Suchergebnisse

The study examines the European coverage in four leading Nordic newspapers during two periods in 1993 and in 1996. During the first period, three countries were negotiating for membership in the European Union. During the second period, work on a new European Constitution was ongoing, to be negotiated by the Intergovernmental Conference at the end of the period. Two of the applicant countries, Finland and Sweden, were then members of the union since Jan 1, 1995. Voters in the third country, Norway, opted to stay outside the union. Norway is, however closely linked to the union by the previous EEA agreement. Finally, the fourth country, Denmark, had limited its longstanding membership in four important areas. Results of the main study in 1993 indicate a great difference in the degree of Europeanness of the coverage of European affairs, as indicated by the share of European issues, sources, players, institutions etc. The Danish paper, the Politiken, was on all counts genuinely European in its coverage. This could, to begin with, be understood in terms of a relational context - Denmark was a member of the European Community, the other countries were not. In 1996, as could be expected, the Norwegian paper, the Aftenposten, reduced its coverage of European affairs to about half the previous volume, the Finnish and Swedish papers, the Hufvudstadsbladet and the Dagens Nyheter, increased their volumes to new highs. The Danish paper maintained its previously comparatively high volume of European coverage, and was still distinctly more European in its outlook on transnational politics. This could be understood in terms of a new Maturity proposition - it may take a long time for the national media to come to terms with a new political environment. The study also puts forward the proposition that Danish political culture requires a different coverage of European affairs, and also requires an opportunity to discuss and evaluate European politics. On a theoretical level, the study supports the idea that national experience, historical and relational contexts influence media content. National agendas powerfully determine the orientation of transnational political communication . Three in-depth studies by and large confirm results from the content analysis. A separate exercise inspired by Grounded Theory gives rise to three theoretical concepts that seem to be fundamental dimensions of European political communication: Legitimacy (media coverage contributes to status conferral and encourages deliberation of cooperation as an idea), Participation (media coverage as expressions of intrinsical and instrumental motives for joining and taking responsibility towards European cooperation), and Mondialization/Universalism (media coverage of Europe's efforts in the global arena) ; digitalisering@umu

This study takes as its point of departure the theorizing on citizenship and globalization. Today it is common to discuss a "flexible" citizenship beyond the paradigm of the nationstate, which, besides its legal aspects of rights and obligations, also includes identification with and participation in various communities, primarily political ones. "Politics", in this context, is considered to be constituted on the micro-level, discursively between individuals (e.g. Laclau and Mouffe 1985). The aim of the study is to, through the study of collective meaning making, contribute to the theory building about citizenship and globalization. The study consists of three cases, each of which attracted much media attention, with varying degrees of proximity and distance. The construction of political community, on various levels on the globalization scale (subnational, national, transnational) within the collective meaning making, is studied. The aim of the study also includes the analysis of the discursive resources that are used for the making of meaning. "External" discourses such as media messages and interpersonal communication are analyzed as well as "internal" ones: e.g. values, norms, identifications and experiences. In addition, the study aims at localizing the construction of meaning and community within the structural context , and relating it to current structures of power. The thesis is concluded with a suggestion of how to relate the discursive construction of political identity to deliberative democracy theory. The empirical material is collected by means of focus-groups interviews, including 2–5 people, with a total of 133 respondents. The transcribed material is analyzed by means of critical discourse analysis, CDA. The study identifies two different types of identity constructions: processes of nationalization, where the experienced Swedish identity and community function normatively in the making of meaning, and processes of subnationalization, among those groups that somehow felt excluded from and mistreated by the national (Swedish) environment. The thesis concludes that the collective making of meaning within an assumed national community contains ideological elements and works to a large extent in the service of power. However, the subnationally compressed communities create meaning in an oppositional manner, compared with the nationalized community and in relation to structures of power. Active citizenship is thus best located in conflict, among groups that experience exclusion and oppression in different situations (Mouffe 1995b). If this is right, the focus must shift from consensus to communication, efforts to open up discursive bridges between the hegemonic community and dissident voices should be made (c.f. Aronowitz 1995). An important space for transgressing communication is of course the media. However, the study shows that the media must deal with some problems before they are ready to serve as discursive bridges, for instance the tendency to make the factual antagonisms subordinate to homogenizing emotional reporting. In addition, there seems to exist a need for the political institutions to move beyond the paradigm of the nation-state, and find other frameworks for the democratic processes, not least at the subnational level. Thus, instead of discussing either a global or a national citizenship one could, with Habermas (2001), reflect on a postnational citizenship relating to the reflexive transformation of national civic sovereignty into subnational and supranational citizenship.

This study in contemporary history describes the transformation of the public sphere in Sweden during the period 1969-1999, and analyses the role of information technology and politics in the process. The overall aim of the study is to explain how, and why, the public sphere in Jürgen Habermas sense has deteriorated during a period of rapid technological and political change, when increasing attention has been given to information technology as a new tool for improving democracy and empowering citizens. Theoretical inspiration is drawn from two perspectives within the modern history of technology and sociology of technology; the LTS (Large Technical Systems) and STS (Science, Technology and Society) approaches, as well as from the regime theory concept within political science. This multidisciplinary framework provides the theoretical basis for the study, including terms as socio-technical systems, system builder, technification, interpretative flexibility, stabilization, closing and regime change. In addition, the analysis draws upon previous research in economic history, where focus often has been on the important role of institutions. The term path dependence is central in this tradition. The starting point for the study is the process of a mutual legitimization between citizens and political actors that traditionally has taken place within the public sphere. In return for citizens support and trust, political actors have granted format rights to the public space. Two aspects of this interdependence are addressed: Freedom of speech and citizen's access to public information, and their access to arenas where an exchange of political ideas and opinions is taking place. In the study, the former is a question of the legal system and the limits to freedom of speech in new medias such as the Internet, while the latter concerns citizen's technical means and possibilities to connect to electronic networks. Research interest is concentrated on the formal political system, focusing both actors and structural factors such as technological development, media convergence, ideological change and international integration in the transformation process. Four case studies of institutional changes during formative moments, within what is defined as the legal and the technical infrastructures, are conducted and represent the empirical base of the thesis. The case studies are centered on Swedish governmental commissions, on the government itself and on proceedings in the parliament, and concerns formation and transformation of computer law, as well as the deregulation and privatization of the technical infrastructure. In the latter process Televerket (Swedish Telecom) has been an influential promoter of competition and institutional separation between tele- and data communications, representing a major regime change in favour of market relations in the technical infrastructure. In the area of computer law, the Swedish regime dominated by SCB (Statistics Sweden) was incorporated into a joint European data protection regime, resulting in limitations of freedom of speech on the Internet. These regime changes have also transformed the role of the state, constituting a "net watchers state". Another important finding is that promotion of democracy and improvement of access to the public sphere, never was on the agenda in the political transformation processes studied, although a parallel discourse on democracy and information technology existed throughout the period studied.