Den televiserade politiken : studier av debatt- och nyhetsjournalistik

Sammanfattning: This study takes as its point of departure the discussion around the mediazation of politics. The media are an essential part of, and play a crucial role for, the reproduction of a certain discourse that, within the field of Media and Communications research, has been branded a mediated or mediatized political discourse (Fairclough 1995a; Chouliaraki 2000; Ekström 2001 Ib). Television and TV journalism have been especially important for the development of this discourse (Dahlgren 1995; Thompson 1995). One aim of this dissertation is to investigate how TV journalism functions to establish, reproduce or transform a mediated political discourse, i.e. different ways of understanding and talking about politics and politicians. In order to understand these processes I am proposing an approach in which the analysis of text, text production and reception are intertwined. Thus, there is also a second aim, a methodological one, with this dissertation. The intent is to develop and test an approach in which the studies of text, text production and reception are integrated in one form of case study. This integrated approach is also meant to be applicable to other fields of investigation than that of my own study. Two case studies have been conducted within this frame. One study follows what I have branded a chronological design. The other follows a retrospective design. This approach is founded on the framework for Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as developed by Fairclough (1992; 1995a; 1995b). Fairclough suggests that the analysis of media discourse should be a multidimensional one: texts must be related to discourse practice – the practices of text production and text consumption – and to the sociocultural practice of which they are a part. In this work I will argue for an “extension” of Fairclough’s approach, i.e. an approach that, in the study of processes of text production and reception, incorporates ethnographic methods, in this case participant observation and interviews. To summarise the result of the different case studies, I make the following conclusion: (1) The day-to-day routinised forms of production and representation which characterises TV journalism as discourse practice can lead to the establishment of such discursive elements in the texts that bring forth negative images of politics. The communicative devices used in TV journalism establish functions in the texts that can have the potential of placing the citizens in a position of suspicion and distrust. Here, two conditions are of special importance. One concerns TV journalism’s beliefs and assumptions of what attracts TV viewers, and the other concerns TV journalism’s understanding of self. (2) Through the functions that they could carry, the texts produced by TV journalistic means reproduce a mediated political discourse that has a tendency to establish a distrustful position in relation to politics. When “offered” this position by TV journalism, it is easy for the citizens to start doubting the politicians’ motives and abilities.(3) A mediated political discourse works ideologically in such a way that it reproduces an image of politics which ultimately favours the position of TV journalism in society. It is through the incessant production of stories and narratives about its own institution, serving up an image of a profession and a practice useful to society (first and foremost as an investigator and a critic of the political institutions), that TV journalism can appear to be a useful institution in society. This is a position that TV journalism can maintain and reproduce by hiding its power to construct the world around it.