Between authority and media actor

The municipality as a news actor on the Internet

Authors

  • Signe Bock Segaard Institute for Social Research, Oslo

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.58235/sjpa.v14i3/4.16294

Keywords:

Municipal news dissemination, Internet, Strategic communication, Journalistic communication, Branding

Abstract

The article illuminates how local authorities as news actors fill their websites with content. This is done through a study of how active the local authorities are as news actors on the Internet, what kinds of electronic news dissemination they do in practice, and to what degree they experience dilemmas in electronic news dissemination. The analytic point of departure is the tension between a journalistic ideal of news mediation relates to democratic values and a strategic ideal of communication related to branding. Empirically the analysis is based on data from several Danish and Norwegian municipalities which are considered as particularly active on the Internet. Finally the article discusses municipal news mediation on the Internet in the light of the municipality as a public authority as well as a market actor, a service provider, and as a democratic actor. The question is in what way municipal news dissemination on the Internet is a democratic gain. The article shows that the work with news dissemination on the Internet to some degree is characterized by professionalization, centralization, and bureaucratization. The democratic gain of municipal news dissemination is an empirical question and related to the criteria of news selection (in practice). Furthermore the article shows that some municipalities have a more strategic focus while others have a more journalistic focus but one focus does not rule out the other.

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Author Biography

Signe Bock Segaard, Institute for Social Research, Oslo

Signe Bock Segaard is a researcher at the Institute for Social Research in Oslo. She is particularly interested in research questions related to the use of new media within the framework of local administration and politics and has, among other things, written the book Veje til lokalt e-demokrati - organisering, mål, virkemidler og resultater (2010).

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Published

2010-06-15

How to Cite

Segaard, S. B. (2010). Between authority and media actor: The municipality as a news actor on the Internet. Scandinavian Journal of Public Administration, 14(1/2), 25–50. https://doi.org/10.58235/sjpa.v14i3/4.16294

Issue

Section

Original Articles

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