Since the beginning of the pandemic, Swedes' news consumption has reached new record levels and according to the Media Barometer's annual survey, the use of news media is still at the high level of seven hours a day per person.
- We may have thought that the use and time we spend on media would decrease, but it is very similar, says Ulrika Facht media analyst at Nordicom.
The media barometer's figures for 2021 show that 53 percent of Swedes took part in news from SVT, which makes SVT the most used news broadcaster in the population as a whole.
69 percent of the population read a daily newspaper, most in digital form, and half of the population had a subscribed daily newspaper in the household in 2021.
- We have seen a downward trend for both TV news and morning newspaper reading, in favor of news online.
But now we see that the media landscape has changed, before you would attract the audience via the social media services, now you get the audience directly instead.
And more people are willing to pay for news, says Ulrika Facht.
New top levels
Preliminary figures from February, March and April 2022 also show that Swedes' news consumption rose after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Here, SVT and TV4 in particular increased the most, by 4 percentage points each.
While the proportion who receive news via Facebook decreased by 3 percentage points compared to 2021.
- What you can see as gratifying is that many have turned to established and professional news media where you go through what kind of news the citizens can take part in, says Ulrika Facht.
The results in the 2021 Media Barometer are based on responses from around 6,000 randomly selected people aged 9 to 85 years.
The media barometer annually measures the Swedish population's access to and use of different types of media.
The survey has been conducted since 1979 and is conducted by Nordicom at the University of Gothenburg on behalf of the Ministry of Culture.