## Views from the other side Party perceptions on news media in Swedish

## election campaigns 2010-2022

## NIKLAS BOLIN

Mid Sweden University

LARS NORD

Mid Sweden University

## Abstract

The  study  explores  the  perspectives  of  political  parties  regarding news media coverage in election campaigns. By analyzing official post-election analyses produced by Swedish political parties from 2010 to 2022, the study offers a novel approach to the study of political party views of news media. The findings largely support the arguments proposed by mediatization literature, highlighting the significance of media in party communication. Parties display eagerness to attract positive media attention while expressing regret over inadequate or negative publicity. More surprisingly, there is a lack of references to media bias in the reports, suggesting that the hostile media effect is not a major concern among Swedish parties. Despite criticisms  related  to  irrelevant  reporting  and  perceived  negative coverage, party perceptions towards the media remains predominantly neutral. The study contributes to the understanding of the complex relationship between political parties and news media in the context of election campaigns.

## KEYWORDS

election campaigns, news media, mediatization, hostile media effects, Sweden

## Looking back to go forward

News media coverage of elections has been a distinctive feature of political communication studies for long time in the Nordic countries and has been approached from diverging perspectives, not at least in national content analyses (e.g. Johansson & Strömbäck, 2019 and 2023; Blach-Örsten & Eberholst, 2022). At the same time, less is known about the perceptions on news media and elections from the main counterpart of news media in election campaigns, namely the political  parties.  Even  if  sporadic  emotional  reactions  from  party representatives on this topic certainly are common - especially soon after electoral defeats - there is a lack of more systematic observations  on  party  perceptions  of  news  media  performances  during election campaigns.

This study intends to fill this gap by analyzing political party perceptions  of  news  media  performances  during  four  national  elections campaigns in Sweden 2010-2022. The study is based on the official post-election analyses produced by the political parties after every election. Sweden is an interesting case to study as political parties are relatively transparent and accessible, regularly produce official post-election campaign analyses and make them public.

Party comments in post-election analyses are normally expressed by  leading  representatives  of  the  party  in  an  early  post-election stage. The most prominent and exclusive documentation of party post-election reflections is probably when the party appoint a joint task force of prominent party representatives with the special mission to investigate and analyse party activities during the campaign, to shed new light on successes and failures and to come up with recommendations and road maps for future election campaigns. These documents offer internally sanctioned party analyzes of possible explanations for the electoral outcome, and normally also reflect upon the role of news media during the election campaign.

Such political party perceptions of news media performances are interesting to study for several reasons. First, there is a general belief in political communication studies confirmed in several observations of late election campaigns - that news media has gained importance in political opinion processes over time (Bennett & Entman, 2001; Esaiasson & Håkansson, 2002; Davis, 2019; Taras & Davis, 2022). This change has often been characterized as a process of mediatization where news media have become more central and decisive  for  peoples'  understanding  of  politics  and  consequently with greater potential power to influence voter behavior (Mazzolini &  Schulz,  1999;  Asp,  2014).  Second,  and  given  the  assumed  importance of news media, the debate about media bias in political reporting  has  raised  questions  around  news  media  potentials  to influence  the  outcome  of  elections,  (Wolfsfeld,  2011;  Kreiss  & McGregor, 2022).

If the common experience is that news media have become more influential in setting the political agenda, framing political issues, and determining party popularity on public opinion by more or less partisan reporting, it is plausible to believe that news media performance and activities are regular topics in the post-election evaluations, and to some extent also an integrated part in general discussions  about  reasons  for  party  successes  or  failures.  The  basic  assumption here would be that news media will be more positively described in post-election analyses if campaign activities have been successful  and  gained  substantial  media  coverage,  if  the  party agenda has been mirrored by the media agenda, and if the party and party  leader  has  been  portrayed  in  a  favorable  way.  Correspondingly, less media coverage without focus on party salient issues and perspectives can be assumed to result in more negative evaluations of news media performance during the election campaign.

However, such patterns are most likely to appear if the ideas of mediatization and media bias are commonly acknowledged by the parties and integrated in their evaluation schemes. If not, successful parties may claim that their skills in using direct or digital communications have made them less dependent on news media performances, while less successful parties focus on internal miscalculations when discussing the electoral defeat. Consequently, post-election analyses serve as a useful tool for understanding to what extent party perceptions of mediatization and media bias in terms of hostile  media effects are relevant in the evaluations of election campaigns,

Knowledge about how political parties most often interpret electoral developments in relation to their perceptions of the news media  is  limited.  By  systematically  investigating  official  party  documents in terms of post-election evaluations in Sweden 2010-2022, the intention of this article is to contribute to our understanding of how political parties look upon the role of news media in electoral contexts, to what extent such views are influenced by news media performances and, finally, to what degree the theoretical concepts of mediatization of politics and hostile media effects are acknowledged by the political parties.

The comparison of post-election analyses from Swedish political parties offers an excellent opportunity to investigate to what extent such references to media influence and mediatization of politics as well as hostile media effects appear in the party documents, as well as observing the most prominent themes when news media are portrayed positively, negatively or neutrally. The findings largely support the arguments proposed by mediatization literature, highlighting the significance of media in party communication. Parties display eagerness to attract positive media attention while expressing regret over inadequate or negative publicity. More surprisingly, there is a lack of references to media bias in the reports, suggesting that the hostile media effect is not a major concern among Swedish parties.  Despite  criticisms  related  to  irrelevant  reporting and perceived negative coverage, party perceptions towards the media remains predominantly neutral.

The next section in the article discusses theoretical points of departure - mediatization and hostile media effects - for examining relations between political parties and news media. Then follows a section of the study, methods, and material. The result section displays data and illustrative themes from the post-election analysis and is followed by a discussion section answering the research questions in the study and analyzing the relevance of mediatization and hostile media effect theories in understanding party perceptions of media performance.

## Theories of influential and partisan media

The traditional perspectives on media-and-politics-relations during election campaigns in liberal democracies have been an adversary and conflict-oriented model, and an exchange model based on mutual interdependence between media and parties where media offer politicians access to an audience and politicians offer journalists information  (Blumler  &  Gurevitch,  1995).  However,  mediatization theory suggests that both media content and political actors are today mainly guided by media logic (Mazzoleni & Schulz, 1999; Esser & Strömbäck, 2014). By systematically examining political parties' perceptions of news media performance and importance over time it  is  possible  to  determine to what extent mediatization theory in this dimension is valid in a long-term perspective. This study thus contributes to the understanding of mediatization theory by exploring political party perspectives on news media power and the most prominent themes in party evaluations related to news media influence.

Parallelly, leading news media have been associated with the idea of objective reporting based on professional journalistic norms and routines  (Shoemaker  &  Reese,  2014;  Schudson,  2018).  However, there is a widespread belief that news media do not manage to balance different political viewpoints properly and thus offer the public articles and news features that are slanted, either ideologically biased, directly favoring specific political parties or candidates in content or structurally biased, indirectly favoring parties or candidates in the ways news are framed (Cushion & Thomas, 2018). This study contributes to the understanding of hostile media effect theory by exploring political party perspectives on news media partisanship and the most prominent themes in party evaluations related to news media bias.

## Mediatization

Mediatization is a theoretical concept used to analyze critically the interrelation  between  changes  in  media  and  communications  on one hand, and changes in culture and society on the other. (Couldry & Hepp, 2013: 197). Mediatization refers to social change processes in which media have become increasingly influential in, and deeply integrated into, different spheres of society and where society becomes dependent on media and the media logic (Hjarvard, 2008; Strömbäck, 2008; Mazzoleni, 2008; Asp, 2014). In this article, mediatization is analyzed in line with an institutionalist tradition where media are perceived as independent institutions with their own set of rules and where mediatization refers to the adaptation to these institutionalized roles (Couldry & Hepp, 2013; Lundby 2014).

In  the  context  of  politics,  mediatization  has  been  defined  as  a long-term process through which the importance of the media and their spill-over effects on political processes, institutions, organizations,  and  actors  have  increased  (Mazzoleni,  2008;  Strömbäck, 2008).  Political  communication  studies  have  also  indicated  that contemporary  political  party  campaigning  is  increasingly  mediatized and that political institutions adapt to the news media logic (Cook, 2005; Strömbäck & Esser, 2014; Davis, 2019; Author, 2022).

Mediatization also appears in several analytical dimensions (Asp, 1986; Mazzoleni & Schultz, 1999; Strömbäck, 2008; Asp & Bjerling, 2014). In one of these dimensions, political actors or organizations are assumed to increasingly adhere to news media logics to influence  the  political  agenda  and  reach  citizens  and  possible  voters through news media channels and platforms. Mediatization at this organizational level may be defined as a reaction of political organizations following their perception that media and mediated communication  gain  importance  in  their  environment  and  implies change in organizational structure and behavior (Donges & Jarren, 2014).

Empirical work firmly rooted in the mediatization concept is still relatively  scarce  (Hepp  et  al.,  2015,  Bolin  2023).  Some  empirical frameworks have been elaborated (Landerer, 2013; Esser & Strömbäck, 2014) but there is a great need for further empirical research on the extent to which politics in its different facets has gradually become mediatized (Strömbäck & Esser, 2014). However, one study of political party organizations argues that the dimensions of mediatization on an organizational level could be studied empirically by examining explicit indicators such as perceptions (growing importance and relevance of media), structure (increase of staff or experts  working  with  communication)  and  behavior  (increase  of media activities, diversification of communication channels) (Donges & Jarren, 2014: 189-191).

Even if empirical data do confirm that political actors today actually  take  news  media  into  account  when  they  plan  election  campaign  activities  and  package  political  messages  (Asp  &  Bjerling, 2014; Author, 2022), the adaption processes of political actors do not need to be conform and static. Given the fact that political party responses to mediatization are assumed to be multiple and flexible it is  interesting  to  examine  party  perceptions  of,  and  reactions  on, news media influence in post-election analyses and the thematic contexts in which they most aften appear.

The perceived importance and relevance of news media may be used as indicators of party 'reactions' to mediatization and improve the understanding of why political parties portray news media in terms of positively, negatively, or neutrally evaluations. Perceptions are of course not always based on reality but oftentimes it may be the 'presumed' influence of the media that induces political actors to act in a forward-looking manner (Strömbäck & Esser, 2014: 11).

## The hostile media effect

The hostile media effect is best illustrated when opposing partisans, representing diverging opinion on a topic, claim that the same news item is unfairly biased against their own point of view and are favoring  political  opponents.  The  hostile  media  effect  may  appear  despite the fact media content is balanced if the topic covered is perceived as very important for the partisans. The hostile media effect thus illustrates the subjective character of information processing and  how  partisan  audiences  easily  perceive  information  as  contrasting their own positions. Previous research show that the hostile media effect is more evident among politically engaged segments of people  with  strong  opinions  on  an  issue  (Vallone  et  al.,  1985; Schmitt et al., 2004).

The hostile media effect has primarily been examined among citizens, and not among political elite groups. However, there are reasons to assume that also politicians will find media content biased when issues that are important for them are covered. One reason is that  politicians'  perceptions  of  journalism,  compared  to  citizens, are more driven by political engagement and sense of self-esteem and  by  self-interests  and  strategic  considerations,  where  media coverage may be used as a factor for explaining electoral defeats (Matthes et al., 2019; Soontjens et al., 2021) or as one study puts it: 'Media criticism might help to shield the candidate in the minds of voters against further negative coverage they encounter' (Domke et al., 1999: 39).

In the few studies among political elites, the hostile media effect seems to have been more articulated among politicians to the far right (Matthes et al., 2019). A recent study of politicians in Belgium (Soontjens  et  al.,  2021)  showed  that  political  elites  seemed  to  be quite  frustrated  with  the  media  and  especially  their  influence  on politics. There was a general tendency to perceive news as biased against the own party and politicians who got most media coverage was the most critical. The findings indicated that politicians were not only driven by strategic considerations but also by genuine perceptions of media bias (Soonetjens et al., 2021: 999).

A Norwegian study (Kolltveit et al., 2022) that compared the hostile  media  effect  among  politicians,  journalists,  and  citizen  indicated small differences among the three categories, but general perceptions of media as sensation-oriented and conflict-oriented were associated with higher hostile media effects than in groups who emphasized the societal role of media. Results also showed that overall, the hostile media effect was not very articulated in Norway, but politicians were slightly more critical to the media than other groups, and in line with previous research politicians to the right were most critical and claimed that media were biased against their own parties. The Norwegian study mainly analyzed local politicians' perceptions of news media.

As the existence of possible hostile media effects among politicians are less explored it is highly relevant to analyze whether such perceptions of news media performance appear in the post-election analyses and in different thematic contexts. This contributes to the understanding of possible mechanisms that may trigger party accusations of partisanship in news media.

To sum up, it is reasonable to assume that party perceptions of news media during election campaigns are formed by the possible strength and influence of news media and the possible bias in news reporting. The combination of these two dimensions on party perception of news media performance can be summarized as follows (fig. 1):

Figure 1: Model for exploring political party perceptions of news media performance.

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|                           | Low degree of Mediatization   | High degree of mediatization   |
|---------------------------|-------------------------------|--------------------------------|
| High degree of media bias | Mostly neutral                | Mostly negative                |
| Low degree of media bias  | Mostly positive               | Mostly neutral                 |

As illustrated in the figure above, party criticism of news media during election campaigns are expected to be most articulated in cases where news media are perceived both as powerful and central in political  communication processes and as partisan in election campaign  coverage.  In  election  contexts  where  news  media  both  are perceived as less powerful and non-partisan media criticism is less likely to be expressed. In cases where media are perceived as powerful and non-partisan or less powerful and partisan media perceptions can be expected to be mostly neutral.

In this study, the official post-election analyses documents provided by political parties during the period 2010-2022 are used to compare  party  perceptions  of  news  media  performances  and  to shed new light on the debate of the validity of the theoretical concepts  of  mediatization  and  hostile  media  effects  by  testing  them against robust empirical data, consistent over time but produced under varying media and politics-relations .

## The study, data, and method

## The study

The objective of the study is to explore Swedish political party perceptions  of  news  media  performances  in  post-elections  analyses during the latest four elections campaigns 2010-2022. The following research questions are raised:

RQ1: How are news media performances perceived in party postelection analyses 2010-2022?

RQ2: To what extent do the parties' perceptions of the news media in post-election analyses express ideas about mediatization?

RQ3: To what extent do the parties' perceptions of the news media in post-election analyses express ideas about hostile media effects?

## Data

To examine party perceptions of the media in election campaigns, we have collected and analyzed official post-election analyses prepared  by  political  parties  following  each  general  election  (2010, 2014, 2018, and 2022). These post-election analyses serve as reports that scrutinize and evaluate party activities during the campaign. Their aim is to provide fresh insights into the party's accomplishments and shortcomings, as well as to propose recommendations and strategies for future electoral campaigns. Consequently, these documents offer internally endorsed party assessments regarding potential explanations for the electoral results, while also reflecting on the role of news media throughout the election campaign.

To the best of our knowledge, despite the relatively wide availability  of  parties'  post-election  analyses  as  strategically  sanctioned documents by party leadership, there is a lack of systematic research that has comprehensively analyzed their content (but, see Bjereld et al., 2018). Therefore, this study can also be regarded as innovative in this regard.

Although  parties  have  been  increasingly  disclosing  their  postelection analysis reports to the public, this has not consistently been the practice. As a result, our sample of reports is not exhaustive. In this paper, we analyze 20 reports from the past four elections held between 2010 and 2022, encompassing seven of the eight parties represented in the Swedish parliament. The Sweden Democrats are excluded from the analysis as they have not made any reports publicly available.  As previous research indicates that far right parties tend to be more critical of traditional media compared to other parties (Matthes et al., 2019; Bolin et al., 2022), we need to be cautious not to draw conclusions about party families not represented in the study.

On average, the reports consist of approximately 20,000 words, although there is considerable variation, ranging from around 6,000 words to nearly 40,000 words. In total, there are 316 coded statements of instances of media in the reports corresponding to about 16 instances per report. Despite longer reports generally containing a greater number of media instances, the correlation between the two  is  relatively  weak,  suggesting  that  shorter  reports  tend  to allocate relatively more attention to the media (see appendix, table A1 for a complete list of the analyzed reports).

## Method

The analysis of the post-election analysis reports was facilitated by the  use  of  Taguette,  an  open-source  qualitative  analysis  software (Rampin  &  Rampin  2021).  The  coding  process  comprised  three steps. Firstly, each occurrence of the search term "medi*" was identified. Since our focus was on traditional media, any instances relating  to  social  media  were  excluded.  Moreover,  occurrences  of "medi*" in headlines or table of contents were also disregarded. Additionally,  instances  that  were  unrelated  to  media,  such  as  "median," "mediocre," "medicine," etc., were removed.

In the second step, the remaining instances of "medi*" were categorized into two distinct groups: "description" and "future". The "description"  category  encompassed  instances  where  the  media was mentioned in relation to describing the election and campaign. This category was further divided into three subcategories based on whether the instance described something positive, neutral, or negative from the party's perspective. We also identified a fourth theme with instances that represented statements that discussed how the party might or should act in future endeavors. These statements can be  either  explicit  recommendations  regarding  what  actions  the party should take in future endeavors or somewhat implicit suggestions on areas that could be enhanced. Nearly all of these statements revolve around different strategies to garner heightened and favorable media coverage. As this category is not related to the research questions, we do not include it in the qualitative analysis.

In the third step, we conducted an inductive process to identify recurring themes within each sub-category, aiming to obtain a more detailed assessment of the most significant perceptions about media in election campaigns. This step is closely linked to the research questions of the study by identifying to what extent and in what way parties perceive the media to be important and biased in any direction. As revealed in the empirical analysis, a distinction is made here regarding the extent to which positive/negative publicity can be attributed  to  the  party's  actions  or  if  the  media  can  be  credited  or blamed. This approach follows a bottom-up methodology where instances of medi* were read multiple times before assigning them to different  themes.  The  most  prevalent  themes  identified  are  presented in the result section. Some themes are accompanied by illustrative quotes from the reports. Throughout these steps, discussions took place within the research group to challenge interpretations and validate the preliminary categorization (Braun & Clarke, 2006).

## Results

Before we turn to the qualitative analysis, we note some overall patterns in the analyzed data (see appendix, table A2). The most prevalent  type  of  statement  concerning  the  media  is  neutral.  Negative statements are somewhat more common than positive statements. There are some variations both over time and among parties. Regarding the temporal aspect, apart from a growing trend of more positive instances of media in the reports, no linear patterns can be observed.  It  is  also  worth  noting  that  left-leaning  parties  tend  to have relatively more negative statements than right-leaning parties. While  we  exercise  caution  in  drawing  far-reaching  conclusions based on this finding, it is noteworthy that existing research generally suggests that right-wing parties are more skeptical toward the media than their left-wing counterparts (Matthes et al., 2019).

In the following section, we present the findings derived from the qualitative analysis conducted on the post-election analysis reports. The analysis is structured around three primary categories, as outlined  in  the  methodology  section:  positive,  negative  and  neutral. Within  each  category,  we  delve  into  various  themes  identified through an inductive thematic approach, as described in the data and method section. Table 1 provides an overview of the most recurrent  themes  identified,  accompanied  by  concise  descriptions elucidating the essence of each theme. Furthermore, the table illustrates the frequency of occurrence of the different themes within the analyzed  material.  However,  it  is  important  to  exercise  caution when interpreting the exact numbers, as they solely indicate the frequency of occurrence and do not denote the significance and clarity of each instance. Therefore, while we argue that, all else being equal, higher numbers indicate a greater prominence of specific themes in the post-election analysis reports, our primary interpretation of the data is based on the qualitative analysis, which we will now proceed to discuss.

| Theme                                                  | Description                                                                                                                                                    |   Occurrences |
|--------------------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|---------------|
| Positive                                               |                                                                                                                                                                |               |
| Successful campaign events and political announcements | Positive media responses because of well-planned campaign events or the introduction of new policies                                                           |            27 |
| Party leader effects                                   | Party leaders draw attention to the party and generate positive response in the media                                                                          |            17 |
| Positive media image                                   | General statements of much and/or positive publicity                                                                                                           |            12 |
| Negative                                               |                                                                                                                                                                |               |
| Disappointment or criticism of the media agenda        | Skepticism about what or who the media focuses on.                                                                                                             |            29 |
| Negative media image                                   | General statements of little and/or negative publicity                                                                                                         |            25 |
| Political failures and scandals                        | Misconduct among representatives or internal disagreements within the party that generated negative publicity                                                  |            19 |
| Failed campaign events and political announcements     | Actions by the party that did not generate positive attention by media or where the party failed to do things that might have led to positive media attention. |            18 |
| Neutral                                                |                                                                                                                                                                |               |
| On media                                               | Descriptions on the role of media and how it has developed                                                                                                     |            38 |
| Campaign and organization                              | Descriptions about how campaigns are planned and conducted                                                                                                     |            33 |

Table 1: Most recurrent identified themes

| Neutral statements on the media agenda   | Descriptions of what issues were high respectively absent from the media agenda                     |   27 |
|------------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|------|
| Future                                   | Recommendations regarding actions and strategies to garner heightened and favorable media coverage. |   28 |

## Positive statements

The positive statements that have been identified in the reports are predominantly those describing how the party itself has successfully generated media coverage through various means. There are three recurring  themes  that  commonly  emerge.  The  most  prominent theme revolves around successful campaign events and political announcements .  These  statements  illustrate  instances  where  parties have  received  positive  media  responses  because  of  well-planned campaign events or the introduction of new policies. For instance, the Left Party's 2014 report provides an illustrative example wherein the party's 'demand to halt profits in the welfare sector' garnered increasing media attention, subsequently leading to a surge in support in the opinion polls. Another example is how the Moderates' post-election analysis from the same year reveals that the 'emphasis on the Swedish diaspora garnered media attention at both the national and international levels'. Yet another prominent political move that generated favorable publicity was when Ebba Busch, the leader of the Christian Democrats, used a traditional Swedish falukorv sausage as a visual aid during a party leader debate in the 2022 campaign. By showcasing the rising price of the falukorv, she aimed to symbolize the escalating inflation and highlight the negative implications for Sweden. 'The falukorv received significant media coverage', the post-election analysis report succinctly summarized.

A second reoccurring theme is favorable mentions of party leader effects .  This  theme includes statements where it is suggested that party leaders skillfully draw attention to the party and generate what is perceived as a positive response in the media. This can be exemplified with how the Centre Party 2018 report simply states that 'media's  interest  in  the  leader  [Annie  Lööf]  of  the  party  was  high'  or more elaborated as in how the Liberals report from the 2022 election summarized how their newly elected leader Johan Pehrson:

In the media, came to be portrayed as easygoing, humorous, and down-toearth, symbolized by the fact that he was often served hot dogs during campaign visits. He became known as "the guy at the grill."

Another  relatively  common  theme  is  instances  of  general  statements of a positive media image . This may be instances of how the post-election reports simply cite how various media monitors report that the party has gained a lot and/or positive publicity or how the party received the media attention they rightfully deserved. The Liberals report for the 2018 election, for instance, observed that the party's relatively poor electoral performance could not be attributed to the "quantitative media impact" or the party being "invisible".

## Negative statements

Whereas the positive statements primarily are related to alleged successful party behavior, among the most prominent negative statements we find both those that are regarded as party failures and those that explicitly or implicitly blame the media and thereby partially express ideas about hostile media effects. The ones where media gets the blame are somewhat more frequent.

The most frequent theme identified is parties' disappointment or criticism of the media agenda . Basically, this theme includes various instances of how parties are skeptical about what and who the media focuses on. Several instances focus on how media instead of reporting on parties' policies and priorities rather emphasize gametheory and party tactics. In the Left Party's 2010 post-election analysis, it is observed, for instance, that "the substance of politics was overshadowed" and that the party could not do much "as media interest largely focused on the major parties in both blocs". An argument that resonates with the Christian Democrats' 2022 analysis:

The election campaign primarily revolved around game theory regarding the  question  of  government  formation,  with  few  other  statements,  proposals, or attacks gaining prolonged visibility in the news feeds.

This theme also includes several instances of how media reported on 'wrong issues'. The Moderates report of 2014, for example, decries how the media agenda favored the Sweden Democrats when the debate almost exclusively dealt with the magnitude of the immigration although 'a majority of voters support the current migration policy and do not want to restrict immigration in the manner advocated by the Sweden Democrats'. And the Left Party analysis of 2022 concludes that:

There is a clear discrepancy between the issues perceived as most important by voters and those that have received the most media coverage. Healthcare, which was the top priority for voters, ranks sixth in media reporting and received less than half the media attention that the energy issue received.

The Greens' report of 2022, in turn, warned that the media agenda could have unintended consequences:

The polarization between urban and rural areas was another issue that received significant media attention. There is a need to scrutinize the image that has been portrayed. It is a problematic image, and it fosters a decrease in  trust  in  society,  an  increase  in  "us-versus-them"  sentiments,  and  ultimately benefits the influence of the far-right.

A second theme that was almost as common was instances of general statements of a negative media image . The Christian Democrat 2018 report, almost gleefully, observed how "anyone who followed the party's media coverage was painfully aware that it was largely a matter of when, rather than if, the party would be ousted from the parliament."

There are also instances of how the post-election reports, in contrast  to  the positive  media  image theme,  cite  how  various  media monitors report that the party has gained little and/or negative publicity. As expressed, for instance, by the Left Party 2010 report where it  is  concluded  that  'a  well-executed  election  campaign  is  not enough […], especially considering that we do not receive much free coverage in the media'.

However, negative statements are not solely reserved for explicit or implicit media criticism that would indicate a hostile media effect. A number of instances can be referred to as failed campaign events and political announcements which are actions by the party that did not generate the anticipated positive attention by media or where the party failed to do things that might have led to positive media attention. The Centre Party report of 2022 describes a mismatch in how the party, rather than adhering to the concerns and everyday problems of the citizens instead 'responded to questions that few voters and media outlets were asking' and the Christian Democrats' report the very same year acknowledged that the party was disadvantaged by the media logic's focus on the larger parties, but the situation "was exacerbated by their own choice to focus on issues  where  the  party  lacked  a  marketable  differentiation  from neighboring parties'.

An additional related, but distinct, theme can be referred to political failures and scandals . This theme includes instances of misconduct among representatives that attracted negative media attention. The Christian Democrat analysis of 2018 for instance reports on how some of their MPs had made incorrect travel expense claims that created a negative media image. Other reports indicate how internal disagreements within the party have been unable to be kept away from the media, thereby generating negative publicity. In the Left Party 2022 post-election analysis report, it is for example described how 'prominent party representatives demonstrated their support for the Kurds […] by displaying a PKK flag' and how 'this sparked a public discussion about whether the Left Party supports the PKK' although it was not part of the agreed-upon election strategy. 1 The Liberal Party's 2022 report provides a more general discussion on party behavior and how the liberals consistently fail to maintain internal disagreements within the party.

The party is perceived to lack the ability to resolve conflicts. We are also unable to keep internal conflicts contained or sustainably unite all parts of the party in a common direction. Too often, engagement is channeled into taking positions in various internal debates and conflicts, which also spills over into the media portrayal and the public perception of the party.

## Neutral statements

The most common instances of medi* are those that are categorized as neutral . This category includes several rather divergent themes. One relatively common theme refers to instances where media is mentioned in passing or in a way that does not refer to the overall question of the paper. These instances are, hence, disregarded.

The  theme  with  most  instances,  we  refer  to  as on  media .  This theme includes statements that more generally describe and discuss the role of media and how it has developed. It might for instance be descriptions of how 'the media has a tendency to focus on the major parties in the final stages of an election campaign' as stated in the Centre Party report of 2018 or how 'the significance of party leaders in the choice of party has gradually increased as election campaigns have become increasingly mediated' as the Liberals conclude the same year. More generally, it can be concluded that the relatively frequent occurrences of such statements lend some support for the mediatization  theory  and  how  parties  become  increasingly  conscious of the news media's needs and adapt to a media logic.

The Social Democrats' 2014 report is perhaps the best illustration of  this  development  in  how  it  devotes  considerable  space  to describe the development of news media and amongst other things highlight the central role of media:

From the 1960s onwards, broad commercial mass media increasingly took over that role [as agenda setters]. By making their own priorities, guided by the logic of the mass media, by examining what voters themselves wanted to  prioritize,  and  by  highlighting  conflicts  between  and  within  parties  in ways they had not done before, the mass media became more powerful as agenda setters. The competition among parties for media coverage largely revolved around influencing the priorities of the mainstream mass media, just as businesses, interest groups, and others sought to influence them to bring attention to their specific issues in the public debate. To a large extent, this still holds true today. Mass media remains the most important factor. However, the agenda is now shaped in a more complex interplay among actors, where social media, networks, and online platforms have come to play an increasingly significant role. To understand the agenda in an election campaign, all these factors-parties' own priorities, voters' priorities, mass media priorities, as well as the influence of social media-must be taken into account.

The second most frequent theme among the neutral statements can be referred to as campaign and organization which are references to how the party has planned and conducted its election campaign. Within this theme there are various descriptions of how the organization handle questions from the media, statements of how parties' budget for media issues are smaller than for other parties and general statements that media strategies had been developed. In some instances, some more elaboration on this later point is presented. In the  post-election  analysis  reports  of  2022,  for  example,  we  learn that:

The Centre Party strategy for paid media prioritized reach and visibility, in other words, breadth over depth. The goal was to reach as many voters as possible on as many occasions as possible and to remind them that the Center Party existed as a liberal centrist alternative.

Whereas the Moderates 'communication strategy for the election can be summarized with the motto 'media impact, personal influence''.

Finally, a third theme identified among the neutral statements refers to neutral statements on the media agenda .  Most of these instances are descriptions of what issues were high respectively absent from the media agenda without explicit or implicit references to who may or may not be favored by this. In the Social Democrats 2018 report it is, for example, concluded that:

The media coverage of serious crime, particularly gang-related murders, peaked during the fall and winter of 2017-2018, and so did the voters' prioritization of crime as a political issue.

In  a  similar  vein,  the  Greens'  report  of  2022  in  a  neutral  way  described how public opinion and the media agenda aligned about a month prior to the election:

In August, the voters' most important issues were unsurprisingly healthcare, law and order, education, and immigration. However, there was also an increase in concerns regarding personal finances and energy policy. These were issues that had a significant impact on people's everyday lives and received substantial media coverage, not just during the election period.

## Conclusions: General acceptance of influential news media

The examination of news media coverage in elections has long been a prominent field of study. However, there has been limited attention devoted to understanding the news media perspectives of political parties, who play a crucial role in the electoral process alongside the news media. Although sporadic reactions from party representatives on this subject are not uncommon, there remains a gap in systematic observations regarding party perceptions of news media performances throughout election campaigns. To address this gap, the present study conducted a comprehensive analysis of political  party  perceptions  by  examining  the  official  post-election analyses produced by Swedish political parties after each election from 2010 to 2022.

The analysis largely supports the arguments put forth by the mediatization literature. Most of the post-election analysis reports that were analyzed contained explicit or implicit statements about the significance of the media. Political parties perceived news media as important, party organizational structures were transformed, and party behavior changed. Parties demonstrated eagerness to attract positive media attention and expressed regret over receiving insufficient or negative publicity. More specifically, the analysis indicates that  parties  strategically  seek  positive  media  publicity.  Planned campaign activities and political statements aim extensively to attract  positive  media  attention.  Simultaneously,  political  leaders emerge as crucial tools for the same purpose.

However, while the influence of mediatization theory is evident, the  overall  assessment  does  not  indicate  any  extensive  partisan hostility towards the media. The majority of references to the media in the reports are neutral statements. And although negative statements are slightly more prevalent than positive ones, not all of them explicitly blame the media for poor or hostile performance. Parties do offer criticisms of the media, such as concerns about the reporting of irrelevant issues or a perception of inadequate or overly negative coverage of their party. However, there are very few references to media coverage being used as an explanatory factor for electoral defeats. In fact, we find a surprising lack of references of a partisan media bias in the reports and hence conclude that it does not seem to be perceived as a great problem among those Swedish parties included in the analysis. Even though there is generally relatively little negative criticism, it is worth noting that parties also very rarely consider themselves positively favored by the media. Instances where the  media  is  mentioned  positively  in  the  reports  instead  revolve around the party believing they have done something deserving of positive publicity.

Returning to the theoretical discussion and the framing of party perceptions of news media as a two-dimensional concept, we can therefore  conclude  that  Swedish  parties  generally  perceive  news media to be both influential and central in their communication. Simultaneously, we also observe a relative absence of perceptions regarding the existence of media bias. Party perceptions towards the media, hence, tends to be predominantly neutral. The result is thus in line with our suggested model for anticipating party perceptions of news media performances where these perceptions were to be mostly neutral in contexts with higher degree of mediatization and lower degree of hostile media effects.

In conclusion, it is important to consider our findings as preliminary and a result of certain limitations. The study was conducted over a relatively limited time period, primarily capturing party perceptions of news media during that specific timeframe. We also did not have access to all the post-election analyses conducted during this period. However, since we analyzed a majority of them and covered seven out of eight parties, there are good reasons to believe they are representative of the entire population. It is worth noting, though, that we were unable to include the post-election analyses of the Sweden Democrats. Previous research has suggested that both far  right  parties  in  general  (Matthes  et  al.,  2019)  and  the  Sweden Democrats specifically (Bolin et al., 2022) tend to be more critical of traditional media compared to other parties. Therefore, the results of this study may not necessarily reflect the viewpoints within this particular party. So even though our results should primarily be interpreted as an attempt to paint a general picture of Swedish parties' perceptions of news media, it cannot be overlooked that there might be time- or party-specific variations that have not been identified. Therefore,  we  encourage  further  research  that  includes  a  longer time span and all political parties.

It is also important to note that we have not explicitly compared party perceptions of traditional news media with their perceptions of social media, nor have we tested the argument within the 'end of mediatization'  debate  (Schultz,  2004)  regarding  how  new  media may make parties more independent from news media. Therefore, while we argue that the analyzed data provides relatively strong support for the conclusion that parties attribute significant importance to news media and that media logic appears to be significant in their actions, this conclusion should be made with the reservation that we do not make any claims regarding the relative significance compared to other components of the total media eco system, for example, social media.

## NOTES

1 PKK (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan) is the Kurdistan Workers' Party, a party that is designated as a terrorist organization by for example the United States, the EU and Sweden.

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N. BOLIN & L. NORD

## NIKLAS BOLIN

Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Mid Sweden University niklas.bolin@miun.se

## LARS NORD

Professor

Department of Communication, Quality Management, and Information Systems Mid Sweden University

lars.nord@miun.se