Underhållning i första klass : En multimodal kritisk diskursanalys av representationer av kulturellt kapital i På spåret

Sammanfattning: The Swedish television game show series På spåret has aired since 1987. Participation in På spåret has been connected to prestige and status, where a display of knowledge is seen as admirable, but unsuccessful performances are stigmatized. This is a possible result of the television show’s representations of cultural capital. The aim of this study is to examine how cultural capital is represented in På spåret, and how these representations have changed over time. The study is grounded in Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of embodied, objectified, and institutionalized cultural capital. Furthermore, Stuart Hall and Roland Barthes are used to explain representations in media and their meaning. A multimodal critical discourse analysis was used on three episodes from three seasons: 1987, 2004/2005 and 2022/2023. The analysis concerned linguistic aspects, where connotations, modality and authority were analyzed, as well as visual aspects, where objects and settings were examined through the lens of denotation and connotation. It was found that both linguistic and visual aspects mattered in the representation of cultural capital. The linguistic aspects mostly concerned words with connotations to formal situations or knowledge, and expressions of authority through knowledge, while the visual aspects included pictures of architecture and art or objects such as books and clothing. Some representations changed over time, primarily the studio and the tonality, as well as the distance between audience and participants which increased throughout the seasons. The study provides a new perspective on cultural capital in television and shows how television affects power relations and symbolic violence.