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First, the concept of objectivity in news reporting is presented in a scheme, assumed to contain its main components. The author's practical experiences from eight major objectivity studies, in which the components are operationalized and applied in content analyses, are reported and discussed. Finally, it is suggested that the tested criteria of objectivity should be complemented by an interest theory, in order to deal with the fundamental problem of the significance of different news items.

This is an intermediate report from a study of foreign news in Swedish media as well as media in a number of other countries. We intend to discuss and test parts of a theoretical model designed to explain the selection of news. For this purpose we have used studies of news content covering the last seven decades. This material includes more than 50,000 news stories in newspapers, on radio and on television that have been manually categorized and coded. In addition, approximately 300,000 news items from different databases have been used (see Appendix).

The influence of expert opinion and mass media coverage on public attitudes, 1986-90.

In a study of Swedish news media, 1912-84, a distinction is made between news values, regarded as more or less permanent, and changing news ideologies, conceived as an outflow of other ideologies. In statements concerning the broadcasting media three periods of different news ideologies are identified. They all seem to have had a strong impact both on the selection of news and on the selection of perspectives applied in the news.