Commercialisation of the news: analysis of news content in two Icelandic newspapers and two online newsites

The media around the world are presently undergoing dramatic changes. They have their roots in political, economic and not least technolgical changes and have lead to ownership concentration, commercialisation and increased competition. Research indicates that this development has greatly affected p...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Jóhannsdóttir, Valgerður
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:Icelandic
Published: Stjórnsýslustofnun 2016
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ojs.hi.is/index.php/irpa/article/view/a.2016.12.2.6
Description
Summary:The media around the world are presently undergoing dramatic changes. They have their roots in political, economic and not least technolgical changes and have lead to ownership concentration, commercialisation and increased competition. Research indicates that this development has greatly affected professional journalism and led to an increasing emphasis on stories about crime, sport and entertainment and less news about politics, international, social and economic affairs. Some researchers posit that this applies particulary to online news. These changes have certainly had their impact in Iceland like other western countries, but little is known about its effect on news content. This study compares the content of the main off and online newspapers in Iceland, in the year 2005 and 2013, or before and after the financial crisis in 2008. The findings indicate that the Icelandic national daily press publishes less political and economic news now than before the the crisis in 2008, and more of so called soft news. This holds particularily true for the online news. Miklar breytingar hafa orðið í fjölmiðlun undanfarna áratugi. Breytingarnar eiga sér pólitískar, efnahagslegar og ekki síst tæknilegar rætur og hafa m.a lýst sér í samþjöppun eignarhalds, aukinni markaðsvæðingu og harðnandi samkeppni. Erlendar rannsóknir benda margar til þess að þessi þróun hafi haft veruleg áhrif á blaða- og fréttamennsku og fjölmiðlar leggi aukna áherslu á fréttir af glæpum, íþróttum og frægu fólki, en minni á fréttir af stjórnmálum, efnahagsmálum eða alþjóðamálum. Ýmsir fræðimenn hafa einnig haldið því fram að þessa sjái stað í netmiðlum í ríkari mæli en hefðbundnum miðlum á borð við dagblöð, þar sem eiginleikar netsins og stafrænnar miðlunar ýti undir slíkt. Ísland hefur ekki farið varhluta af þessum breytingum, en lítið er vitað um áhrif þeirra á efnið sem fjölmiðlar framleiða. Í þessari grein er gerð grein fyrir niðurstöðum rannsóknar á innihaldi frétta í stærstu dagblöðum og veffréttamiðlum hér á landi árin 2005 og 2013, eða fyrir ...