Newsworthiness as a Governing Principle in Public Sector Communication

Maria Grafström and Hanna Sofia Rehnberg
Additional contact information
Maria Grafström: Stockholm Centre for Organizational Research, Stockholm University, Sweden
Hanna Sofia Rehnberg: Stockholm Centre for Organizational Research, Stockholm University, Sweden

Media and Communication, 2022, vol. 10, issue 1, 88-98

Abstract: This article examines what qualifies as news when public agencies in Sweden claim to engage in media work. We unwrap and explore what happens when ideas about “newsworthiness” enter the practice of public sector communication. What becomes news, and how? What kinds of content are favored, how are stories told, and what voices are heard? The ideas of newsworthiness in a public sector context are here conceptualized as a logic of appropriateness that governs civil servants’ media work. We base our analysis on a three-year case study of a Swedish county council’s digital news channel, VGRfokus. The analysis focuses on how ideas of newsworthiness are constructed and mirrored in and through the content of VGRfokus, as well as how they are reflected and acted upon by communications professionals working at the news channel. We suggest that ideas of newsworthiness may function as a governing principle and tone down or even hide conflicts and tensions between key values of bureaucracy and market, otherwise often manifested in public sector communication.

Keywords: bureaucratic values; civic information; digital news channel; logic of appropriateness; market values; newsworthiness; public sector communication; media work; strategic communication; VGRfokus (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/article/view/4390 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:meanco:v10:y:2022:i:1:p:88-98

DOI: 10.17645/mac.v10i1.4390

Access Statistics for this article

Media and Communication is currently edited by Raquel Silva

More articles in Media and Communication from Cogitatio Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by António Vieira () and IT Department ().