Det här kapitlet behandlar svensk och internationell forskning om två närliggande fenomen där personer som inte är professionella journalister bidrar till skapandet och spridningen av journalistiska produkter: deltagarjournalistik (participatory journalism) och medborgarjournalistik (citizen journalism). Deltagarjournalistik avser fall där icke-journalister har möjlighet att delta i skapandet av journalistiska produkter inom ramen för den traditionella journalistikens uttrycksformer. Det kan exempelvis innebära att de kommenterar nyhetstexter på nätet, skickar in bilder eller video från pågående händelser eller rekommenderar nyheter till andra via sociala medier. Medborgarjournalistik är en form av alternativ journalistik som drivs av medborgare utanför den traditionella journalistikens ramar

African journalism practice presents unique opportunities and challenges that require journalists to be equipped with the necessary skills, knowledge, and values to engage in sustainable journalism. Training institutions play a critical role in ensuring that journalists are not only professionally-ready to execute their mandate but also that they can safeguard and promote ethical values in their everyday work. Some of these values include “truth telling, independence, objectivity, fairness, inclusivity and social justice” (Gade, Nduka, and Dastger 2017, 10). Africa, like other regions of the Global South, has several journalism training institutions that provide an opportunity to challenge “hegemonic epistemologies and ontologies of Western-centric journalism studies” (Mutsvairo et al. 2021, 993). In the context of this submission, the present study investigates the current state of sustainable journalism in Africa. We examined data based on a syllabi analysis of journalism programs in Kenya, South Africa and Ghana to appraise what role sustainable journalism education and training could play in Africa. Findings show that efforts are already in place across select learning and training institutions but also point to profound gaps in the curriculum, pedagogy and resources needed to prepare journalists for sustainable journalism.

In order to better understand alternative news media, we need to focus more centrally on the audiences that regularly consume them. This special issue, entitled “Contesting the Mainstream: Understanding Alternative News Media,” advances such an audience turn. In the introduction, we outline how scholars have understood and characterized alternative news audiences. These have ranged from seeing them as (i) ideal participants and activists; as (ii) being misinformed and manipulated; and as (iii) being critical users. Drawing on studies published in this special issue, we highlight how these studies provide new and revealing empirical insights that advance all three perspectives. Taken together, the articles make a strong argument to move beyond binary ideations of normatively “good” or “bad” alternative news audiences. In our view, they signal the need to better understand the complexity behind audience engagement not just with alternative news media but mainstream journalism more generally. Based on this argument, we identify several starting points for moving the field forward with such an audience turn in mind.

At the heart of academic theorising about media and their political role in modern democratic society, there has always been concern for the power that is possible to wield through mass-mediated symbolic representation (Thompson, 1995). This power is expressed through various processes, such as, normalising viewpoints and preferences, while ostracizing others (Ramasubramanian & Yadlin-Segal, 2017), focus attention to specific issues, while ignoring others, representing acceptability and anathemizing otherness. Ultimately, the spectrum of various expressions and exercises of media power laid bare by media scholarship so far, has to some extent always rested upon the notion of there being a few highly influential and dominant media outlets in a given context, which form the basis for an infrastructure of dissemination, that distribute news-content to a mass-audience, thereby constituting a framework for the formation of a shared frame of reference among citizens. Although terminology is still debated, these are commonly referred to as “mainstream media” or alternatively as “legacy media”. Discussion about the power of media in relation to political life, has therefore been related to the concentration of ownership, distributive reach and capacity for production among a few actors who will be centrally placed and therefore play key roles in the shaping of political discussions, information and the conditions for participation. The internet, and the social media, “web 2.0” (O´Reilly, 2005) revolution added a new layer to this, since it opened up possibilities for participation and visibility in a new way, partly tearing down a long held, and well established power-concentration among the influential media operations

Syftet med projektet Young citizens and the quality of news: Construals, Emotions and Strategies har varit att utforska nya sätt att undersöka hur unga betraktar nyheter, hur de interagerar med nyhetsinnehåll och hur känsloreaktioner inverkar på bedömningen av kvalitet. 

Studien är gjord med hjälp av ett flertal metoder, både kvantitativa, kvalitativa och laborativa. Genom att be unga mellan 18 och 25 år att själva leta upp nyheter på sin mobil och samtidigt mäta deras ögonrörelser, genom att visa dem ett antal nyhetsklipp och mäta deras reaktioner samt genom att göra djupintervjuer med de unga om vad de sett och hur de upplevt det, har forskargruppen kunnat dra flera slutsatser kring hur unga definierar och reagerar på nyheter. 

Nu finns rapporten som sammanfattar projektet att läsa och ladda ner på Medier & demokratis hemsida. 

Studien visar bland annat att kvalitet för unga mediekonsumenter är intimt sammankopplat med upplevd relevans och att nyheters förmåga att beröra emotionellt beskrivs som väldigt viktigt för hur de unga i studien bedömer kvalitet. Hur de unga gör för att hitta nyheter varierar, men ett tydligt mönster bland studiens deltagare är att de föredrar textbaserade nyhetsartiklar. 

I rapporten ger forskarna flera tips på vad redaktioner bör göra för att lyckas nå de unga läsarna. 

As we were writing this chapter, the 2020 election campaign in the US was entering its last week before the elections. There are probably few more news-intensive events in the world than the American presidential elections. The smallest and, in other settings, seemingly irrelevant details of a candidate’s behaviour and appearance (a slip of the tongue, the way that they laugh or their temporary memory losses) are immediately picked up by cameras and microphones and publicized across news networks and commented on and shared throughout social media networks in a matter of seconds and minutes, possibly affecting people’s attitudes towards particular politicians and parties (directly or indirectly).

Ett nytillkommet inslag i den svenska alternativmediefloran inför valet 2022 är Riks (riks.se), som drivs av Sverigedemokratiska Samtid & Framtid AB och främst producerar innehåll i videoformat, ämnat för spridning via sociala medier. Riks YouTube-kanal startades i januari 2021 och har sedan dess publicerat 4173 videos som sammantaget fått 77 777 592 visningar och har idag över 95 000 prenumeranter (15 sept., 2022). Detta innebär i genomsnitt 47 filmer i veckan, och över 18 000 visningar i snitt per video. Det är uppenbart att Riks måste ses som en viktig del av Sverigedemokraternas valkampanj. Bara under sista veckan fram till valdagen publicerades 85 filmer och dagen efter valet tog Riks paus. Detta är en ambitiös mediesatsning av ett politiskt parti som saknar motstycke i svensk politik. Övriga partier bleknar i jämförelse. I ljuset av Sverigedemokraternas framgång i valet (från rikets tredje största parti i valet 2018 med 17,5% av rösterna i riksdagsvalet till andra största parti 2022 med 20,5%) är frågan i vilken utsträckning denna satsning har bidragit till det ökade stödet från allmänheten

In this introduction to the special issue Contesting the Mainstream: Understanding Alternative News Media, we discuss how and to what extent alternative news media contribute to news diversity. We elaborate on the concept of diversity, the democratic role of media, and the normative implications of alternative media in the wider media sphere. Based on the articles published in this special issue, that offer new and revealing empirical insights into a wide range of alternative media sites and their practices, from Europe, Asia, the Middle East, North America, and Latin America, we argue that it becomes increasingly clear that awareness about normative positions within alternative media research is imperative. This is because an appreciation of the normative purpose of alternative media guides our ability to understand their role in society. The necessity for thinking through such positions is particularly exemplified by the most radical alternative media actors, and how they are debated and studied in different political systems.