Boardroom Empires?: A Study of Ownership Influence in the Swedish Press

The question of how ownership impacts on the performance of the press is a perennial one. Despite the extensive attention devoted to the perceived consequences of ownership, information about what newspaper owners actually do remains limited. This article discusses an alternative path for research on media ownership. It involves the board of directors, the main agency that is expected to exercise ownership power. The article presents a study that focuses specifically on the decision-making in and around the boardrooms of three Swedish newspaper firms between 1955 and 2005. Building on analyses of board meeting minutes and interviews with board members, the study shows that the impact of ownership is established, and develops, in an intricate web of interacting forces, internal and external to the firm. It thus underlines the need for both a multi-theoretical foundation and a multi-method design in research on ownership influence in the media.