Tabloidization in Swedish news media? The ongoing pandemic in focus : A quantitative content analysis of how Swedish news media communicates about the COVID-19 vaccine

Abstract: In times of crises such as pandemics, wars or natural disasters, the responsibility of the news media increases. Previous research has shown that people in crisis tend to seek information in traditional media and find it the most reliable source. Today's media landscape has faced a new paradigm shift in the form of digitalization that has had an extensive impact on society and information is now more easily available to the public. As a result, this study will examine the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic with a focus on vaccination, which has received strong media attention in Sweden. The purpose of this study is to contribute with new research by analyzing how Sweden's largest morning newspaper Dagens Nyheter and the largest evening newspaper Aftonbladet communicated regarding the COVID-19 vaccine. The study's four research questions aim to investigate whether there are any differences or similarities in how Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter communicated through source power, tabloidization, and dimensions from previous research: RQ1. How does Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter use and mention sources in their articles RQ2. How are the articles conducted in Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter regarding focus dimensions (societal or individual, episodic or thematic)? RQ3. How are the articles conducted in Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter regarding style dimensions (personal or impersonal, emotional or unemotional)? RQ4. Do the articles in Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter have tendencies of tabloidization based on the content and headline (positive or negative, match between headline and text)? To answer the four research questions, a quantitative content analysis has been used by analyzing a total of 200 newspaper articles over a six-month period. With assistance of the tool Retriever, 100 articles from each newspaper were retrieved and produced through an unbound random selection. With help of the designed code sheet and the code book the units have been analyzed in SPSS. The theoretical framework is based on the basic principles of journalism, from event to news, agenda-setting, framing, and tabloidization. The data have been analyzed, reflected and discussed with the theoretical framework along with the previous research, the results show that Swedish media has shown a high scale of objectivity however, tendencies of tabloid permeate in both newspapers. The most important finding of the study is the indication that Dagens Nyheter, which according to previous research tends to cover hard news, instead strive against further tabloidized news coverage.