Exemplars, Vox pop and the question of the day. : A quantitative content analysis of exemplars in three Swedish newspapers 1997 and 2007.

The purpose of this BA-thesis was to study how three daily Swedish newspapers use a specific type of exemplars, which are recognized by a number of attributes. A photograph of the person that is interviewed always illustrates this type of exemplars and at least two persons are asked the same question. The three newspapers that have been compared in this study each represent one of the major types of Swedish newspapers: morning press, tabloids and local press. By using a quantitative content analysis, one month was examined in all three newspapers in the year of 1997 and 2007. Two of the theories that have been central in the thesis are Colin Sparks model of tabloidization, which demonstrates the process of tabloidization and McQuail′s description of commercialization. The results of the study indicate that there are many similarities between the three newspapers use of exemplars. However, there are some differences when it comes to frequency and function. Noteworthy is that the newspaper “Dagens Nyheter” did not publish a single exemplar the first year of the study, 1997. Ten years later the very same paper published 15 exemplars during the month of examination