Sofia Johansson

Nationality: Swedish

Funded, Full-Time

Registration: September 2002
Completion: May 2006

Director of Studies: Prof. Annette Hill
Second Supervisor: Dr. Peter Goodwin

Thesis

Reading Tabloids: A Study of Readers of the Sun and the Daily Mirror

My PhD was a study of how readers of tabloid newspapers understand and perceive tabloid journalism, set against the backdrop of debates on the ”tabloidization” of news. I used focus groups and in-depth interviews with readers of the Sun and the Daily Mirror in combination with a textual analysis, to study how interpretations of these kinds of newspapers take place in an everyday inter-play between tabloids and their readers.
Please note that an edited version of the thesis has been published as a book in 2008 (see Publications below).

Experience in stages towards the PhD

I found the PhD experience a simultaneously wonderful and nerve-wrecking process. CAMRI however provided a research-intensive setting, with strong intellectual frameworks. Equally valuable to me was the encouraging and international atmosphere and the opportunities to teach and participate in research projects.

As an audience researcher, my greatest challenge was to recruit readers of tabloid newspapers to participate in my research. It is a grueling feeling to be utterly dependent on the time and kindness of your research participants, who will have to allow you into “their world” for the project to succeed. I was lucky in this case to have a Director of Studies with plenty of experience of audience research, and to find the relevant contacts. And although the fieldwork posed difficulties I think of it as the most memorable stage of the PhD – it certainly made writing up seem easy in comparison!

I don’t think that any PhD process is trouble-free, but the helpful support of my supervisors, the friendships with other PhD students and the inspiration from members of staff at CAMRI made mine a worthwhile experience. Doing a PhD helped me develop on a personal and on an academic level and, having completed, I realise that the title “doctor” does open a few doors in the world out there. 

Publications

(2008) 'Gossip, Sport and Pretty Girls: What Does "Trivial" Journalism Mean to Tabloid Newspaper Readers?', Journalism Practice, Vol. 2(3): 402-413.

(2008) with Mascha Brichta (eds.) News Journalism in Transition, Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture (WPCC)

(2008) with Mascha Brichta ‘Editorial’, in Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, Vol.5(2), pp. 1-3.

(2007) Reading Tabloids: Tabloid Newspapers and Their Readers, Huddinge: Södertörn Academic Studies.

(2007) ‘”They Just Make Sense”: Tabloids As An Alternative Public Sphere?’, in Richard Butsch (ed.) Media and Public Spheres, London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 83-95.

(2006) ‘”Sometimes You Wanna Hate Celebrities”: Tabloid Readers and Celebrity Coverage’, in Su Holmes and Sean Redmonds (eds.) Framing Celebrity: New Directions in Celebrity Culture, London: Routledge, pp. 343-358.

(2005) ‘Editorial’, in Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, Vol.2(2), pp. 1-5.

(2003) “Reading the Tabloids: A Qualitative Study of the Readers of the Sun and the Daily Mirror”, Paper presented at the European Programme for Doctoral Research in Communications,

Current Position

I am a Lecturer at Södertörn University College, the Department of Culture and Communication, in Stockholm, Sweden. I am also a researcher on a three-year funded project led by Cecilia von Feilitzen and Peter Prestov entitled “The Role of the Media to Identity and Democracy”, which compares media use in Stockholm and St Petersburg. I teach media theory at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, as well as supervising undergraduate and Masters dissertations. 

Other

I was a founding board member of the peer-reviewed journal Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture which is published by the Communication and Media Research Institute at the University of Westminster. In 2005 I edited a special issue on “Mediating Celebrity” and co-edited (2008, with Mascha Brichta) an issue on “News Journalism in Transition“. I am also a founding board member of Interactions: Studies in Communications & Culture (Intellect, forthcoming, 2009)

Research interests

The press; popular culture; journalism; media reception 

Contact details

Sofia Johansson
School of Culture and Communication
Södertörn University College
S-141 89 Huddinge, Sweden

E-mail: sofia.johansson@sh.se
Tel: + 46 8 608 4102