Journalism's `discursive events' and sociopolitical change in Sweden 1925-87

Abstract

This article reports on a study which tries to define types of discursive event produced by the journalistic institution and relate these events to three different sociopolitical and historical situations in Sweden. As well as a strong substantive and historical argument, there is also a methodological argument about the way in which discursive practices have to be analysed at both micro (for example, grammar and word frequency) and macro (for example, text constructions, modes of address) levels in order to be correlated with discursive formations and shifts in the social order. Linguistic, content and sociostructural aspects are brought together to produce three complex time-tableaux, each of which is given synchronic as well as diachronic attention.