Journalistica

Hvad er vinklen?

Christina Pontoppidan — Tue, 02 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0200

Among Danish journalists, there is a widespread acknowledgement that the technical term 'angle' (da: vinkel) is ambiguous. The ambiguity challenges those who want to adopt the journalistic terminology and the professional identity it represents. The author maps the meanings of the concept by close reading passages where the concept appears in 30 newer Danish textbooks about journalism. She finds four different definitions: Angle in the sense of focus, point of view, claim and message. The author clarifies the underlying theoretical framework that inspires each of the four definitions and shows how each definition captures key professional competences related to deciding the angle of a journalistic story. This leads her to conclude that it is more productive to embrace the ambiguity of the concept than to work against it. Inspired by Wittgenstein's language game theory, she argues that each of the existing definitions provide an enlightening answer to how the concept is used in a practical journalistic context, and when taken together the four definitions capture the versatility of activities and reflections that constitute a systematic practice of working out the angle of a story. This leads her to suggest a new, broad definition of the concept of angle.

Views from the other side

Niklas Bolin, Lars Nord — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0200

The study explores the perspectives of political parties regarding news media coverage in election campaigns. By analyzing official post-election analyses produced by Swedish political parties from 2010 to 2022, the study offers a novel approach to the study of political party views of news media. The findings largely support the arguments proposed by mediatization literature, highlighting the significance of media in party communication. Parties display eagerness to attract positive media attention while expressing regret over inadequate or negative publicity. More surprisingly, there is a lack of references to media bias in the reports, suggesting that the hostile media effect is not a major concern among Swedish parties. Despite criticisms related to irrelevant reporting and perceived negative coverage, party perceptions towards the media remains predominantly neutral. The study contributes to the understanding of the complex relationship between political parties and news media in the context of election campaigns.

Electoral campaigning in a hybrid media environment

Majbritt Kappelgaard Severin-Nielsen — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0200

In the current hybrid media environment, politicians have manifold opportunities to be in contact with voters during elections. Legacy news media still constitute an important campaign tool for politicians, but a range of social media have gained ground in electoral campaigning over the last decades as well. Against this backdrop, the aim of this study is to shed further light on politicians’ campaign practices in a hybrid communication environment, and whether the introduction of social media have introduced new dynamics into election campaigns. The study does so through a case study of Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and opposition party leader Alex Vanopslagh’s social media campaigns and online news presence during the 2022 national election. The study finds that Frederiksen was more in the news during the election than Vanopslagh, but that social media was central in both campaigns. However, Vanopslagh was on a broader set of social media and to a greater extent capitalised on the platform affordances than Frederiksen.