<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>By using a longitudinal design and measuring television content and the occurrence of ordinary television and ‘ordinary’ participants at four different points in time from 1982 to 2011, this study investigates the alleged shift towards ordinariness in the 1990s. Using Sweden as a test case, three research questions are posed: To what extent did ordinary television programming increase during the 1990s? To what extent did the participation of ordinary people increase as a consequence of this shift? To what extent has public service television adapted to commercial competition through broadcasting more ordinary television? The analysis confirms the alleged shift towards ordinariness. Ordinary television and ordinary participants did increase during the studied era, but a key argument put forward is that this shift occurred gradually and that one should avoid using overdramatic epithets to characterise it. The results also suggest that the public service broadcaster (SVT) also moved towards ordinariness but that this change was modest and occurred later than expected in Sweden.</p>
</abstract>

By using a longitudinal design and measuring television content and the occurrence of ordinary television and ‘ordinary’ participants at four different points in time from 1982 to 2011, this study investigates the alleged shift towards ordinariness in the 1990s. Using Sweden as a test case, three research questions are posed: To what extent did ordinary television programming increase during the 1990s? To what extent did the participation of ordinary people increase as a consequence of this shift? To what extent has public service television adapted to commercial competition through broadcasting more ordinary television? The analysis confirms the alleged shift towards ordinariness. Ordinary television and ordinary participants did increase during the studied era, but a key argument put forward is that this shift occurred gradually and that one should avoid using overdramatic epithets to characterise it. The results also suggest that the public service broadcaster (SVT) also moved towards ordinariness but that this change was modest and occurred later than expected in Sweden.

Ordinary People on Television: A longitudinal study of Swedish Television, 1982–2011

Department of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (HumES)

Nordicom Review

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

By using a longitudinal design and measuring television content and the occurrence of ordinary television and ‘ordinary’ participants at four different points...

Ordinary People on Television: A longitudinal study of Swedish Television, 1982–2011

Published Online: Dec 08, 2017

Page range: 113 - 129

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/nor-2017-0392

Keywords
broadcasting, commercial competition, democratisation, participation, public service, reality television, television history

© 2017 Göran Eriksson et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Ordinary People on Television: A longitudinal study of Swedish Television, 1982–2011

Published Online: Dec 08, 2017

Page range: 113 - 129

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/nor-2017-0392

Keywordsbroadcasting, commercial competition, democratisation, participation, public service, reality television, television history

© 2017 Göran Eriksson et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Keywords
broadcasting, commercial competition, democratisation, participation, public service, reality television, television history