While today’s press is undergoing change, intersecting regions, it is important not to overlook the readers – who is the local “us”? This paper investigates how readers generate the relational sense of an “us” in a locality by engaging with the press. The study offers a framework built around three key dynamic concepts: proximity, feelings of closeness, and shared interests – which readers form clusters around, thereby reinforcing the notion of an “us.” Furthermore, local journalists strengthen the notion of an “us” by addressing the readers as a single collective with common features.

This article focuses on ethical challenges for journalists when contacting and interviewing vulnerable sources about grief in connection with crime and accidents. The study is based on in-depth interviews, with bereaved closely related to the deceased, about their encounters with journalists. Results suggest editorial structures can contribute to violations, and the media attention can disturb and postpone the grieving process. When journalists no longer are interested, mourning relatives can feel abandoned. Paradoxically, proper ethical behavior from journalists can make this worse since respondents can feel more abandoned and even betrayed by journalists they consider sympathetic.

The RegPress project found that in Southern Sweden, the regional press maintains high and stable levels of sales, fulfills a “watchdog” role, and takes part in community building. The RegPress project used mixed methods to study media audiences, conducting 67 qualitative interviews, nine focus groups, and a survey of 9,000 people. It found that readers draw on a range of media sources, and they see the regional press as a “trust anchor” in a global digital world. As a trust anchor, the regional press acts as a point of reference for readers to access news and debate. They develop media practices based on this understanding as they engage with civic, political, and cultural issues. Trust anchors also help readers interpret information from social media and other sources. The voices of journalism in regional press are therefore located dynamically amongst local people, issues, and interests as well as other media sources.

Syftet med forskningsprojeketet REGPRESS var att förstå vilken roll medier spelar i södra Sverige.

Den regionala pressen har haft en stark närvaro lokalt och har varit en del av det regionala livet sedan 1841. Tryckta medier har generellt haft betydande inflytande i samhället som tredje statsmakt. Dagspressen har länge bedrivit kritisk granskning av samhällsföreteelser och myndighetsutövning samt agerat för att bidra till ökat samhällsengagemang i regionen.

I dag står dagspressen inför en rad utmaningar, så som ökad konvergens, att bevara och utöka sina upplagesiffror, sälja annonsutrymme samt bevara sina spridningsområden likaväl som att fortsätta bidra till den loakla demokratiska utvecklingen.

REGPRESS undersökte den regionala pressens roll och värde för läsarna i regioner relaterat  till vårt nutida mediesamhälle. Hur anknyter medierna till lokalbefolkningen? Hur garanterar och gynnar journalistiken en mångfald i medierepresenationen och motverkar diskontinuitet i den globala medieåldern? Var några  exempel på övergripande forskningsfrågor.

The purpose of the project was to understand the role of regional media in southeast Sweden. The regional press have had a strong presence and has been part of the regional life since 1841.

The print media has for long had a significant influence in society as a fourth estate. The daily press has long been engaged in critical analysis of social phenomena and authority and acted to help increase community involvement. Even on the basis of this strong position the regional press face a number of challenges such as increased convergence and maintain storage numbers, selling advertising space and maintain their distribution areas.

The project  addressed the emerging issue of what role and value regional media has in our modern media society. How do the media connect with the local population? How does journalism ensure and promote diversity in the media presentation and prevents discontinuity in the global media age?REGPRESS is funded through a partnership between the Barometern Foundation, Linnaeus University and Fojo Media Institute (FOJO).

The project started in 2015 and completed in october 2017.

The aim of the thesis is to investigate the experiences of mourners of participating in news reports about grief in connection with crime and accidents. There are two overarching research questions. How do the bereaved experience their encounters with, and treatment by, journalists - what do they think of journalists’ motives, strategies, methods and ethics? How do the bereaved use journalism, i.e. what are their motives and strategies for participation, and how do they perceive their relations with journalists and the consequences of having been interviewed?

The theoretical underpinnings are provided by scholarship on source relations, (encounters with and negotiations between journalists and news sources), news constructions (narrative components and patterns in grief journalism) and journalistic ethics, with a particular focus on an ethics of proximity, i.e. the ethical dimensions of people’s relations and encounters.

The empirical material is comprised of qualitative interviews with 22 respondents who featured, in their capacity as mourners, in Swedish news reports of deaths connected with crime and accidents. A strategic sample was made with the aim of attaining as much variation as possible among respondents above all in their relationship to the deceased and cause of death, but also in terms of the attention given to the event in the media, the number of contacts with journalists, and how contact was made.

The perception of the respondents is that journalists wanted to talk to them because the event had news value and was of general interest. In dramatic cases, the victim’s next of kin, in particular, felt that journalists also had commercial motives. As the respondents see it, the strategies used by journalists can involve trying to persuade the bereaved to participate, and steering them so that the news interview and text can be shaped in accordance with established narratives of grief journalism. Some respondents said journalists had shown them respect, while others felt they had been treated with a lack of consideration. The findings are ambivalent in that journalists’ methods were experienced positively by some respondents and negatively by others. Involvement in news reporting can offer redress, giving respondents a chance to pay tribute to the deceased. It can also provide comfort, as it can be incorporated into the mourning process and make it possible to share one’s grief both with people one knows and with strangers. The study also found that respondents have strategies of their own. In their dealings with journalists, they can negotiate for control by insisting on reading the text before publication or favouring journalists they perceive as more sympathetic and resisting those they dislike. Respondents’ relations with and perceptions of journalists can be conflictual or consensual, and characterized by a passive or active attitude. Journalists can be seen as allies and potential assets, or as enemies and a source of insecurity. If the death was dramatic and attracted considerable media attention, relations become more conflictual, with respondents who feel cornered liable to ‘attack’ journalists. This can be triggered by shock. However, shock can also numb close relatives emotionally, making them indifferent and their attitude one of passive acceptance.