Mid Sweden University

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to give an idea of how Swedish media companies views of the comments and the discussion that is happening in direct connection to their Facebook posts.

Method: This essay is written based on a qualitative method with eight different social media journalist interviewee's representing Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter, Expressen, Göteborgs- Posten, Sundsvalls Tidning, Svenska Dagbladet and Swedish public service organization Sveriges Radio. By studying and reading some well-known theories and fairly new findings in earlier relevant studies, we were able to draw conclusions on our main questions.

Main results: The study shows that all participating media companies agree, that their commentary fields are important and adds value to news stories, and that reader comments are important as seen from a democratic perspective. Abusive posts and such does occur, however, one can draw the conclusion that the newsrooms think the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.