Approaches to Political Commentary in Scandinavia

Abstract

Political commentary is a contested genre that has attracted a great deal of attention in the Scandinavian public debate, whereas the scholarly literature on it is still in an initial phase. In order to strengthen future research, the present paper suggests a two-dimensional matrix indexing the research on Scandinavian political commentary along the dimensions text/context and descriptive/evaluative. The matrix enables us to see more clearly what we already know and where we lack knowledge. It enables us to see how each category can be developed, the interplay among them, and the obvious lack of textual, evaluative approaches. The author argues that a joint, cross-disciplinary engagement is necessary if we are to adequately understand the potentials and problems of political commentary.

Keywords

• political commentary
• pundits
• political journalism
• evaluative research
• rhetoric
• cross-disciplinary