News for free in the late-modern metropolis: An exploration of differentiated social worlds

Abstract

The free daily papers, Metro and 20 Minutes, originally from Scandinavia, have conquered many national markets with a single recipe: short, illustrated and easily consumed content distributed in large urban areas during the morning or evening peak hours. However, could one say that the urban news mediatized by this press is structured according to the standardized infotainment and sensationalism objectives that are often associated with the commercial media? The research based on three case studies shows that these publications, which have a single logo and format worldwide, develop a specific, place-bound editorial line of exposing the most important risks perceived within late-modern cities by its reporters and their audiences. Interactionism and, more precisely, the ‘social world’ approach to a profession can help understand these differentiated representations of metropolitan dangers by offering a more place-bound and socio-anthropological perspective of journalism.