At the end of March 2022, we launched our project’s second fieldwork to map newsrooms diversity practices in Sweden.
Continuing our fieldwork schedule, Greta and Michał went for almost a week-long trip to Stockholm to map Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) initiatives and practices in selected news organizations in Sweden.
Sweden represents an interesting case when it comes to the tradition of diversity management. On one hand, Sweden is a country in transition, due to immigration and intake of refugees, from homogeneous to a more heterogeneous society, and while it has relatively little experience with diversity management, it still represents, at large, an open and liberal society. On the other hand, few years ago an important public discussion took place in Sweden after a protest letter “Whose Swedish Radio?” (Vems SR? Ett upprop för representation och mot rasism på Sveriges Radio) was initiated by journalists with minority background to start the discussion on poor representation of minorities and against racism in Swedish Radio.
During to trip to Sweden (28 March – 1 April 2022), we aimed to map D&I practices in Sweden’s media organizations, to eventually select five organizations for an in-depth study (interviews and diary interviews). Several of Sweden’s media and diversity experts and scholars assisted our selections, particularly Daniel S. Ogalde, Project Manager at Fojo Medi Institute and Sayaka Osanami Törngren, Associate Professor in International Migration and Ethnic Relations at Malmö University who is also part of our project’s Advisory Board. We also had the opportunity to meet prof. Gunnar Nygren from Södertörn University and his colleague for dinner where we further discuss our project’s research and dissemination plans.
The sample of media organizations eventually was set at public service SVT, SR, daily Dagens Nyheter (Bonnier News) and Aftonbladet (Schibsted), alongside an alternative digital publication called Feminist Perspective (Fempers). The team intends to complete the data gathering phase of the project by the end of September 2022.
We want to thank all the interview participants for their time and enthusiasm in supporting our study, particularly journalists who’ve initiated the “Vems SR” protest letter and fueled anew the debate on diversity management in Swedish media.
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