Andreas Widholm

Politicians as Media Producers: Current trajectories in the relation between journalists and politicians in the age of social media

The emergence of social media raises new questions concerning the relationship between journalists and politicians and between news media and politics. The increasingly complex media milieu, in which the boundaries between media producers and audiences become partly dissolved, calls for new theoretical approaches in the study of journalism. This article reassesses central theoretical arguments about the relationship between journalism, sources, politics and democracy. Drawing on a pilot study of the printed press, it explores the increased social media use among politicians in Sweden and its implications for political journalism. The article suggests that power relations between journalism and politics can be fruitfully explored from the perspective of mediatized interdependency, a perspective that acknowledges that journalists and politicians have become both actors and sources through mutual interaction in online spaces. Furthermore, it argues that social media use has expanded journalisms interest in the private life of politicians, thereby contributing to a de-politicization of politics.

Tracing Online News in Motion: Time and duration in the study of liquid journalism

Over the latest decade, news production practices have undergone dramatic changes as a consequence of journalism’s migration from offline to online platforms. While the linear news models of the past were characterized by delivery of static texts within strict deadlines, contemporary non-linear production practices are characterized by flexibility and constant delivery of “liquid” news. This article presents a method specifically designed for the study of constantly evolving news flows online. Methodologically, the approach entails new opportunities to systematically scrutinize the online news process, using time, duration and positioning of published materials as central variables. Based on an illustrative analysis of the online news flow of the Swedish Public Service Radio, the article gives examples of how such analyses can provide new knowledge about the processes of digital news production.

Twitter and the celebritisation of politics

A distinctive feature of our time is the constant circulation of mediated images of celebrities, a process that has taken new directions after the rise of social media platforms such as Twitter, Fa ...

The sociality of public space broadcasting during media events

In the last decade, large public screens and globally organized public viewing areas (PVAs) have become increasingly significant elements of media events, expanding the possibilities for mass audiences to collectively watch events together in real time. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in connection with the British Royal wedding (2011) and the London Olympics (2012), this article explores the ‘sociality’ of public space broadcasting, focusing on interactions and performances of identity by people gathered for collective viewing in the city centres of London, Birmingham and Manchester. The analysis shows that public space broadcasting mobilizes a variety of social identities and performances, spanning from ‘relaxed’ forms of engagement to more fannish articulations of nationality, cosmopolitan hybridity and spectacle participation. Geographical location and structural embedding strategies clearly impinge on public performances within PVAs. The article concludes that the degree of commercialization and presence of journalists and other media professionals are particularly central external drivers of performativity in connection with public consumption of media events.

The Political in Cultural Journalism : Fragmented interpretative communities in the digital age

This article explores how nine Swedish cultural editors and managers in mainstream media institutions define cultural journalism and its political dimensions during times of increased digitization and media convergence. Swedish cultural journalism is aesthetic and political critique applied to subject areas (music, literature, etc.) and contemporary societal and ethical issues. Drawing on Zelizer we ask whether there is a common interpretive community of cultural journalists in different media regarding: (1) how they define their scope, (2) how they understand “the political” in cultural journalism and its implications for democracy, and (3) how they view media convergence and digitalization. We find that although editors/managers from different media share a basic understanding of cultural journalism as an alternative perspective to news, “the political” in cultural journalism is approached differently in the press and the public service broadcast media. Furthermore, due in part to structural conditions, they also see the effects of digitization differently, forming sub-communities on two counts. This study thus contributes new knowledge to a field previously focused almost exclusively on newspapers.

Changing Norms Concerning Verification

Over the past decade, journalism has undergone dramatic changes as a result of digitalization and multi-platform news production. Online, news is no longer a static product, but a flow of liquid news packages under constant alteration. This chapter discusses how the digital news environment has influenced attitudes towards verification among journalists in Poland, Russia and Sweden. The analysis builds on a survey to 1500 journalists in these countries. Results show a strong support for verification in general, but the new liquid news environment has also created softer attitudes towards verification. Between 30–40 per cent of the journalists believe that the audience has lower demands on news published online. As many hold the view that verification of facts can be done during rather than before publication. The analysis also reveals important differences between organizational cultures and between countries. Broadcast journalists keep their old values of verification to a larger extent, and newspaper journalists seem to accept a higher amount of inaccuracy in online news. Journalists in Poland and Russia have softer attitudes towards verification than journalists in Sweden, reflecting a journalistic culture oriented towards opinions, in contrast to the Anglo-Saxon fact-oriented tradition that characterizes Swedish journalism.

Transnational News Consumption and Digital Content Mobility

Over the latest decade, the availability of news media from various countries of the globe has increased dramatically as both media production and consumption have been steered towards digital and social platforms. This de-territorialized news ecology has been widely researched in terms of content and distribution, while its broader consequences for news audiences have been less studied. Focusing on the case of Sweden, this article analyses social variations in transnational news consumption including platform selections, motivations, and attitudes connected to this news use. Results show that transnational news consumption is more widespread among people with a background in other countries than Sweden, but all together, more than a quarter of the Swedish population and nearly half of the younger generation are weekly consumers of news from other countries. Hence, transnational news consumption is no longer restricted to a specific elite-segment of society, which has been a common argument in scholarly debates around the globalization of news. Another central finding is that transnational news consumption is rooted in a willingness to understand the outside world through alternative perspectives, rather than in a dissatisfaction with the quality or trustworthiness of the news produced by Swedish outlets.

Performative Intimacies and Political Celebritisation

Mattias Ekman and Andreas Widholm provide fresh insights into an ongoing performative turn in political communication, arguing that the incorporation of selfies into the daily communication strategies of individual politicians entails a popularisation and celebration of political discourse. Against the background of Swedish politicians’ self-imagery on Instagram, they show that ‘performed connectivity’ has become increasingly central for political identity making online, paralleling the celebrity management of actors in the global entertainment industry. This development is problematised in terms of three performative styles that disclose strategic choices in which politicians act and interact across the increasingly blurring boundaries of the professional and the private and where symbolic connections between politicians and citizens are staged through new mediatised performances.

Celebrating with the celebrities: television in public space during two royal weddings

The recent emergence of an increasingly participatory media culture has opened up new ways for audiences to collectively negotiate the cultural meanings surrounding celebrities. Public screens are one such phenomenon, where people gather to witness the live broadcast of celebrity events. Taking our point of departure in two recent royal weddings in the UK and Sweden, we explore the performative displays that public viewing affords, as participants interact with the event on screen, with other participants, and with media representatives in the venue. This article provides a fresh analytical perspective on how audiences engage with royal celebrities in such mass-participatory consumption contexts, illuminating a little-studied area of celebrity culture.

Great Escapes from the Past. Memory and Identity in European Transnational Television News

Over the last couple of decades, Europe has undergone fundamental political transformations that have challenged old stereotypes about the ‘essence’ of the European identity. This article analyses televisual narratives of the 2004 enlargement of the European Union, turning the analytical spotlight on two of Europe’s largest news broadcasters: BBC World and Euronews. The article focuses on how Europe is remembered in the news, but also how references to the past are used to explain what Europe is today and what it might look like in the future.