Following the revelations of sexual abuse, and not least its prevalence in Hollywood, the fall 2017 #Metoo hashtag also gained prominence in Sweden and Denmark.
But how the media approached and described the topic differed markedly, according to a new study from the University of Gothenburg. #Metoo got about four times as much space in the largest Swedish newspapers as the Danish ones.
In Sweden, the topic is often raised at news sites. While the Danish media mainly wrote about it on the cultural and debate pages. The survey also shows that Danish male journalists in particular were critical of the Metoo movement.
- In Denmark, #MeToo was presented as something you can have different attitudes to, not as a structural problem that requires answers from Danish politicians or changed legislation. The fact that #MeToo was treated as a topic of debate meant that virtually no Danish politicians commented on the issue during the period, says researcher Jannie Møller Hartley, who, together with Tina Askanius, conducted the study, in a press release.