Marketplace of Ideas and Marketplace of Money : A Study of Commercialism and the Swedish Election News Coverage in 1998 and 2002

• 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.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Övrig annan samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Other Social Sciences not elsewhere specified (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Election news

commercialism

framing

journalism

Other social sciences

Övrig samhällsvetenskap

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)