactivity and immediacy, and tests this strategy in a comparative analysis of the online news sites Guardian.co.uk in Britain and Aftonbladet.se in Sweden.

This article examines the post-award implications of international prize culture within the journalism profession. Through qualitative interviews with winners of CNN competitions, this paper specifically investigates how news professionals discursively construct the notion of excellence within the space of international award practice, and then how they subsequently perceive their roles in the post-award dispensation. The key findings show that journalists’ understanding of excellence through awards is fluid and based on individual, institutional as well as professional notions of what constitutes par/sub-par journalism. These “bearers of excellence” perceive themselves as promoters of high standards of journalistic practice and champions of normative roles, such as the watchdog role, which fits into the broader mission of the specific institution sponsoring the awards. 

Grounded in an agenda-building theoretical perspective, this study explored in depth the relationships between political campaign information subsidies and elite national news media coverage. Specifically, this investigation examined three levels of agenda-building linkages (object, attribute, and network connections) simultaneously during the 2012 US Presidential Election pre-convention period between Barack Obama (Democrat) and Mitt Romney (Republican). A total of 2655 campaign information subsidies and 345 news stories were content analyzed. The results suggest solid support for all three levels of agenda building. Our findings indicate the strongest linkages were at the third level for stakeholder network associations and at the second level for substantive issue frames. Campaign blog posts, press releases, and issue platforms were the most effective agenda-building tools at this phase of the election campaign. The theoretical, methodological, and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Political satire is an elusive hybrid genre that through its evolution over the past two decades has gained both media and scholarly interest. Inspired by American TV shows like Last Week Tonight, a new wave of more journalistic news satire has spread across the world. Studies have scrutinized its contents and effects, but the production side has remained largely uncovered. This study applies the concepts of genre and boundary work to analyze how advocates of this practice relate themselves to news journalism and previous satire. Based on qualitative interviews with 16 key production team members of four topical satire programs, we investigate how Nordic news satirists interpret their aims and work routines. We argue that both Finnish and Swedish news satirists embrace some of the traditional values of journalism such as striving for factuality, political relevance, and monitoring the powerful while they simultaneously aim for more emotional, opinionated, and exaggerated expression than in regular news reporting. The implications of this hybrid, “neomodern” ethos are examined.

In this article, we present an analysis of how gendering is “being done” in press visuals of women in politics. In short, we will argue that women professionals working within the area of politics are gendered and type-cast in more complex ways than previous research has yet shown. In a qualitative analysis of visuals from three different political scandals in Sweden involving prominent political women, we analyse the diversified ways of portraying women in visuals that do not simply reproduce the idea that the gendering of women uncritically correlates with concepts like sexualization, objectification, passivity and otherness. As on-lookers of a professional woman in politics caught in a pressing situation in a photograph, we will argue that at times we may be invited to see her as both an Other and a person with whom we can identify ourselves with. Or a woman may be positioned as an object with a focus on appearance, but not by emphasizing her femininity and sexuality but by doing exactly the reverse. We will also discuss the complexity that is related to the various contextual factors that come into play when press photographers and editors communicatively “work” at accomplishing specific gendered visual “preferred readings”.

In this article, we quantitatively establish the centrality and importance of interviews in news and current affairs broadcasts. We show how segments of interviews (from soundbites to longer recorded or live question-and-answer interactions) are deployed as communicative resources in the construction and presentation of news in various ways. The data allows for a cross-national comparison in between the UK and Sweden that point to differences in practice between the  countries. We argue that our findings may be used to critically examine various conceptualisations of broadcast interviews in general and political interviews in particular. We also show how journalists outnumber politicians as interviewees in the news, a finding that is in need of further exploration from a range of perspectives We also believe that our study provides solid ground on which to base future critical studies of the authority of journalism, dialogical and soundbite journalism, and the alleged fragmentisation of news.

This article proposes a diachronic, empirically founded and qualitative approach to the examination of constructions of a European Public Sphere in Europe's national news media. By focusing on transnational press-reporting of a set of selected Crisis Events in post-war European history (in the period 1956-2006), different discursive representations of "Europe" (and Europe-related normative notions such as, e. g., "European values") are studied to show the diversity and heterogeneity of their nationally specific perceptions. Similar discursive patterns and commonalities in discourses across Europe are highlighted, as are the evolving ways of (re-)constructing the tension between the transnational and the national, in the specifically European context. Within the latter, Europe changes its role in news-media discourse over time-from being an adversary or source of problems for the nation, to becoming the "bearer" of common values for all (or at least several) European nation-states.

This article proposes a diachronic, empirically founded and qualitative approach to the examination of constructions of a European Public Sphere in Europe's national news media. By focusing on transnational press-reporting of a set of selected Crisis Events in post-war European history (in the period 1956-2006), different discursive representations of "Europe" (and Europe-related normative notions such as, e. g., "European values") are studied to show the diversity and heterogeneity of their nationally specific perceptions. Similar discursive patterns and commonalities in discourses across Europe are highlighted, as are the evolving ways of (re-)constructing the tension between the transnational and the national, in the specifically European context. Within the latter, Europe changes its role in news-media discourse over time-from being an adversary or source of problems for the nation, to becoming the "bearer" of common values for all (or at least several) European nation-states.

This study attempts to deepen our knowledge of the relationship between journalists and local politicians/officials. The study's primary conclusion is that there is a large degree of interplay between these groups, an observation that reinforces the findings of previous journalistic research. The findings are also in line with recent public relations research arguing that the journalist-politician relationship is governed by certain variables - particularly trust and mutual control - as well as recognising the importance of professional norms. Actors on both sides require manoeuvring space in which they can create and maintain a balance of power in the relationship. The interplay between the two groups results in four types of local journalism - documentation, promotional, watchdog and collaborative journalism.

Journalism studies almost exclusively rely on a “sociology of integration” perspective when theorizing the social function of journalism. Focus is put on if and how journalism facilitates democratic processes, encourages civic engagement and strengthens the sense of community. In providing an alternative view, this study mobilizes the cultural sociology of Pierre Bourdieu – a “sociologist of conflict” – in order to study how young people’s conditions of existence have given rise to vastly different orientations towards news and the normative order surrounding journalism. Based on focus group interviews with young people in Brazil and Sweden, the study shows that socialization into the world of news in the family and in school generates class-distinctive news orientations. The world of news is a site where social groups draw moral and cultural boundaries against each other. Since different social groups monopolize completely different news practices and preferences, they work to legitimate social differences. As such, the findings challenge common notions of news as creating the “healthy citizen”, and that news media provide spaces for the practice of civility and citizenship. 

Journalism studies almost exclusively rely on a “sociology of integration” perspective when theorizing the social function of journalism. Focus is put on if and how journalism facilitates democratic processes, encourages civic engagement and strengthens the sense of community. In providing an alternative view, this study mobilizes the cultural sociology of Pierre Bourdieu – a “sociologist of conflict” – in order to study how young people’s conditions of existence have given rise to vastly different orientations towards news and the normative order surrounding journalism. Based on focus group interviews with young people in Brazil and Sweden, the study shows that socialization into the world of news in the family and in school generates class-distinctive news orientations. The world of news is a site where social groups draw moral and cultural boundaries against each other. Since different social groups monopolize completely different news practices and preferences, they work to legitimate social differences. As such, the findings challenge common notions of news as creating the “healthy citizen”, and that news media provide spaces for the practice of civility and citizenship. 

Journalism studies almost exclusively rely on a “sociology of integration” perspective when theorizing the social function of journalism. Focus is put on if and how journalism facilitates democratic processes, encourages civic engagement and strengthens the sense of community. In providing an alternative view, this study mobilizes the cultural sociology of Pierre Bourdieu—a “sociologist of conflict”—in order to study how young people’s conditions of existence have given rise to vastly different orientations towards news and the normative order surrounding journalism. Based on focus group interviews with young people in Brazil and Sweden, the study shows that socialization into the world of news in the family and in school generates class-distinctive news orientations. The world of news is a site where social groups draw moral and cultural boundaries against each other. Since different social groups monopolize completely different news practices and preferences, they work to legitimate social differences. As such, the findings challenge common notions of news as creating the “healthy citizen”, and that news media provide spaces for the practice of civility and citizenship.

Journalism studies almost exclusively rely on a sociology of integration perspective when theorizing the social function of journalism. Focus is put on if and how journalism facilitates democratic processes, encourages civic engagement and strengthens the sense of community. In providing an alternative view, this study mobilizes the cultural sociology of Pierre Bourdieua sociologist of conflictin order to study how young people's conditions of existence have given rise to vastly different orientations towards news and the normative order surrounding journalism. Based on focus group interviews with young people in Brazil and Sweden, the study shows that socialization into the world of news in the family and in school generates class-distinctive news orientations. The world of news is a site where social groups draw moral and cultural boundaries against each other. Since different social groups monopolize completely different news practices and preferences, they work to legitimate social differences. As such, the findings challenge common notions of news as creating the healthy citizen, and that news media provide spaces for the practice of civility and citizenship.

The study explores how the content of the social ties between journalists and their sources, and the multiplexity of the ties in particular, is reflected in the news discovery practices in the political beat. Some of the news ideas come from publicly available channels while others derive from journalists’ unique networks of social contacts (often to some degree informal). The sources connected to journalists via single vs. multiplex social ties achieve a discursive power (Jungerr et al. 2019) in different ways. The study is based on reconstructed news discovery situations (n = 162) from two different political journalism environments: Lithuania and Sweden, and combines quantitative and qualitative questions. First, it measures the prevalence of the multiplex social ties between journalists and the sources. Second, it analyzes how the multiplexity of these ties is reflected in the process of the news discovery and, third, the outcome—the news content. The results show that the prevalence of multiplex social ties, and the social network behind them, is reflected in what news journalists can access and select as newsworthy. Process-wise, multiplex social ties work as a shortcut but require a balance between maintaining the access to the network and distance to the source. 

The study explores how the content of the social ties between journalists and their sources, and the multiplexity of the ties in particular, is reflected in the news discovery practices in the political beat. Some of the news ideas come from publicly available channels while others derive from journalists' unique networks of social contacts (often to some degree informal). The sources connected to journalists via single vs. multiplex social ties achieve a discursive power (Jungerr et al. 2019) in different ways. The study is based on reconstructed news discovery situations (n = 162) from two different political journalism environments: Lithuania and Sweden, and combines quantitative and qualitative questions. First, it measures the prevalence of the multiplex social ties between journalists and the sources. Second, it analyzes how the multiplexity of these ties is reflected in the process of the news discovery and, third, the outcome-the news content. The results show that the prevalence of multiplex social ties, and the social network behind them, is reflected in what news journalists can access and select as newsworthy. Process-wise, multiplex social ties work as a shortcut but require a balance between maintaining the access to the network and distance to the source.

War reporting has mostly been analyzed as a struggle between political and military control over information and journalistic professionalism. An analysis of reporting in mainstream media from the conflict in eastern Ukraine in 2014 shows that many other aspects must also be considered. In a comparative study, mainstream media coverage in four countries, Ukraine, Russia, Poland, and Sweden, was analyzed and interviews were held with journalists in the media included in the content analysis. Findings revealed significant variations in the framing of the conflict, portrayal of actors involved, and word choice across national settings. Interviews with journalists also highlighted crucial differences in approaches and perceptions. Results show that the specific journalistic culture in each country, self-censorship, and the degree of activist approach among journalists similarly play an important role in war reporting. Researchers from all four countries participated in the project.