How Swiss is Swiss television? Analysing structural and content references in SRG SSR television programmes

Abstract

No Billag – in Switzerland, the debate about the necessity and financial viability of public broadcasting has been sparked anew. Closely linked are questions about the public value of the SRG SSR and how much of Switzerland is actually portrayed on Swiss television. Based on a secondary analysis of the 2017 data set of the continuous Swiss content analysis study, this paper discusses the representation of Switzerland and the Swiss people in terms of representation in television programmes of the SRG SSR and in terms of media production. Results show that Switzerland plays an important role in informational genres (e. g., News), while in fictional content (e. g., series, movies) references to Switzerland are scarce. Additionally, fictional content broadcast by the SRG SSR is often produced by international production firms, with preferences for content from Switzerland’s next-door-giant neighbours.

Keywords

• public value
• service public
• television
• content analysis
• switzerland
• small state