Vem är det egentligen som har ordet här? : En studie av Sveriges televisions Slutdebatt 1994-2010

The final debate in Swedish television has, since it´s start 1956, been one of the most intense and important elements of the media coverage in the Swedish election campaigns. In the beginning of 1991 the Swedish television monopoly was dismissed and made way for a new situation of competing between public service and new actors of the television market. This study explores how the final debate in Swedish public service television has changed between 1994 and 2010. This was done by studying the five debates which was broadcasted the week before the election day 1994, 1998, 2002, 2006 and 2010. This study aims to provide information on how the staging and structure of the program has changed since the television monopoly was dismissed and the development of relationships and power between actors in the final debate (hosts and politicians) between 1994 and 2010. This study was conducted using critical discourse analysis and qualitative content analysis on these five final debates retrieved from Research Service, department of audiovisual media. The results show that the power of media has grown during this period and that the final debate has gone from being controlled by political logic to being controlled by media logic. In practice this has led to final debates that are increased in time, simplified, and controlled by the hosts rather than the politicians