نبذة مختصرة : The main purpose of this study is to investigate the relation betweenlocal newspapers in Sweden, and professional clubs in football and hockey. The intention is to see if there are any changes directly connected to the rapid development of digitalization and commercialization within the Swedish media landscape.The basis for this study is that digitalization and more specifically that social media has brought more independence to the professional clubs. Due to social media, clubs nowadays have more tools to create their own news about the club. The study aims to investigate what potential consequences the club's independence has on the traditional local journalism when the clubs create their own news and post on their social platforms. Through qualitative interviews, the study investigates reporters from two different local newspapers and media representatives from four different clubs in football and hockey, with the purpose of getting answers from three research questions: How has the digitalization and commercialization of sports clubs affected the relationship between elite clubs and local media?What consequences has the shift in power within the media landscape had on local media's ability to scrutinize elite clubs?How do elite clubs view their dependence on the media, and how has this changed with the rise of social media? The result of the study shows that social media nowadays plays an important role for the clubs. Both in terms of commercialization, digitalization and reaching out to the audience. Secondly, the professional clubs have developed their own media institutions, which have created a new competitive situation for local newspapers in Sweden. Despite the independence of the professional clubs, there is a common understanding of a good relationship between both parts, and a mutual dependency of the roles in the Swedish media landscape.
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