Swedish journalists express much more cosmopolitan ideals than what their work practices allow, write Johan Lindell and Michael Karlsson, both of Karlstad University. The authors surveyed 571 Swedish journalists over what they thought journalism should cover, and what they personally cover in their work.

According to the survey, Swedish journalists had little international contacts, and their work had little to do with international issues. Despite this, the respondents were largely in favour of increasing international coverage, the authors found.

For example, the respondents told they work with European Union issues “to a low extent” (2.32 on a 5-point Likert type scale), while agreeing that they should be better updated on EU affairs (4.11 on a 5-point Likert type scale).

The authors also identified three journalist types from the survey responses: the “visionaries”, the “non-globals”, and the “semi-globals”. Most of the surveyed journalists (71 per cent) were identified as visionaries, while the non-globals made up 22 per cent and the semi-globals 8 per cent of the sample.

The article Cosmopolitan Journalists? was published by the journal Journalism Studies. It is available online (abstract free).

Picture: Untitled by Wokandapix, licence CC0 1.0.