Marking Journalistic Independence : Official Dominance and the Rule of Product Substitution in Swedish Press Coverage

• Independence and autonomy from political power are core values among professional journalists in most western societies. At the same time, research has shown that news media organizations are highly dependent on official political actors for the construction of news. The purpose of this study is to analyze the nature of official dominance and manifestations of news media independence in routine political press coverage in Sweden. Building upon three related theories of news media behavior – the indexing hypotheses, the dynamics of event-driven news, and the rule of product substitution – a set of hypotheses is derived and tested using a content analysis of 835 news stories published in Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet during a 15-week period in 2008. While official actors dominate news coverage both in terms of source use and story initiation, evidence for a rule of product substitution is found.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Media and Communications (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

indexing; news coverage; official dominance; rule of product substitution; Sweden

Media and communication studies

Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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