This chapter introduces rurality-TV as a genre, and we discuss how public service media, through this genre, contributes to symbolically resolving tensions between the rural and the urban, and we address processes of mobility and urbanisation in the Nordics. Three popular reality-TV programmes depicting rural life are analysed: Bonderøven [loosely translated as The Hillbilly], later known as Frank & Kastaniegaarden (DR), Hjälp vi har köpt en bondgård! [Help we have bought a farm!] (SVT), and Oppfinneren [The Inventor] (NRK). These are approached through three questions: What constitutes public service rurality-TV as a genre in terms of form and content? What values are negotiated in the programmes? How can we understand rurality-TV in the context of public service broadcasting in the media welfare state?

This article critically engages with the concept of screen time. We explore the screen time recommendations from the World Health Organization (WHO) and their application in a Swedish context. We also investigate the experiences and opinions of the recommendations and advice on screen time, as well as screen media use in early childhood among parents of young children (0–3 years of age) in Sweden. The study draws on qualitative semi-structured interviews during multiple home visits from a diverse sample of 16 families. Findings are discussed through the prism of the ‘moral economy’ of the household and the ‘social imaginaries’ underpinning this. We have identified two types of approaches to guidelines on screen time among parents. Based on our findings, we recommend organisations in Sweden and beyond to rethink and revise the current guidelines, including the WHO recommendations. © 2024 Helena Sandberg, Ulrika Sjöberg & Ebba Sundin.

This colloquium shares experiences from doing ethnographic fieldwork with young children and the challenges that followed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The project DIGIKIDS Sweden has its focus on very young children (birth to three years) and their engagement with digital media technologies in their homes. The pandemic put the project on hold, but in the families where the fieldwork had already started, the authors decided to change the methods of data collection. Digital screen visits were introduced and, at first, this seemed to be flexible, and they adjusted to the new environment. At the same time, this flexibility also became an inflexible experience due to the use of technology. © The Author(s) 2022.

This article addresses the phenomenon of mobile bystanders who use their smartphones to film or take photographs at accident scenes, instead of offering their help to people in need or to assist medical units. This phenomenon has been extensively discussed in Swedish news media in recent years since it has been described as a growing problem for first responders, such as paramedics, police, and firefighters. This article aims to identify theoretical perspectives that are relevant for analyzing mobile media practices and discuss the ethical implications of these perspectives. Our purpose is twofold: we want to develop a theoretical framework for critically approaching mobile media practices, and we want to contribute to discussions concerning well-being in a time marked by mediatization and digitalization. In this pursuit, we combine theory from social psychology about how people behave at traumatic scenes with discussions about witnessing in and through media, as developed in media and communication studies. Both perspectives offer various implications for normative inquiry, and in our discussion, we argue that mobile bystanders must be considered simultaneously as transgressors of social norms and as emphatic witnesses behaving in accordance with the digital media age. The article ends with a discussion regarding the implications for further research. © The Author(s) 2021.

In this article, the Swedish findings from a European comparative study on 0-3-year-old children and their digital lives are presented and discussed in relation to domestication theory, including the concept of moral economy. More specifically, attention is paid to toddler's appropriation of digital technology and the parents' moral struggles: the negotiations between the parents concerning the introduction of digital media practices in early childhood, the selection of content, and the monitoring of children. Parents of very young children have ambivalent feelings towards digital media technologies and struggle to make the right decision for their children. The study demonstrates that the domestication of digital technology in early childhood is far more multifaceted and troublesome for parents to handle than previous research has found. © 2021 Helena Sandberg et al., published by Sciendo 2021.

The topic of migration has become particularly contentious in national as well as international debates. Media have a discernable impact on overall societal attitudes towards this phenomenon. Polls show time and again that immigration is one of the main issues occupying people’s minds. IM2MEDIATE (Images of Immigrants in the Media: Thought-provoking) examines the dynamic interplay between media representations of immigrants and refugees on the one hand, and the governmental and societal (re)actions to these on the other hand. Largely focusing on Belgium and Sweden, our interdisciplinary research attempts to unravel the determinants of people’s preferences regarding migration policy, expectations towards immigrants, and economic, humanitarian and cultural concerns about immigration’s effect on the life of the majority population. Whilst immigrants and refugees remain voiceless and highly underrepresented in the legacy media, IM2MEDIATE allows their voices to be heard.