Inifrån åsiktsfabriken En kvalitativ studie av ledarjournalisters uppfattningar om sin yrkesroll

Abstract

Abstract Title: “Inifrån åsiktsfabriken” - en kvalitativ studie av ledarjournalisters uppfattningar om sin yrkesroll Authors: Noa Söderberg, Jonatan Andersson and Sebastian Lindström Subject: Undergraduate research paper in journalism studies, Department of journalism, media and communication (JMG), University of Gothenburg Term: Spring 2017 Supervisor: Britt Börjesson, JMG, University of Gothenburg Pages/words: 45 pages, 18 508 words (including abstract and appendix). Purpose: The main purpose of this study is to examine how the editorial boards of Swedish newspapers perceive their professional role, their organizational procedures and their professional goals and ideals. Method: Qualitative in-depth interviews with seven Swedish editorial journalists, representing four newspapers. Procedure: We have interviewed seven editorial journalists, representing the editorial boards of four different Swedish newspapers, and transcribed and analyzed them based on Jürgen Habermas democratic theories, Lars Nords theories about the future driving force of the editorial pages, and commercialization as Jesper Strömbäck and Anna Maria Jönsson have described it. Results: How the editorial boards choose their subjects, sources and angles are determined by a desire to be relevant and comment on issues within the news flow, to promote and be a certain ideological voice and to write in a fashion that leads to more online reading and more clicks. The editorial page editors are not interested in recruiting editorial writers that have become media personalities beforehand, but want to develop new writers into media personalities by themselves. The professional ideals of the editorial journalists are partly based in a desire to form a deliberative discussion (as the one advocated by Jürgen Habermas), and partly in a participatory democratic desire to influence the public debate and the political climate. Key words: Editorial journalism, editorial writers, deliberative democracy, Habermas, commercialization, Lars Nord, media personality