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- Karlsson, Martin, 1987-
(författare)
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Governing the news : A study of problems and solutions in Swedish public service broadcasting news and policy between 1954 and 2015
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Swedish public service journalism constitutes a comparatively well-researched subject in Swedish media and journalism studies. Previous studies have, for example, contributed with valuable knowledge about the actors, conflicts, structures and political economy of Swedish public service journalism. It has also presented the scholarly community of media and journalism studies with new research problems and questions to be addressed. One of these relates to how it has been possible to continue the conduct of daily news reporting when tensions between politicians, owners, viewers, staff and management have been ongoing or anticipated. Another is how it has been possible to change the conduct of daily news reporting when this has been embedded in relatively stable and long-lasting structures. To grapple with these problems, the conceptual contributions of a discursive turn within media and journalism studies have been operationalized into a study about the conceptualization and performance of roles in Swedish public service broadcasting policy and news relating to political dissent broadcast on the Swedish public service news program Aktuetllt, between 1954 and 2015. The aim is to trace the emergence of metajournalistic discourses about Swedish public service journalism in Swedish public service policy, to study the governmentality of these discourses in relation to other past and contemporary areas of government and to explore their effects on the journalistic discourse of Swedish public service journalism. The study identifies the conceptualization and performance of three roles that have contributed to problematizing, regulating and/or legitimating the conduct of daily news by Swedish public service journalists. The first one is the independent impartisan, which was performed in news relating to political dissent throughout the entire period. The second one is the cautious (im)partisan, which was performed during only two of the sampled years, namely 1985 and 1995. The third and final one is the transparent impartisan, which was performed during the final sampled years of the investigated period, namely 2005 and 2015. The study identifies a discursive resemblance between the metajournalistic discourses that have conditioned the problematization, regulation and legitimation of these different roles, and discourses that have been elevated and/or subordinated in the governmentality of other areas of Swedish government during this period. These discourses include the functionalism of early sociology, the multiculturalism of the new social movements of the 1960s and the neoliberalism of late-modern political economy. The study contributes with a previously less explored conceptual framework on research into Swedish public service journalism. The framework highlights how the structure of the daily news has been legitimated discursively in response to, or anticipation of, tensions between politicians, owners, viewers, staff and management. In addition, it also highlights how the structure of the daily news has been possible to problematize and change discursively in relation to a fluid and constantly outward-looking governmentality.
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| 2. |
- Eriksson, Maria, 1988-
(författare)
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Online music distribution and the unpredictability of software logistics
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This compilation dissertation examines the role of software in online music distribution and critically scrutinizes the increased influence of digital technologies in everyday life. In particular, it explores how software coordinates and arranges things, people, and information surrounding music and thereby exerts a logistical power that makes music calculable and governable online. The dissertation consists of four case-studies that problematize the role of software and algorithms in regulating how digital music moves. Article I highlights the role of algorithms in organizing, evaluating, and creating knowledge about artistry, article II uncovers the material, political, and technical networks that facilitate streamed music, article III scrutinizes editorial playlists and their role in packaging and containing digital sound, and article IV traces how software is designed to identify and regulate how music moves and is monetized in the online domain. These case studies draw attention to issues concerning visibility, access, ownership, control, but also—as this dissertation especially aims to highlight—the elements of surprise, unpredictability, and unsettlement that are inherent to complex software technologies.The research contributes to three subfields in media and communication studies: music-oriented media studies, materialist media studies, and software studies. It contributes to music-oriented media research by accounting for the role of digital technologies in organizing musical practices and thereby illustrates how algorithms and software must be taken seriously as agents that shape cultural practices surrounding music. Relatedly, the research contributes to materialist- and softwareoriented media research by continuing the tradition of paying close attention to the technical constitution of media technologies and reflecting on the power and politics of software logistics and its unpredictabilities. Methodologically, the research builds on—and advocates—a mixed-methods approach that combines the use of digital methods, media archeological tactics, and a technology-oriented ethnographic approach. In combining these methods, the dissertation illustrates the benefit of experimental and qualitative methods in the study of digital technologies and highlights the need to approach software as both an object of study and a strategic research tool.Theoretically, the dissertation mainly draws upon materialist and German media theory (e.g., Kittler 1990; 1999; Ernst 2012; 2016), theorizations of logistical operations (e.g., Neilson 2012; Cowen 2014; Durham Peters 2013; Case 2013; Young 2014; 2015), and theories regarding technological accidents, ruptures and unpredictabilities (e.g., Frabetti 2010; Virilio 2007; Parikka and Sampson 2009; Fuller and Goffey 2012). In doing so, the dissertation highlights how the hidden and seemingly ‘grey’ and mundane task of regulating the movement of online music online is, in fact, a deeply cultural and subject to ongoing power struggles. Ultimately, the dissertation illustrates the continued relevance of media research that critically engages with software, adopts digital and experimental methods in the study of digital technologies, acknowledges the logistical power of software, and accounts for the unpredictable events that software technologies sometimes trigger.
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