Exploring Structural Differences in Television News between the United States and Sweden

• The purpose of this study is to explore structural differences in television news format and news framing between the United States and Sweden. The study focuses on the top three television networks in the United States and the top two public service channels and the leading commercial television channels in Sweden: CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News and ABC World News, and Rapport, Aktuellt and TV4 Nyheterna, respecively. The results of the content analysis reveal significant differences between the two countries across a number of important variables: amount of domestic versus foreign news coverage, level of journalistic visibility, length of politician’s sound bites, attribution of responsibility, and thematic versus episodic framing of the news. The discussion addresses the possible causes for these cross-cultural differences as well as the potential implications for news audiences in both countries.

Subject headings

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

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

Keyword

television news

television news format

news framing

mediatization

comparative media research

Media and communication studies

Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)