Mid Sweden University

This study has been investigating which areas of the Swedish state budget 1997, 2007 and2017 that was represented in the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter. The result was put incomparison to which questions the voters found most important according to theSOM-institute survey for each year. The purpose of the study was to find out whichinformation Dagens Nyheter chooses to highlight in news articles from the state budgets’ 27outcome areas. With a quantitative method, articles has been studied through a contentanalysis and material published in the print version has been coded. Results show that thecorrelation between the voters opinion and Dagens Nyheter fluctuates over the years with anoticable difference 2017 compared to 1997 and 2007. The findings suggest that DagensNyheter sets the agenda themselves and are therefore not affected by the public opinion inmatters that concern the state budget. The other way around Dagens Nyheter do not havecomplete control over the agenda but most likely do have some impact on the same. Thestudy, in combination with previous studies and theories, thereby gives an indication of howthe interplay between media and its’ audience work in relation to the coverage on state budgetpresentation. It also suggests that a shift is to be observed between 2007 and 2017, possibly inconnection to the past financial crisis. Whether or not this change is permanent or just atemporary fluctuation is yet to be discovered by further studies.