Svensk och norsk socialdemokratisk press under efterkrigstiden: en komparativ analys

Abstract

This bachelor thesis is a comparative study of the Norwegian and Swedish labour press after the second world war. The Norwegian labour press has been more successful than the Swedish in the postwar period, and the aim of the study is to discover what the key reasons for this development are. The variables of interest in the thesis are mainly statistics regarding election results, party membership and union membership, the overall situation for competition between newspapers, the organization of the labour press on a national level, the different rules regarding the state subsidy to newspapers and the extent to which the labour press in the two countries reaches readers of a different political preference. The main findings are that the Norwegian system for press subsidy has to a large extent encouraged competition between newspapers, which has gained the labour press. The aftermath of the second world war was positive for the Norwegian labour press, and the Swedish labour press struggled with management at a central level during the 1980's. In conclusion, this thesis challenges the established theory regarding press competition in Sweden, as it is not directly applicable on the Norwegian press.