Presentation of the research program The Intimization of Journalism Transformations of Medialized Public Spheres from the 1880s to Current Times

ANJA HIRDMAN, MADELEINE KLEBERG & KRISTINA WIDESTEDT

The primary purpose of the project is to study mocratizing potential of representing and debtating what is included in and excluded from the mediali- private issues in the mediated public sphere? zed public spheres at different points of time dur- The project is concerned with media representa- ing the period of 1885 through 2005, with particular tions and constructions of the intimate sphere, as focus on themes and issues related to family, sexu- well as with intimacy as a manner of addressing the ality and “the private”. media audience. A tendency towards increased media attention to The empirical material includes newspapers and these subjects in the late twentieth century has been magazines of two early periods, i.e., the years widely noted. Some researchers see it as trivia- around 1885 and 1925. Other chosen periods are the lization, feminization or tabloidization, whereas oth- years around 1935, when radio will be included in ers prefer to talk about democratization and popu- the analyses, and 1965, 1980 and 2000, when tele- larization, stressing the broadening of public discus- vision is included, as well. sions to include issues previously not debated and The chosen periods capture significant changes in the inclusion of heretofore marginalized groups. We, journalism as well as in society – changes which raise for our part, have chosen the phrase “the intimiza- questions about boundaries between the intimate tion of journalism” to describe this process. sphere and the public. Discursive methods are used in This intimization of journalism is conceived of the analyses of the journalistic texts including images. here as a continuous process, closely related to the development of a mass circulation press and mod- ern journalistic practices in the 1880s, when the in- Introduction terview as a working method and the use of photo- The Intimization of Journalism is a program in the graphic pictures became increasingly important in field of journalism and media research that consid- journalism, in Sweden and abroad. ers the public sphere discourses of intimacy in a Contemporary media output is heavily sexuali- historical perspective. What is considered intimate zed overall, i.e., private issues are more and more is, like the concept of “private life”, closely related directed towards sexual intimacy. One important to how the public sphere is constructeed. But, question arises: Might this pervasive sexualization whereas “private” can be defined in spatial terms, as in the media actually undermine the originally de- a place apart from public arenas, “intimate” is more complex. Intimacy is a fluid and, we find, histori- cally metamorphic category that includes elements Anja Hirdman, Ph.D., Madeleine Kleberg, Ph.D., of identity and sexuality and, in the case of journal- Kristina Widestedt, Ph.D., Senior Lecturers at De- ism, a position vis-à-vis the public and sources. It partment of Journalism, Media and Communi- is in the public sphere that intimacy is defined. cation, Stockholm University, P.O. Box 27861, SE- As we conceive of it, intimacy is both a place 115 93 Stockholm, [email protected], kleberg@ within private life, the home (the intimate sphere) jmk.su.se, [email protected] and an act constituted by social relations and a form

109 of medial address. A similar dichotomy applies to with material about society, public life and the pri- our concept of what is “public”, as well: the public vate sphere. At the same time, much of the material sphere is at once a place – plazas, parks, shopping relates to so-called private matters – according to malls, theatres – and an act that includes elements of Habermas’ classical dichotomy, whereby the inti- journalism and publicity, stat ements intended for mate sphere concerns “hearth and home” and repro- public consumption, and political praxis. That is to duction, and the public sphere, political, economic say, we conceive of “intimacy”, as opposed to and societal issues (Habermas 1988). “privateness”, as including social interactions. Con- Thus, a media and journalism research perspec- sequently, we have chosen to contrast the intimate tive implies the formulation of a more flexible de- sphere (rather than the private sphere) with the marcation of private versus public inasmuch as the public sphere; both are constituted by communica- media, starting in their more institutionalized mass tive social relations. The medialized public sphere is production phase (around 1880), have interwoven seen to consist of different arenas defined in time the private and the public spheres, mixing the inti- and space (different media), where the definition mate with the public. This is particularly true of and use of intimacy occurs and takes place. content (a focus on everyday life), but also narra- The program is indebted in large part to feminist tive form (the address, use of illustrations/photos). and gender theory. We consider it important to view Rather few theories of the public sector involve the concept of gender in relation to issues concerning media; those that do apply for the most part Haber- the different kinds of power over discourses and mas’ conceptual structure, viz., that media are dis- problem formulation that are at stake in the media- cussed in terms of how they relate to other kinds of lized public sphere. Gender relations, and definitions public spheres (the bourgeois in Habermas’ case), of them, are an ongoing process, and it is interesting without taking account of the medialized public to see which representations of these relations have sphere itself as a specific kind of publicity or been in currency at different points in time. This ap- “publicness”. Interesting in this regard is precisely proach makes femininity and masculinity accessible the quality of this medialized public sphere, in to analysis as historical and medial categories. which the private, the intimate, is used and defined (cf. Fraser 1992, Landes 1998). Aims and Background In theoretical terms, the aim of the research pro- Intimization gram is to define certain starting points for a his- That growing focus on “private life”, on the inti- toric/thematic discourse analysis of the transforma- mate sphere, that is seen to characterize media con- tions of the medialized public sphere, with particu- tent since the final years of the past century has lar attention to gender. Empirically, the program been branded by some media scholars as a triviali- aims to cast light on the manners in which issues zation, vulgarization or tabloidization of the media and phenomena that may be ascribed to the intimate (cf. Blumler & Gurevitch 1995, Sparks & Tulloch sphere are treated (or ignored) by mass media at dif- 2000, i.a.), whereas others consider it rather a de- ferent points in time, and to explore the reasons for mocratization or popularization of the media, as is- differences noted over time. It is our ambition to in- sues, subjects and groups of people that previously tegrate theories of gender and the media in a sys- were excluded are now discussed and heard and seen tematic fashion, with a view to heightening aware- (cf. Livingstone & Lunt 1994, Thompson 1995, ness of the prevailing gender order within journal- Hartley 1996, McLaughlin 1998, i.a.). ism. We believe that our shift of focus from the These quite divergent assessments have given public to the intimate sphere, combined with an am- rise to recurrent debates on the implications of the bition to found the theories in an empirical and lon- changes in journalism. Currently, the issue of gitudinal material, has the potential both to make a tabloidization is among the most widely debated. contribution to theory and to improve our under- The term itself has been used in at least three differ- standing of an important area of human activity. ent senses in the literature (cf. Sparks 2000). In theories concerning the demarcation between the intimate and the public spheres, phenomena re- 1. as a descriptor of a change in news journalism lating to mass media are generally assigned to the overall, whereby amusement displaces serious public sphere. Media do, after all, have to do with news journalism.Tabloidization, according to publicity; they shape the public sphere, filling it this definition, has two main characteristics:

110 • less interest in politics, economics and public for the lower classes – or, democracy is the concern affairs, but more attention to sports, scandal of an elite, whereas the masses are satisfied with en- and popular entertainment; and tertainment. Which is to say, in so many words, • considerable interest in “private life” and the that the masses have abdicated from the democratic personal sphere, whether or not the individu- process in order to devote themselves to things per- als are so-called media personalities, and less sonal and private, while a (wealthy, well educated interest in political processes, economic de- and male) responsible elite minority keep democ- velopment and social change. racy afloat by participating in “public affairs”. This perspective has to do with the boundaries Confronted with empirical fact, however, such a between journalism and other media content and view proves untenable. Serious journalism need is raises the question of whether or not tabloidi- of course not restricted to the rich, the well edu- zation poses a threat to democracy. cated or the powerful. Public service radio and tele- vision have, for example, supplied the entire Swed- 2. as a descriptor of a shift in priorities within a ish people with serious news and current events given medium from news and information to- programming the greater part of the past century. ward entertainment. Public service television in There is, however, a certain risk that the multi- new, commercially dominated multichannel sys- channel system of today may result in a social tems is a prime example of this. This discussion stratification within the fragmented audiences of raises the question of the balance between news broadcast media, like that we find among readers of and entertainment. newspapers. Nor should we neglect the long and 3. as a descriptor of changes in taste within various historically influential press traditions of the labor genres (the editorial content itself). Journalism is movement, which struggled to create a serious alter- impacted in several ways when political discus- native to the news carried by the bourgeois press so sions are displaced by talk shows, where ordi- as to bring enlightenment to general readers. The nary people (non-experts) talk about their per- party press was driven more by ideological than by sonal experiences and problems. Here the ques- commercial motives and devoted a great deal of at- tion is about the standards of public debate and tention to social issues that were deemed to be of how much of the intimate sphere should be universal interest. made public. Rather little research on the transformations of the past couple of decades has considered their his- Attitudes toward tabloid journalism have become torical background in any extended longitudinal, em- indicators of broader political standpoints or posi- pirical perspective (with the exception of, for exam- tions: apologists brand critics of the tabloids for ple, Esser 1999; see also Thompson 1995). Having their conservative elitism with respect to news and an ambition to develop new approaches to the sub- democracy and say the critics neglect popular inter- ject, we have chosen to describe the changes in ests when they do not take the tabloids seriously. terms of medial representations of the intimate More extreme apologists look upon tabloid news- sphere. We are interested in how the intimate be- papers as the bastion of common folks’ resistance comes part of the medialized public sphere, and to the powers that be, as a realm in which alterna- how the medialized public sphere is made intimate. tive worldviews, meanings and interpretations are Characteristic of the “intimization of journalism” produced. Tabloid news may very well treat the perspective is that modes of address, relations to same topics as the elite news treats, but it ap- sources, visual representations, and the focus of the proaches the topics from a distinctly different per- texts are seen to interact to create a kind of medial spective (a focus on individuals) and using a differ- pseudo-intimacy. Thompson (Ibid.) speaks of medi- ent idiom (everyday language and a tone of inti- ated quasi-interaction, a close, but not identical con- macy). This is not simply trivializing and negative; cept that solely concerns reception, whereas the it may indeed be seen as a form of democratization. concept of medial pseudo-intimacy involves all the Thus, the tabloids, viewed from this point of view, links in the communicative chain: production, text are essentially subversive of the social order. and reception. Thus, our use of the concept of Judgments of tabloids readily extend themselves intimization of journalism reflects our ambition to to judgments of those who read them, which im- encompass the central points of conflict between plies a problem of legitimacy. The simplest inter- the private sphere and the public sphere as well as pretative schema results in a dichotomy: serious the dual communication with sources and audiences/ media are for the upper classes, and popular media readers that characterizes journalism. That is why

111 we choose not to speak of tabloidization, with the see how techniques of intimacy, like the so-called inherent risk of getting mired down in the barren, “human touch” perspective and identification-elicit- polarized debate that has surrounded that subject to ing themes increasingly categorize viewers and read- date. As we see it, the term “intimization of jour- ers and address them as primarily sexual beings. nalism” may be used to describe different aspects of The term, “sexualization” means that someone the medial transformations of the twentieth century or something is ascribed a meaning that culturally without implying any valuations of them. (and historically) has sexual connotations. By defi- nition, this approaches a pornographic form of ex- pression. The project will not explore hard core Analytical Perspective pornography, but will rather delineate the cultural A growing share of what was once seen to belong to process whereby a pornographic aesthetics is ac- the intimate sphere has over time come to be dis- corded greater space in journalistic output. cussed in both political and medial arenas. In the Another perspective is “the political public in- course of this process of transformation, “the pub- terest of the medialized intimate sphere”. Judg- lic interest” has often been weighed against issues of ments as to what lies within the realm of “public individuals’ and families’ integrity or, as it is some- interest”, and what is “a private nature” is hardly, times referred to, “the sanctity of hearth and as the term may suggest, absolute or eternal. Where home”. Both “the public interest” and individuals’ the boundary runs between private and public de- right to privacy are focal in journalism ethics. The pends on who has the power to decide what is to be concepts are also largely interpreted within the in- discussed (or not) and the terms on which the dis- stitution of journalism, and are thus inflected by fac- cussion takes place. tors relating to the media such as editorial proc- It is widely held that certain issues should not be esses, journalists’ routines for gathering and report- discussed in public, and an important limit on pub- ing information, and so-called media logic. In con- lic conversation is the notion that neutrality should crete terms this means that the bounds of ethically be observed on issues relating to “the good life” and defensible publication are relative, not absolute, and to morality, religion or taste. No one should claim will vary over time. Since issues of ethics often con- that his or her views on these issues is more valid cern publication of information belonging to the in- than others’ views. As a consequence, these sub- timate sphere, codes of ethics are important in the jects are relegated to private conversation. This lib- research program. eral or “legalistic” model revolves around the Otherwise, three more general perspectives have premise of a “just and stable public order” (Ben- guided our analysis of the transformations of the habib 1992). Theories of the public sphere, whether medialized public sphere. One of these we have they are based on legalistic or discursive models, are dubbed “medialized public intimacy”. In this per- mostly normative; rather few are based on empirical spective, journalism uses and defines the intimate in study (Ibid.). The question has been raised, for ex- the framework of a prescriptive or didactic dis- ample, whether Jürgen Habermas’ discursive theory course. We believe that journalism has always done of the public sphere actually describes a historical this, but it has taken different forms of expressions reality, or rather consists of a set of unrealized ide- over time. Discourses and advice relating to both als (cf., for example, Gripsrud 1999). From feminist details of daily life and norm-laden identifying points of view, Habermas’ theory has been criti- “tags” in the representation of various groups are cized for positing the dichotomy of public versus typical of several journalistic genres. The produc- private, which is seen to place it in a discourse that tion of images and texts about private life, which legitimizes the exploitation of women and the op- may be regarded as a form of publicizing of the inti- pression of women in the family sphere (see, for ex- mate, is a recurrent theme in the medialized public ample, Fraser 1995). sphere. That some issues are banished from public de- Recent years have seen a marked sexualization of bate and privatized means, in other words, that media output. Two trends are at play: a sexualiza- matters of urgency to certain groups are not tion of media content, and a sexualization of audi- broached as topics for public discussion. Democra- ences and readers. The former implies that issues tization of the public sphere demands, feminists relating to the private sphere become increasingly contend, that the inequalities of gender relations in sexually intimate. An important question is which the intimate sphere be discussed in public. This is groups figure in the sexualized media output. In the also a neglected topic in media research, which has case of the sexualization of media consumers, we long been open to criticism for its preoccupation

112 with news relating to the “hard core” of the public nificant events or changes in the Swedish political affairs (cf. Kleberg 1987, Halonen 1990, Dahlgren or cultural public sphere. 1994). Abortion, prostitution, pornography, and Illustrations and photographs – traditionally re- domestic violence may be seen as paradoxical exam- ferred to in the newspaper trade as “art” – have ples of issues that have been banned from public been prime tools for establishing a personal tone discussion because they were seen to belong to “the ever since they first made their appearance in the good life” and, consequently, not to public policy mass press. Since the 1880s, photographs have and issues of justice and equality. In other words, slowly but surely supplanted illustrations. Images the lay of the boundary between what is to be con- were used to reach a broader segment of the general sidered public and private, respectively, is not gen- public, people who responded to the emotional der-neutral. stimulus and “eye-witness” documentation that A third perspective consists of what we pictures (better than words) could provide. Pictures call”intimized medial publicity”. This type of inti- of people gave stories substance, literally personi- mization has to do with the manner in which jour- fying the stories newspapers told. Early on, pic- nalism refers to its audiences and readers (journalis- tures mainly took the form of “talking heads”, the tic address), but also with the intimacy of relations dead-pan, full-face representation of the public per- to sources. sonage (Hirdman 2000). A trend toward informali- The successive introduction of the journalistic zation of press art got under way in the 1920s; by interview toward the end of the nineteenth century the 1930s, many of today’s conventions of photo- represented a major departure from the courteous, journalism had been established. New technology not to say servile, attitude journalists had previ- made the snapshot possible, dispensing with the ously shown “public figures” (Schiller 1981, Schud- pose. Subjectivity (involvement), action and “pres- son 1994). The conversational form and use of the ence” are some of the ideals striven for today. inherent intimacy of the tête-à-tête enabled journal- The projects in the program, The Intimization of ists to informalize their gathering of information; Journalism, focus particularly on pictures of peo- they came closer to the other party, both physi- ple, which represent one of the largest categories of cally and psychologically. That interviews can be pictures. The category includes portraits and news aggressive, embarrassing, even invasive (see, for ex- photos of public figures participating in confer- ample, Clayman 2002), is common knowledge. ences, etc., as well as in more private contexts. (Tellingly, in Swedish, the object of an interview – Journalistic pictures exert a profound influence on perhaps we might say “the quarry” – is still called a our perceptions of private and public depictions of “victim”.) individuals and events. Often, a picture can bridge Another aspect of the interview has to do with the gap between the public and the private or define the intimacy that the conversational situation gives the private as visually separated from the public. rise to between the interlocutors. It is not simply a On this level, pictures link individuals’ private life case of the object of the interview being “lured” into with the public sphere and afford a kind of bridge a pseudo-intimate situation that causes him or her to from the public to the private. A common conven- speak freely, from the heart. The journalist, too, is in- tion in the media is, for example, the technique of fluenced by the nature of the situation, which can se- metonymy, i.e., letting one or two ordinary people riously impact on the journalistic task at hand, should represent a large social event or process, e.g., a new familiarity be allowed to develop too far. law, a rise in taxes. The advent of television rein- The interview is the most commonly used tech- forced already established visual conventions re- nique among journalists today. It is so common- garding the depiction of people, and new ones have place that the method itself is seldom questioned or been added. Visual depictions of individuals on tele- problematized. What power relations are at play in vision, relating either to the intimate or the public the interview situation? What categories or groups sphere, have differed over the years. The metamor- are favored or put at a disadvantage? Do these as- phosis can in turn be understood as reflecting pects exhibit any patterns? Are elite individuals changes in the relationship between what is private treated the same as “the man on the street”? Are and what is public. men and women treated differently in any respect? Pictures of people also give rise to and reinforce The program intends to examine the practice of readers’ and viewers’ impression of a social situa- the interview in different genres of journalism over tion, as do interviews. Characteristic of photogra- an extended period, using case studies chosen pri- phy and the television medium alike is their ability marily according to contextual factors, such as sig- to create an illusion of nearness, of presence. The

113 visual record of a “real” encounter augments the Empirical Considerations personal address. An interview is more than a con- versation between two people; it is a whole situa- We have delimited our focus by tion that has to be documented, both verbally and • concentrating on discursive events and using visually, not least to permit the reconstruction of media themselves as the material for analysis, some form of communication with the media audi- rather than as sources; ence as the invisible, but ever present third party to the conversation. This is the reason for the recurring • studying the media material as a system of texts frontal pictures of speakers or listeners, who try to arising out of specific discursive frameworks; communicate with the audience via the lens of the form and content are interpreted in a construc- camera. Here the media may be said to visualize the tionist perspective, whereas intentionality and process of journalistic intimization. auteurism are accorded only secondary impor- tance; The Intimate Sphere and its Contexts • applying a gender perspective to the material and its narratives rather than combing through We deal with the intimate sphere in terms of two the media for biographies of women. categories: family and sexuality. While totally artifi- cial, the dichotomy is justifiable as an analytical As scholars in the field of the media and journalism strategy. Most of the phenomena that fall into both we feel that it is both interesting and beneficial to categories are more separate in some periods than in our discipline to study journalism as a coherent sys- others, depending on the prevailing norms and val- tem of media, genres and forms of expression. For ues in society. As an institution the family has that reason we choose to gather material from the changed continuously over the course of our period daily press (including tabloids), magazines, and the of study, albeit hetero normativity still largely broadcast media. We will include both hard news steers our notions of the family. Sexuality was long and interviews on serious subjects and lighter mate- a subject that the media mainly discussed in the rial in the form of human interest stories, inter- context of married life (Hirdman 2002). views with media “personalities” and amusements. Researchers like Fraser (1997) and Pateman We include both verbal and visual representations of (1988) have been critical of research on the public- interview situations, with particular attention to the private dichotomy for paying too much attention to interplay of word and picture (still or motion). social issues at the expense of issues relating to the Images in the media can never be properly un- conditions surrounding sexuality. If, on the one derstood apart from its relation to the text. In a hand, there may be political reasons to examine con- study of the intimization process like the present ditions (or abuses) in the intimate sphere, there are program, it is therefore interesting to examine the also personal reasons to defend the privateness of relationship between pictures and words with a the intimate sphere and people’s personal integrity view to determining the message created by the and autonomy, as long as its exercise is not harmful visual-verbal whole (Hillesund 1994). Integrating to anyone else. Privateness may be seen to be both a the visual with the verbal affords new ways of challenge and useful when it is understood as a po- looking at and interpreting media content (Barnhurst litical value that allows personal development and & Nerone 2001). In the present case we will be fo- emancipation (Boling 1996:31). The notion of “the cusing on how pictures – stills and motion pictures sanctity of hearth and home” is once again of inter- – relate to texts, and how the relationships contrib- est in this regard in relation to the medialized public ute to representations of the conversational (inter- sector. Some findings (e.g., Kleberg & Widestedt view) situation (Sturken & Cartwright 2001, van 2002) suggest that women’s private lives figure Leeuwen & Jewitt 2001). more frequently in the media than men’s do, and In order to secure continuity in the material, we that details of women’s private lives are more often have chosen four newspapers that extend over the used against them when they figure in controversies entire period of study. These are the daily papers, or “scandals” having to do with their professional Dagens Nyheter (DN) and Aftonbladet, and the lives. Thus, the media would seem to be reluctant dominant weekly magazines during the periods in to represent women in other contexts than the inti- question – for example, Illustrerad Familj-Journal mate sphere – it is the intimate sphere, one might (subsequently Allers), and Svensk Damtidning. DN say, that defines women in the media. and Aftonbladet quickly became two of the most

114 widely read Swedish newspapers; they also at- scholars view journalism. The shift or change we tained national distribution at an early date. The perceive may be described as both objectification two magazines represent two different traditions – and as fictionalization. Journalism is objectified in the family magazine and the women’s magazine, re- the sense that the researchers observe journalism spectively. Both are central in Swedish magazine from a distance, looking at it as an external object journalism history, and both are close to the foci of (in contrast to traditional press historical research, our study, namely, the family and sexuality. By the which tends to observe journalism “from within”, time of our third period of study (see below) radio judging it on its own merits with a great deal of def- had established itself in Swedish households. Tele- erence to the conditions of production and other vision was a fixture in many homes by the fourth constraints). Journalism is fictionalized in the sense period. We intend to apply different variants of the- that its prime characteristic is no longer a mimetic matic content analysis and discourse analysis in relationship to reality; instead, researchers’ interest combination with feminist theory (see, for example, rests on the ability of journalism to construct narra- Diamond & Quinby 1988, Smith 1990, Sawicki tives about reality, irrespective of their basis in re- 1991, McNay 1992, Mills 1992, Caldas-Coulthard ality. 1995, Hutchby & Wooffitt 1998). Execution Methodology Taking account of historical changes in the practice An overarching assumption, which is also a prime of journalism and the successive increase in focus on motive for discourse analysis, is that verbal power social issues relating to the intimate sphere, we relations correspond to real power relations; actors have identified a number of periods – selected that dominate others in texts, dominate them in real- points in time – of relevance to our topic. ity, as well. The principal task of discourse analysis We start with the years around 1885 and the is to examine such power relationships. The present decade in which modern mass journalism experi- research program has drawn inspiration from the dis- enced a breakthrough in Sweden. The new opportu- course-historical perspective developed by Ruth nities to reach a large readership elicited changes in Wodak (1997, 2001, 2003) and others, particularly both the form and content of journalism. Both the analyses of debates and political controversies. Ac- interview and illustration were novelties in the cording to this perspective, text analysis must be press of this era. Dagens Nyheter, with a circulation combined with analyses of both the immediate con- of about 25,000, was Sweden’s largest newspaper; text of the text (actors, the communication situation, magazine publishing (Illustrerad Familj-Journal) and its cultural/political/economic framework) and the had just come onto the Swedish market. historical context of the events and subjects involved. Our second period comprises the years around With the help of a technique called recontextua- 1925. A characteristic of newspaper journalism of lization Wodak shows how a phenomenon, issue or this era was a willingness to provide a forum for concept can be assigned new meanings that alter tex- spokespersons for other institutions. The courteous tual and real power relationships, by being lifted over questions of journalists and lengthy responses to from one context to another. The technique reveals them filled pages. The 1920s saw relatively many textual and visual strategies of dominance that are changes, notably women’s suffrage and greater ac- applied to maintain or create power relationships. ceptance of female sexuality. Wodak’s discourse-historical approach and its em- Around 1935, photo-journalistic periodicals, phasis on social and historical contexts resembles the such as Se and Folket i Bild, came onto the market. context-oriented method of discourse analysis that Advances in the technology of photoreproduction Jan Ekecrantz and Tom Olsson (1994) developed and permitted a new informality in the use of pictures, applied to Swedish news journalism. Ekecrantz and of elites and members of the general public alike. Olsson are more interested in the institutional and There were many new entries on the magazine mar- discursive contexts of texts, and less in textual and ket. Radio had also come on the air. visual structures. The next period we examine comprises the years Ekecrantz and Olsson’s contextualization of around 1965. This was a period of economic down- journalistic texts in broader societal structures, in- turn in the daily press, and many papers folded. cluding prevailing power relations between journal- The weekly press, too, experienced a decline in cir- ism and other institutions at different points in culation. So-called men´s magazines made their de- time, marks an important change in how media but. Television had established itself faster than

115 many had anticipated, and the television interview tive sense, whereby people and groups that previ- was something genuinely new. ously were marginalized in the media (e.g., gays and Our fifth period comprises the years around ethnic minorities) have become visible. At the same 1980. Sweden now had two competing (non-com- time, the issue of media exploitation of these groups mercial) television channels, both in the same public has also surfaced. We find an increasing symbiosis service company. A new style of television journal- between the tabloid press and television program- ism was introduced that in retrospect may be seen ming, particularly in the case of newer television gen- as an early form of infotainment. Interviews, which res like docu-soaps and reality TV. were held in a more or less intimate conversational tone, had moved to the studio sofa, and guests were not necessarily the figures featured in newscasts. Case Studies and Publications The study ends in the present, with the years A number of case studies, of varying extent, are around 2000. Public service broadcasting — both ra- planned within the framework of The Intimization of dio and television – has been destabilized through the Journalism. Specifics of the studies and the publica- emergence of commercial competitors that, in the tion of findings within the program will be reported case of television, includes a large number of interna- continuously on our website: www.jmk.su.se/ tional channels. The diversity of output has brought journintim. a popularization of Swedish broadcasting in a posi-

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117 New Study on Minority Media and Minority Media Policy in Sweden

LEONOR CAMAUËR

Ethnic minority media constitute an area within the ence and operation of minority media. State policies Swedish media landscape which until now has been on minorities and integration, as well as media poli- poorly researched. In the recently published study cies, are especially focused on here. After that Minoritetsmedier och minoritetsmediepolitik i Sve- comes an account of the mapping of minority media rige – En kartläggning (Minority Media and Mi- and a rough analysis of the four media landscapes nority Media Policy in Sweden – A mapping) (print, radio, and TV media, and Internet news Leonor Camauër has mapped the minority media pages). Particular attention is paid here to institu- produced in Sweden and their institutional and eco- tional aspects, that is, the ways in which state nomic conditions of production. The study was ini- policy both enables and constrains their operation. tiated and funded by Styrelsen för psykologiskt A central purpose of the study has been to through försvar / SPF (the National Board of Psychological this focus shed light on the question of whether and Defence), and comprises two volumes: the study to what extent the state through its policies man- proper and a catalogue with contact and production ages its public responsibility for the ethnic integra- data of the minority media. tion in the area of the media. The study ends with a The 150 pages long study begins with a back- summarizing chapter and includes an English sum- ground of the investigation and the make up of the mary as well. multiethnic Swedish society, and its theoretical and The 180 pages long catalogue of minority media methodological framework. This is followed by a provides contact and production data as well as presentation and rough analysis of those elements brief information on the contents of each of the 371 of state policy which have a bearing on the exist- media included. The catalogue aims at functioning as a working instrument for main stream and other Leonor Camauër, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer, Department media workers and public administration officials. of Humanities, University of Örebro, leonor.camauer For more information please contact SPF, @hum.oru.se [email protected]

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