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The purpose of this study is to compare and investigate how three nationwide sports media report on the same Allsvenskan football matches through push notifications, headlines and pull downs. In the study, the analyzed media included Sportbladet, Expressen and SVT Sport. By comparing and analyzing the media coverage of these pseudo events, the study aims to identify differences in news aspects, tonality and use of visual elements. The study further attempts to illustrate how different media convey and shape football news to their readers and how this can affect the interpretation and perception of events in Swedish football.

We examined 69 headlines and 69 pull downs in total – 24 each from Expressen and Sportbladet and 21 from SVT Sport. 72 push notifications in total were also examined – 33 from Sportbladet, 31 from Expressen and eight from SVT Sport. 

The study has been made with a qualitative and quantitative content analysis where the authors have been working with separate analyses with push notifications on one hand, and headlines and pull downs on the other hand. The qualitative analysis (critical discourse analysis) consisted of four different themes to cover the result. The quantitative analysis was made by six diagrams – all to shed light on the actual result. The theoretical framework is based on theories of framing, pseudo events and news evaluation, combined with previous research on headlines and push notifications, the medialization of elite sports, the commercialization of journalism, the meaning of Swedish sports journalism and the reporting on Allsvenskan.

The study’s result shows that there are both differences and similarities in their strategy when it comes to headlines, pull downs and push notifications. The biggest difference, however, is between the commercial media (Sportbladet and Expressen) and publicly funded  SVT Sport. The commercial media is more keen on using sensational language and often hides information in the headlines. They also find different ways of making a headline rather than the result of the football game more often than SVT. The three media also like to represent big losers and winners and also scapegoats and heroes. Conceptual metaphors are also widely used. SVT Sport were also more informative in their headlines, but at the same time they also used a more varied language. Many of the headlines seem also to be written on pure routine. When it comes to push notifications the language and strategy was similar – but the commercial media sent out significantly more push notifications regarding Allsvenskan than SVT Sport.