Jagande kulturjournalistik

Sammanfattning: This study seeks to describe to what extent, and how, the writer has been present in articles within the cultural sections of Swedish daily newspapers Dagens Nyheter (DN) and Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) from 1997 to 2022. The study answers the first question by measuring how many times first person singular pronouns (1SG) are used in articles from constructed weeks in 1997, 2002, 2007, 2012, 2017 and 2022. The second question is answered by calculating the percentage of articles about topics other than art forms (theater, literature, music, etc.) and by measuring the use of 1SG by different types of functions. After analyzing 1112 articles from SvD and DN, this study finds that the use of first person singular pronouns has increased quite steadily from 1997 to 2022. Results also show that the percentage of articles whose main topic is not an art form has increased. Furthermore, articles considered to be about “other topics” have been categorized as either daily personal observations (“vardagsbetraktelser”), articles on societal phenomena outside the cultural sphere, or articles about multiple art forms and/or culture in general. The use of 1SG in a narrative function measured as a percentage of articles has also increased dramatically from 2017 to 2022. The amount of daily personal observations found in this analysis was too small to draw broader conclusions, but this study does find that the percentage and number of articles in culture sections about non-cultural societal phenomena has increased, as well as they use of 1SG in general in articles in the culture sections of DN and SvD.