Lennart Weibull

FROM IDEALIST-ENTREPRENEUR TO CORPORATE EXECUTIVE: Provincial newspaper editors' and publishers' ways-of-thinking from the mid-1800s to the present

This article describes the changes in the management of provincial newspapers in Sweden from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Five Swedish newspapers form the focus of the study: Barometern (Kalmar), Borås Tidning (Borås), Jönköpings-Posten (Jönköping), Nya Wermlands-Tidningen (Karlstad) and Sundsvalls Tidning (Sundsvall). The article traces the development of the organizational cultures of the newspapers and the ways-of-thinking that have guided editors and publishers, in particular their ideas of the paper as a business or editorial venture, respectively. The findings indicate that changes in managerial thinking hardly follow a linear development, but are instead characterized by what is known in institutional theory as critical junctures (formative phases) and path dependency. At certain crucial points in a papers history choices are made that continue to influence the papers development for many years thereafter. Typically, it is the ways-of-thinking regarding the business aspects of newspaper publishing, the ideas about the newspapers role in society and the newspapers approach to other political, cultural and social institutions that linger on.

Public and popular: British and Swedish audience trends in factual and reality television

The research in this article examines audience responses to a range of factual and reality genres. It takes as a starting point that television audiences do not experience news or documentary or reality TV in isolation but as part of a range of factual and reality programmes. Factual and reality programming includes a broad understanding of non-fictional programming on broadcast television, satellite, cable and digital television. The breakdown of factual and reality programming into specific genres includes news, current affairs, documentary, and reality programmes, with further sub genres applied within each of these categories. This article critically examines genre evaluation. The quantitative research in this article is based on two national representative surveys conducted in Britain and Sweden. In both Britain and Sweden, programme makers have moved towards a reliance on popular factual genres. In Britain this is across all channels, and in Sweden this is mainly concentrated on commercial channels. Whilst there is still a commitment to news, there is an increasing use of hybrid genres in an attempt to popularise factual output. The impact of this changing generic environment on audiences is that in both countries viewers have reacted by drawing a line between traditional and contemporary factual genres. It is precisely because of the redrawing of the factual map that viewers rely on traditional ways of evaluating genres as public and informative, or popular and entertaining. The data provides evidence that contributes to existing debate on television genre, public service broadcasting, and media literacy skills. The central argument in this article is that genre evaluation is connected with wider socio-cultural discourses on public service broadcasting and popular culture, and that these are common social and cultural values that are shared by national audiences in two Northern European countries.

Public opinion and alcohol policy in Sweden, 1990–2012

Aims We analyse the association between public opinions and political decisions on alcohol policy in Sweden during the last decades. Methods Reviews of existing Swedish surveys on public opinion and recent data on the opinion of decision-makers. Results Restrictive alcohol policy measures have much support in Sweden and this support has increased in the last decade. The opinions of the public and their elected representatives correspond fairly well but the relation between these opinions and policy decisions are not always straightforward. Conclusions There is little support for the idea that public opinion has been a major influence on alcohol policy formation in the period of 1990–2012.

International and Foreign Communications

Benjamin D. Singer, ed. Communications in Canadian Society (Toronto: Copp Clark, 1975—price not given, paper) Svennik Hoyer, Stig Hadenius, and Lennart Weibulls The Politics and Exonomics of the Press: A Developmental Perspective (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1975—

Generation, life course and news media use in Sweden 1986–2011

2.50, paper)