Göran Eriksson | Örebro University (original) (raw)

Papers by Göran Eriksson

Journalism, 2011

Through an analysis of news journalism in Sweden, the development of a more adversarial, critical... more Through an analysis of news journalism in Sweden, the development of a more adversarial, critical or interpretive news journalism is discussed in this article. A frequent form of politicians’ appearances in the news is in short-form interviews in news stories. Such interviews are often reduced to single turns or answers. The aim of this study is to identify the more communicative techniques used, when politicians’ answers are cut and incorporated into news stories, and how these techniques are related to the roles set up for politicians and reporters. What potential relationships are set up between politicians, reporters and the viewers? Swedish television data from 1978, 1993 and 2003 have been analysed. The analysis shows that in the early period, news journalism appears as a mediator or interrogator. In the latter periods, news journalism appears in an adversarial role. It becomes more of an interpreter or a critical interrogator of politician’s actions.

Text & Talk, 2018

Taking off from the Media Talk approach, this paper examines the communicative work of a Swedish ... more Taking off from the Media Talk approach, this paper examines the communicative work of a Swedish sports webcast football show, Superlive, as an emerging form of web-based media format called Web-TV. This analysis is situated in a context in which broadcasting is going through fundamental changes, and broadcasters are rethinking their content in order to face the challenges arriving with recent decades’ technological developments, and especially the fact that television is no longer restricted to being broadcast but can be distributed through the web and be received on PCs, tablets and mobile phones. In this ‘post-broadcasting era’ producers are searching for new ways of reaching audiences through creating new forms of audience address. Superlive is a good example of these changes and how broadcasters now explore the possibilities of producing television exclusively for the Web. The analysis shows that what is taking place in Superlive is clearly in contrast to the performances one c...

Media, Culture & Society, 2016

This article provides an updated analysis relating to John B. Thompson’s argument about political... more This article provides an updated analysis relating to John B. Thompson’s argument about political visibility and fragility. It does so in light of recent years’ development of communication technologies and the proliferation of nonbroadcasting media organizations producing TV. Instances of a new mediated encounter for politicians is analyzed in detail – the live web interview – produced and streamed by two Swedish tabloids during election campaigning 2014. It is argued that the live web interview is not yet a recognizable ‘communicative activity type’ with an obvious set of norms, rules, and routines. This fact makes politicians more intensely exposed to moments of mediated fragility which may be difficult to control. The most crucial condition that changes how politicians are able to manage their visibility is the constantly rolling ‘non-exclusive’ live camera which does not give the politician any room for error. The tabloids do not seem to mind ‘things going a bit wrong’ while ai...

Nordicom Review, 2017

By using a longitudinal design and measuring television content and the occurrence of ordinary te... more By using a longitudinal design and measuring television content and the occurrence of ordinary television and 'ordinary' participants at four different points in time from 1982 to 2011, this study investigates the alleged shift towards ordinariness in the 1990s. Using Sweden as a test case, three research questions are posed: To what extent did ordinary television programming increase during the 1990s? To what extent did the participation of ordinary people increase as a consequence of this shift? To what extent has public service television adapted to commercial competition through broadcasting more ordinary televi-sion? The analysis confirms the alleged shift towards ordinariness. Ordinary television and ordinary participants did increase during the studied era, but a key argument put forward is that this shift occurred gradually and that one should avoid using overdramatic epithets to characterise it. The results also suggest that the public service broadcaster (SVT) also moved towards ordinariness but that this change was modest and occurred later than expected in Sweden.

Journal of Language and Politics, 2016

Drawing on tools from Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis this paper analyses the editing tec... more Drawing on tools from Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis this paper analyses
the editing techniques in a Swedish docu-soap showing that humour is used
to ridicule the working-class participants, representing them as slow, inflexible,
undynamic and unstylish. The paper places this within broader discursive shifts
in Sweden where the rise of neoliberalism requires a dismantling of the welfare
state, legitimized partly though establishing the lower social economic groups as
morally flawed and themselves responsible for their increasingly disadvantaged
situation as social inequalities increase.

Taking a historical perspective (1982–2005) and using a multimodal discourse analysis, this paper... more Taking a historical perspective (1982–2005) and using a multimodal discourse analysis, this paper explores the performance of ordinary expertise in Swedish cookery programmes. In particular it explores the changing forms of audience address in one particular format, called the novice format, which is crucial to understanding the history of Swedish cookery programmes. Typically this format involves two participants: a presenter who plays the role of a novice cook, posing questions about the ongoing preparation of dishes; and a chef who carries out the cooking, providing expert advice by responding to the questions asked. The analysis shows that over time the performance of expertise goes from taking the form of conversational coaching, to being enacted through small talk, to finally arising through the simulation of an interactional give-and-take between the expert and the viewers. When it comes to the ordinariness of ordinary expertise, this development is paradoxical. In the later series of programmes, when the chef appears more like an ordinary guy, the distance between the expert chef and the viewers is reduced. But at the same time the cooking is decoupled from routines associated with work and domestic chores, and in this sense is becoming less tied to everyday life and more escapist in character.

This article provides an updated analysis relating to John B. Thompson's argument about political... more This article provides an updated analysis relating to John B. Thompson's argument about political visibility and fragility. It does so in light of recent years' development of communication technologies and the proliferation of nonbroadcasting media organizations producing TV. Instances of a new mediated encounter for politicians is analyzed in detail – the live web interview – produced and streamed by two Swedish tabloids during election campaigning 2014. It is argued that the live web interview is not yet a recognizable 'communicative activity type' with an obvious set of norms, rules, and routines. This fact makes politicians more intensely exposed to moments of mediated fragility which may be difficult to control. The most crucial condition that changes how politicians are able to manage their visibility is the constantly rolling 'non-exclusive' live camera which does not give the politician any room for error. The tabloids do not seem to mind 'things going a bit wrong' while airing; rather, interactional flaws are argued to be part and parcel of the overall web TV performance.

This paper discusses the role of reality television in the ongoing transformation of Swedish work... more This paper discusses the role of reality television in the ongoing transformation of Swedish workingclass discourse. This transformation is linked to a neoliberal political project and concerns a shifting relationship between discourses of exclusion and inclusion. The key argument is that working-class
people are now portrayed through ‘a moral underclass discourse’ in which the working class is devalued and delegitimized, and given moral blame for their own structural situation. This discussion is based on a multimodal critical discourse analysis of participants who appear to be ‘ordinary’
working-class people in Ullared, a docu-soap that follows the goings-on at, and in the vicinity of a popular, rural low-cost outlet (called Gekås). Hence it puts participants’ consumption and consumer behaviour in the foreground, and these activities are ridiculed through a mode of production
best described as the ‘middle-class gaze’. Ordinary participants are presented as flawed or pathological consumers and become signifiers of a morally flawed lifestyle.

KEYWORDS consumption; critical discourse analysis; consumer society; exclusion/inclusion; multimodal; neoliberalism; ordinary people; reality television; recontextualization;
working class

SemiotiX XN 12 , Aug 2014

In this editorial and the accompanying three texts we present a certain take on analyzing the det... more In this editorial and the accompanying three texts we present a certain take on analyzing the details of communication in the media, a perspective now often described as the media talk approach (see Hutchby 2006; Tolson 2006). This is an approach that focuses on different forms of broadcasting and it starts from a simple observation that such media has a capacity to engage its viewers and make them feel they are being addressed personally.

International Journal of Cultural Studies, 2013

This article examines a particular form of popular expertise, one that uses aggressive, facethrea... more This article examines a particular form of popular expertise, one that uses aggressive, facethreatening confrontations as a means of achieving its goals. The specific case under scrutiny is the Swedish home renovation programme The Angry Carpenter (Sw: Arga snickaren), here considered as an instance of what has been labelled belligerent broadcasting. The analysis demonstrates that belligerent outbursts and emotional displays serve essential, but varying functions in the construction of the host's expertise. Belligerence is both a method to achieve epistemic status and for the enactment of expertise. Paradoxically, through his belligerence the host promotes a common-sense theory of good communication. A key lesson to be learned from programmes like this is the curative power of 'tough love'. When nothing else works, belligerence is justified as a method for diagnosing problems, dealing with personal difficulties and restoring healthy households.

Internatinal Journal of Press/Politics, Jul 2013

This study examines how power relations between journalism and political actors vary across the n... more This study examines how power relations between journalism and political actors vary across the news production process. Applying a process approach, it addresses this issue by exploring journalists' enactment of the watchdog role in two key moments of news production: the interactional phase and the news-construction phase. The study is conducted in the context of press conferences with the Swedish Government and involves data from question-and-answer sessions and published news content that was initiated by such press conferences. With a low or moderate extent of journalistic aggressiveness in the interactional phase, the results indicate that this moment is characterized by cooperativeness and can be described in accordance with an exchange model. By contrast, the analysis of the published news content demonstrates a high extent of criticism and is in line with an adversary model. Altogether, the findings contribute new evidence to suggest that the power relations between journalists and political actors vary across the moments of news production, and that journalistic autonomy increases in the later phases of the process. The differences in the extent of watchdog-role performance are discussed in terms of a strategic ritual by which news journalism promotes a favorable image of itself as a public watchdog institution.

Journal of Language and Politics, 2013

This study focuses on Swedish political press conferences and explores the discursive efforts of ... more This study focuses on Swedish political press conferences and explores the discursive efforts of politicians to express unity despite diverging ideological views. It concerns the use of the first person pronoun 'we' (Swedish. we) and is influenced by both dialogue theory and linguistic theories, which highlight the meaning of pronouns in context. The data consist of transcribed web broadcasts of press conferences with the leaders of the four political parties that form the Swedish Government since 2006. Our analysis reveals that a clear-cut use of the personal pronoun 'we' can serve the same political purposes as a more ambiguous use, i.e. to show unity while there are differences. The four party leaders are involved in a communicative project of 'doing unity' to demonstrate that they are a very capable government.

Media, Culture & Society, 2013

New technologies offer new interactional possibilities for news journalism, but they also pose a ... more New technologies offer new interactional possibilities for news journalism, but they also pose a challenge to broadcasters who are accustomed to the practices of 'old' television news. The web is one such arena where broadcasters are in the process of mastering a sense of sociability and 'communicative ease' in relation to audiences. They struggle to find ways to engage audiences in the roles of both viewers and users in line with the technological affordances of the web. Rather little attention has yet been paid to how the general sociability of broadcasting is influenced by the development of digital media. This article presents a case showing how broadcasters orient to their audience(s) in a so-called live news co-production on the web. The main point is to highlight both possibilities and dilemmas in the management of audience-oriented activities on a new technological platform with its different conditions for production and reception. We argue that broadcasters interested in producing web news both need to adhere to the professional principles and standards of ordinary broadcasting, and at the same time show that they are competent enough to also produce unpolished, layman-like material normally associated with unprofessionality.

Journal of Communication Management, 2012

Emerald Article: Managing political crisis: an interactional approach to "image repair" Göran Eri... more Emerald Article: Managing political crisis: an interactional approach to "image repair" Göran Eriksson, Mats Eriksson

Journal of Pragmatics, Nov 2011

This article concerns interviews with politicians taking place on a popular talk show. These inte... more This article concerns interviews with politicians taking place on a popular talk show. These interviews are informal and playful in character, and above all are structured around personal narratives of the "real life" or "behind-the-scenes life" of the guest. It is often claimed that such interviews have become more important for the politicians. The approach of the study addressed in the article is influenced by research on conversational storytelling and aims at exploring how politicians' more personal narratives are initiated and elaborated on by the participants. The data are comprised of six interviews with leading politicians on a Swedish celebrity talk show, Sen kväll med Luuk [Late night with Luuk]. The analysis shows that personal narratives progress in close collaboration between the host and the politician, and that this collaboration often aims at exploring the humor potential of the stories and invoking laughter from the studio audience. The main argument in this article is that for politicians an appearance on a celebrity talk show is not such a trouble-free method for selfpresentation as is often assumed.

This study quantitatively establishes the centrality and importance of interviews in news and cur... more This study quantitatively establishes the centrality and importance of interviews in news and current affairs broadcasts. We show how segments of interviews (from soundbites to longer recorded, or live, question-and-answer interactions) are deployed as communicative resources in the construction and presentation of news in various ways. The data allow for a cross-national comparison between the United Kingdom and Sweden which points to differences in practice between the countries. We argue that our findings may be used critically to examine various conceptualisations of broadcast interviews in general and political interviews in particular. We also show how journalists outnumber politicians as interviewees in the news, a finding that is in need of further exploration from a range of perspectives. We also believe that our study provides solid ground on which to base future critical studies of the authority of journalism, dialogical and soundbite journalism, and the alleged fragmentisation of news.