To Örebro University

This article examines how five bakeries in a mid-sized Swedish town communicate with their (potential) customers using different forms of ‘authentic’ displays of the much-loved seasonal pastry, the semla (a particular type of Lenten bun). Authenticity is understood as strategies of communicating with potential customers and passers-by in ways that make them feel included in a successful, sociable relationship with the bakery in question (see Scannell’s, 2001, article, ‘Authenticity and experience’). Specifically, various semla artefacts are used in the shop window/entrance as strategies to ‘talk to and interact with’ passers-by. However, these semla displays are not recognized as advertising by the bakers themselves. While previous research on authenticity, food discourse and ideology have identified traditional, natural and elite authenticityas expressed in relation to specific social groups, this study shows how authenticity may harbour oppositional values and seemingly incoherent ways of addressing customers in relation to such questions as power, eliteness and class. One explanation for these more subtly distinctive authenticity performances may be found in Swedish culture which has less social class distinction. This may, in turn, mean that certain establishments and products may not be as prominently class imprinted as others when it comes to how they address customers. Such a culture may create a more blended range of authenticity expressions.

This study explores disability representation in the transnational television crime drama Midsomer Murders(1997-present). It focuses on Lana who has a partial right arm and how she is positioned as a central figure in the Christmas 2023 episode. The analysis reveals a complex and contradictory pattern of interwoven ableist and anti-ableist ideas. Even though negative stereotypes are avoided, Lana’s portrayal is simultaneously visually and emotionally conditioned to avoid alienating audiences. The study speaks to critical scholars across disciplines with a broad interest in the fictional television crime drama and its abilities to communicate social (diversity) issues.

Whenever a major event flares up in the world, we are bound to be met by correspondents reporting live on the news. The correspondents are typically promoted as authoritative voices. Their live talk is delivered in “the live two-way,” a broadcast interaction between the presenter and the correspondent on location. Focusing on live reporting during the Ukraine–Russia war (2022–), this study analyses the communicative work that goes on in the live two-way, and how correspondents handle the tasks related to the enactments of epistemic authority. A conceptual framework is applied defining the communicative and epistemic dimension of the live two-way. This study applies a discourse approach and focuses on experienced correspondents in Swedish public service. Data consists of 30 live two-ways and interviews with 5 of the journalists about planning and execution of the live reporting. Results show how practices and roles separated in other genres of news are integrated in the complex work of the correspondent who is expected to fluently report from location, convey a sense of being there, present facts, and analyse and explain. This study indicates different styles of reporting when correspondents alternate between a careful and confident stance as they balance their commitments to truth.

This paper presents a qualitative, reflexive thematic analysis of Season 2 of the Swedish reality television dating show Hotel Romance (2023–) featuring women and men between 65–85 years old. The analysis focuses on the constructed gender power dynamics between the women and men on the show which is generated through four sub-themes relating to gendered traits, looks, love and sexual stereotypes. The exposed gender power dynamics establishes older women as empowered and superior in relation to older men who do not appear to adhere to women’s standards and therefore come across as “less than” what women desire. Such a 65+ gender power dynamics contrasts with existing research of gender representations in reality television dating shows featuring younger participants where sexism and patriarchal values are routinely reproduced. The result also clashes with research of images of older women in the media which expose systematic devaluations of this group. Finally, insights into the production of the show suggest that, along with conveying a successful ageing discourse, Hotel Romance implicitly positions older people of both genders as Others to be looked at by 30-something audiences who are assumed to dread the loss of love, sex and romance after the age of 65. 

On 6 April 2025, a presenter of a live football match event aired by the streaming service Max Sport Sweden introduced their new expert commentator Aida to the show. The expert Aida turned out to be an AI agent designed as a talkative woman in her thirties with long blonde, wavy hair and spectacles. As Aida came into view alongside the live female presenter in a split screen, she presently began explaining how she was to provide “objective analyses” of the Swedish football teams during the season. In a rather awkward attempt at “interacting” with the pre-edited Aida, the presenter worked at establishing some kind of discursive and social bond with Aida for the audience’s benefit, an action that resulted in simultaneous talk and unsynchronized gestures. Max Sport Sweden’s first attempt at integrating Aida in their live sportscasts raises interesting questions related to the development of broadcast talk research . These questions will be addressed in this paper using the introduction of Aida as an illustrative example.

This article explores viewers’ experiences of the Swedish Public Service (SVT) ‘slow TV’ broadcast Den stora älgvandringen (The Great Moose Migration), aired as a three-week long, live, multi-platform programme since 2019. Through semi-structured interviews with key informants, the aim is to qualitatively under- stand the audience attraction to the 24/7 programme, especially when it comes to authenticity, affordances and its apparent slowness of pace. The study showcases a spectrum of audiences’ experiences, ranging from appreciating the programme’s serenity and stillness to its potential for unexpected drama. It is suggested thatThe Great Moose Migration offers a ‘direct’ link to Swedish nature as it enables awallowing in Swedish landscapes and fauna, and allows for an unashamed adora- tion of the majestic Swedish moose, but without it being experienced as something particularly ‘Swedish’. It is found that authenticity is central to the programme’s success with both production team and audiences. However, both personal and sociable experiences of the programme as authentic rest on the collective accept- ance of authenticity as something intrinsically produced by people and technolo- gies yet not experienced as constructed. Rather, it is something that hovers in between experienced mediated and unmediated reality.

Gambling advertising’s use of celebrities, humor, and representations of happy people who Win Big, in narratives told in brash colored, high-pitched ads, are argued to increase the risk for gambling problems, or worse, addiction. Online casino ads have been subject to particular legislative attention partly for these reasons, as well as for being increasingly targeted to women who, by some, are judged to be especially vulnerable to such marketing. This paper presents a context-attentive, multimodal discourse analysis of a Swedish online casino brand’s advertising videos from 2014-2022. The study illustrates how general statements regarding risk in relation to (online casino) gambling ads’ content dramatically reduces their potential cultural significance to audiences. It is argued that one should, to a greater extent, treat these adverts as complex and socio-culturally rooted texts whose content may not so easily be written off as simply “risky,” to women or otherwise.

This study brings together an interest in contemporary gambling advertising, national regulatory impacts on such advertising, and the ways in which gender, in combination with ethnicity, operate in such advertising. The paper’s aim is to explore the interplay between state and self-regulations of gambling advertising and the concrete design of these advertisements in Sweden. More to the point, it explores how the “moderation” regulation in the Swedish Gambling Act (from 2019), as well as industry principles of non-stereotypical gender advertising, impact on the ways in which gambling ads are multimodally designed and organized. The results show that women are explicitly targeted by using both masculine and feminine semiotic strategies, albeit in a “moderate” way. The male market is addressed using stereotypically masculine framings, but without aggressively masculine or macho-like codes. The analysis further exposes that current regulations only partly cover other potential problems in ad design such as ethnic stereotyping. It is argued that the law’s demand for moderation in advertising may backfire as a strategy to protect people from the harmful effects of gambling. This because it promotes moderate narratives and moderate gender representations that mimic ordinary practices, settings and lifestyles that appear highly normalised (and thus risk-free).