TABLE 1
Party affiliations of MPs with Twitter accounts
| Party | Seats in parliament | MPs with Twitter accounts | Share of MPs with Twitter account (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Social Democrats | 100 | 43 | 43 |
| Moderate Party | 70 | 50 | 71 |
| Sweden Democrats | 62 | 38 | 61 |
| Centre Party | 31 | 21 | 68 |
| Left Party | 27 | 21 | 78 |
| Christian Democrats | 22 | 20 | 91 |
| Liberal Party | 20 | 14 | 70 |
| Green Party | 16 | 12 | 75 |
| Total | 348 | 219 | – |
[i] Comments: The Twitter accounts were identified and collected in October 2021. The reason that the sum in the “Seats in parliament” column does not sum up to the actual number of MPs (349) is that one MP, who had been excluded from her party, is not included.
TABLE 2
Examples of delegitimising media criticism in tweets from Swedish MPs
| Tweet | Author (political party) | Presence of delegitimising media criticism | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| “SVT: Governmentally funded propaganda-factory” | Josef Fransson (Sweden Democrats) |
| This tweet is critical and seeks to delegitimise public service television. The criticism is rude, accusing SVT of engaging in propaganda, without backing it up. SVT is accused of being biased toward the state and for spreading falsehoods. |
| “Objective Swedish Radio…” | Katarina Brännström (Moderate Party) |
| This tweet sarcastically writes about objective Swedish radio, using scare quotes to question the objectivity of Swedish radio. |
| “Public service 2022. 2 out of 3 commentators are right-wing radicalized jesters” | Ali Esbati (Left Party) |
| This tweet is sarcastically written while including an accusation that public service media is politically biased. |
| “Impartial @TV4 in their essence. Just look at the staples and enjoy. Too much red wine perhaps?” | Richard Jomshof (Sweden Democrats) |
| The tweet is rude and blames TV4 for being (left-wing) biased, without backing it up with any substantial explanation. |
| “Surely, no thinking person longer trusts the state television which increasingly spreads Fake News. Here is another example of the wreckage on SVT… (link to SamNytt)” | Björn Söder (Sweden Democrats) |
| The tweet is delegitimising since it blames SVT for spreading fake news. |
[i] Comments: The examples have been translated from Swedish to English by the authors.
TABLE 3
Party distribution of tweets referencing media and journalism from Swedish MPs
| Party | Tweets (%) | Tweets (N) |
|---|---|---|
| Social Democrats | 3 | 66 |
| Moderate Party | 45 | 1,006 |
| Sweden Democrats | 20 | 461 |
| Centre Party | 3 | 79 |
| Left Party | 14 | 309 |
| Christian Democrats | 4 | 94 |
| Liberal Party | 9 | 195 |
| Green Party | 2 | 34 |
| Total | 100* | 2,244 |
TABLE 4
Party distribution of delegitimising media criticism from Swedish MPs
| Party | Tweets (%) | Tweets (N) |
|---|---|---|
| Social Democrats | 1 | 7 |
| Moderate Party | 57 | 367 |
| Sweden Democrats | 32 | 207 |
| Centre Party | 1 | 7 |
| Left Party | 3 | 19 |
| Christian Democrats | 1 | 7 |
| Liberal Party | 3 | 17 |
| Green Party | 2 | 11 |
| Total | 100* | 642 |
TABLE 5
Expressions and targets of delegitimising criticism from Swedish MPs (per cent)
| Expressions | Targets |
|---|---|
| Bias accusations (58) | Public service (47) |
| Criticism towards the quality of the media (30) | News media in general (24) |
| Falsehood accusations (8) | Different mainstream media outlets (24)* |
| Corrective information (3) | Other (5) |
| Fake news attribution (1) |
Comments: N = 642. The table displays in percentages the prevalence of different expressions of delegitimising media criticism and the three most common targets of such criticism. The percentages are rounded to the closest integer.