Category: Other

It is Monday and time for a quick check on what has been written about Sweden during last week. Here are the topics that were among the most frequently covered by international blogs and media (linked posts are just examples):

• Pastor sentenced for hate speech against homosexuals – old news, still being debated
• Saddam ‘hopes for Swedish jail’ – hilarious claim especially when considering the two successful escapes from Swedish jails the last weeks
• Sweden has a mobile phone penetration rate of 100.1% – it fascinates people that Sweden now has more cell phones than people
• Elegant Stockholm full of surprises – “Stockholm is one of the most underrated destinations in Europe. Views across the waterways of the stately baroque and renaissance buildings easily rival those of Paris or Prague.” Now that’s good PR. (From last week’s article in Washington Post, free reg. required)
• Tokyo Style, Japanese design showcased in Stockholm
• Tennis: Molik claims Nordic Light Open title
• and of course, the new IKEA catalouge is out – news doesn’t get any bigger than this, right?

Pew Internet & American Life Project has performed a phone survey (pdf) which shows that millions of Americans go online to get alternatives to big media about for example the war in Iraq. One quarter of the respondents in the survey searched for news and images online that could not be found in traditional media. But seeing the images that traditional media choose not to publish, leaves surfers with mixed feelings.

“…millions of Internet users want to be able to view the graphic war images and they see the Internet as an alternative source of news and information from traditional media. But many who do venture outside the traditional and familiar standards of the mainstream news organizations to look at the images online end up feeling very uncomfortable.”

33 per cent wished they hadn’t seen the pictures. Sometimes we should be thankful that media serves as a filter. (I just noticed this report was a month old, but it’s still interesting.)

Traditional brands are still on top of Interbrand/Business Week’s list (pdf) of the world’s most valueable brands 2004. Coca-Cola is still #1 and no new brands have entered the top 20. Thirteen of the top 20 brands have increased their brand value.

Finnish Nokia slips down two positions to #8, but is still the highest ranked non-US brand. The highest ranked Swedish brand is IKEA at #40, with a 4% increase in brand value.

Competition in the technology sector troubles some, but creates wealth for others. Both winners and losers are IT brands or affected by the development in new technology. Big winners are Apple, Amazon.com, Yahoo! and Samsung, losers are Kodak, Nintendo, Nokia and AOL. Also glad to see that my former employer Accenture slowly has climbed into the top 50, which is quite good for a brand that was launched only 3 and a half years ago.

The ten most valueable brands 2004 are:

1. Coca-Cola
2. Microsoft
3. IBM
4. GE
5. Intel
6. Disney
7. McDonald’s
8. Nokia
9. Toyota
10. Marlboro

The Knutby murder has resulted in media coverage of gargantuan proportions, as I have written about before. Swedish media has written 7425 articles about the murder to this date, which even surpasses the amount written about Mijajlo Mijailovic, the person who murdered Sweden’s foreign minister Anna Lindh.

Apart from the sheer volume, Swedish media now also gets critized for the way they have covered the story. Jan Guillou, successful writer and former President of Publicistklubben, an association of people in the publishing industry, on Tuesday wrote an article in Dagens Nyheter where he critizes media for possibly influencing the outcome of the trials by taking sides. When media pass their judgement, the pressure is high on courts to go against the public picture and this is a real problem. Guillou urges owners of media to strive for tighter ethical rules, or he predicts politicians will be provoced to limit the freedom of speech.

And this morning I suddenly realize that Guillou was on to something. The last few months, the newspaper placards announcing the news for the Swedish tabloids, and their front pages, have increased their font sizes to the extreme that it is often just one word, like “Gripen” (arrested, about the capture of four fugitives) and “Slutet” (“the end”). This morning as I walked to the office I finally saw what they might have been aiming for. Aftonbladet had just one word on their placard, “Wanted” (yes, wanted, in English) and photos of three other convicts that escaped from prison yesterday. All in the same style as the posters the sheriff put up on the saloon in the western movies. Would be interesting to hear Guillou comment on the fact that there might be a new sheriff in town – media.

Media Culpa has just passed 100 posts, and maybe it is appropriate to look back at the first few months of blogging. I started out in February and once I figured out about this RSS stuff (thanks Constantin), things developed pretty rapidly and I got several good contacts from around the globe. I started measuring the traffic in April and the site has since then had about 5700 visitors, approximately 20 a day.

Top referrers are:

1. PR Opinions
   
   
2. Technorati
3. Blogger (that’s me, previewing the site etc)
4. Micro Persuasion
5. Media Guerilla
6. Adland
7. Bloglines
8. Weblogs.se
9. Sweblogs
10. Online PR
    

A number of bloggers got credentials to cover the Democratic National Convention in Boston and pushed the boundaries of this new medium, sitting side by side (or at least in the same room) with representatives of established media outlets. CNN teamed up with Technorati to create a convention blog and the blogosphere is bubbling with analyses of why this could be a landmark in the development of blogs and how it affects journalism (also see InternetWeek and New York Times, free reg. required). To perform a bit of Google journalism: a search for the term “convention blog” gives us 13,000 hits, so obviously this topic is the talk of the town at the moment.

Some Swedish bloggers have mentioned it briefly, but it baffles me that no Swedish media has written about it. Why? Not a single article has to my knowledge even touched on the topic. Are Swedish journalists in general not interested in writing about the development of their own profession, or shall we just blame the holiday season?

If there are any Swedish journalists reading this, here is a tip. Start by reading the excellent white paper by Daniel W. Drezner and Henry Farrell called “The Power of Politics and Blogs” (pdf), then read through the free (!) new book We the media by Dan Gillmor.