“I Shared the News Today, oh Boy”

Abstract

Swedish newspapers have hosted Web pages since the mid-1990s, and are often pointed to as some of the most popular online locations in the Swedish-speaking online sphere. These organizations have also taken to social media, maintaining presences on platforms like Twitter and Facebook. The current study is focused on the latter of the two. It features a twofold aim, detailing the types of content provided by the four largest Swedish newspapers on their Facebook pages, and the types and levels of interaction this content is met with by their page visitors. For tabloid newspapers in particular, the types of news most provided (human interest-type stories) are not matched by the types of news most interacted with by the audience members. Possible reasons for and implications of this apparent imbalance are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Facebook
• quantitative method
• social media
• Sweden

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. See e.g. https://www.facebook.com/124292684247609/posts/848817048461832, accessed February 3, 2016.

2. See https://www.facebook.com/37134975344/posts/10152894461960663, accessed February 3, 2016.

3. See https://www.facebook.com/321961491679/posts/10152315437976680, accessed February 3, 2016.

4. See https://www.facebook.com/321961491679/posts/10152232070881680, accessed February 3, 2016.

5. See e.g. https://www.facebook.com/96178346173/posts/10152434609296174, accessed February 3, 2016.