A History of Swedish Broadcasting

Broadcast communication has had a profound effect on modern society in the 20th and early 21st centuries. A growing international field of research has examined the historical development of broadcasting within various social and historical contexts, but also has made significant contributions to the understanding of media communication in general. Central topics in this discussion concern the relationships between technological innovations, institutional arrangements, social relations and culture.

This book analyses the historical development of Swedish broadcasting from the introduction of radio in the mid-1920s until the early 2000s. In relation to international research, it explores key aspects of how broadcast media emerged as a way to communicate over distance, connected to audiences, and evolved into central institutions and socio-cultural universes in society.

The chapters are arranged in five thematic sections focusing on the invention and early development of radio and television, audience orientation, professional practices, broadcast genres, and institutional change.

The book derives from a large-scale research programme on Swedish broadcast history comprising about 50 studies and led by the "Swedish Foundation of Broadcast Media History".

Content

Foreword

Introduction

Approaching Broadcast History. An introduction
Mats Ekström, Monika Djerf-Pierre

Innovations: Technologies for Broadcast Communication

New Media Between Technology and Content: The introduction of radio and television in Sweden
Lennart Weibull

Inventiveness and a Desire to Experiment: The development of production technology in Swedish Radio 1925-1955
Göran Elgemyr

From Wire to Satellite: The affordances of distribution technologies for broadcasting
Nina Wormbs

Audience Orientation and the Commmunicative Ethos of Public Broadcasting

Children's Voices From a Public Service Perspective: Images of childhood in radio and television
Ingegerd Rydin

Talk Back and Participate! Cultural technologies and the making of the active audience in Swedish local radio 1977-2000
Michael Forsman

Media Professionals: Occupational Strategies, Norms and Practices

Wanted: Academics, Journalists and Personalities: Recruitment to Swedish broadcasting
Lars-Åke Engblom

A Long and Winding Road: Gendering processes in SVT news
Monica Löfgren Nilsson

Enter the Professions: Shifting logics of election broadcasts in Sweden
Peter Esaiasson, Nicklas Håkansson

The Development of Broadcast Genres

Even Better than the Real Thing: The cultural form of televised sport
Bo Reimer

From Affluence to Poverty: The early Swedish TV documentary
Leif Furhammar

Questioning Entertainment Value: Moments of disruption in the history of Swedish television entertainment
Göran Bolin

The Greening of the News: The institutionalization of 'the environment' in television news reporting 1961-1973
Monika Djerf-Pierre

Institutional Changes: The Example of News and Current Affairs

Educator, Mirror, Watchdog, Interpreter: Regimes of news and current affairs journalism in public service broadcasting 1925-2005
Monika Djerf-Pierre, Lennart Weibull

Challenges for Swedish Public Service Television: Competition and commercialization in the news market
Anna Maria Jönsson

Reflections

The Historicality of Central Broadcasting Institutions
Paddy Scannell

Appendix

The Swedish Foundation of Broadcast Media History. An Overview
Göran Elgemyr

Books in print from the Swedish Foundation of Broadcast Media History 1995-2012

The Authors