“Kan jag swisha dig?” : En komparativ fallstudie av olika finansieringsformers betydelse för medieetiken

The aim of this study is to investigate whether different forms of funding affect the journalistic content set for media ethics. As part of this, analysis of whether Swedish Swishjournalists’ practices differ from established Swedish news media in the reporting of the Vetlanda-attack is included. The study is based on qualitative text analysis of journalistic texts and also uses elements of semiotic method. The analyzed content consists of 77 articles from two of Sweden's biggest newsmedia outlets and two Swishjournalists. Critical political theory is applied to the analysis as a theoretical framework. Our study has shown that there are differences in the news reporting of the examined media outlets, and that different forms of financing can have an impact on media ethical approaches. The results also indicate that there is a difference in objectivity between all participants, and that the Swishjournalists used a higher degree of opinion journalism than the traditional media. From a societal perspective, this study carries importance by analyzing new actors in the field from an ethical point of view