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THE SWEDISH MODEL BECOMES LESS SWEDISH | 83

Table 1. Primary sources of political information among Swedish citizens
(percentage)

Source

Personal experiences 7
Personal communication 14
Media communication 79
– TV 55
– Radio 10
– Newspapers 23
– Internet 2
Total 100

Source: Demobarometer 2002.N =1 147.

companies allow such political party presentations is unique to Sweden. Instead, the
tradition in public service media is to have journalist-led questioning and special
programmes with party leaders in the final weeks before the elections and a final
debate between the party leaders two days before Election Day. It is obvious in recent
years that these final debates have also become more ‘mediatised’, including a freer
journalist-moderator role and with less interest in formal procedures, such as giving
exactly the same time to each politician or following a pre-scheduled speech list
(Esaiasson & Håkansson,2002; Nord & Strömbäck,2003).

To sum up, Sweden could be described as a media-centred democracy, where neither
political adverts nor political party programmes are allowed in television. The most
effective direct channels of communication with citizens are thus excluded from
political campaigns in Sweden. In such systems, media consultants will probably not
proliferate very quickly (Gibson & Römmele, 2001).This leaves the political parties with
a dilemma, and they have to try other strategies to set the agenda. Television is felt to
be necessary to achieve this, but they have no guaranteed access to it and cannot rely
on any set conditions.

Successful TV strategies thus require careful media management and the ability to
achieve publicity.Without adverts and party programmes it is vital to appear favourable The Swedish Model Becomes Less Swedish
in both the TV news and ordinary programmes. Thus, there is a constant battle within
the news, where political parties and other organisations are busy creating newsworthy
political stories and the media companies are as busy trying to evaluate the real
newsworthiness of these stories (Nord & Strömbäck, 2003). This obviously gives room
for more dramatic and superficial political news focusing on the political game and
scandals, as confirmed in recent content analyses of national political news in Sweden
(Strömbäck,2004). 85