The Scandinavian countries are top ranked with regard to Internet access and general
interest in news reading. Are they also showing the way for journalistic development
through their utilization of new media technology?
The article offers results from an empirical study of 12 major, Scandinavian news sites,
examining both the journalistic content and the presentation formats of 95 online news stories.
Comparisons are made between print and online versions of news stories, and between
paper-based sites and TV-based sites. The study concludes that the potentials of creating a
more broad-spectre, user-controlled, dynamic and dialogic form of journalism are utilized
only to a very modest degree – or not at all. On the other hand, the idea of online news being
mere “shovel-ware”, recycled from a sibling newspaper or collected from external news
agencies, is not to be fully trusted. The article also offers a conceptual framework for description
and explanation of mass media genre development, based on social semiotic theory.