Journalistification,Transnationalism and Critique in Swedish Television’s Cultural Magazine Kobra (2001−2017)

Abstract

The cultural magazine Kobra (2001−2017) was one of the longest running shows in Swedish public service television history. Kobra defined culture broadly as arts, popular culture and subcultures, both international and Swedish. The study uses three lenses—journalistification, transnationality and cultural/societal criticism—to analyze how Kobra evolved over its long run. It focuses on four globally eventful years 2001, 2005, 2011, and 2016 and shows how the shifting SVT mandate is reflected in the show’s title sequences, program structure, visual features, and text. Transnationality becomes established through topic themed episodes connecting various cultural domains in different parts of the world or through country/city-themed episodes. A close reading from three different years reveals that Kobra exercised transnational systemic criticism through the choice of theme and interview subjects, rather than through evaluation of cultural expression, in line with its increasing journalistification and public service mandate.

From its launch until its last year on air in 2017, the cultural magazine program Kobra was known for its unique mix of arts, popular culture and subcultures, alternating and integrating Swedish and international culture. This approach contributed to making it one of the most successful and longest-running programs in Swedish public service television history. Kobra’s genesis was the result of a bureaucratic overhaul at Swedish Television (SVT) undertaken to adapt it to a more competitive television landscape, fragmenting audiences, and the emerging internet. SVT’s cultural department was given increased emphasis, resources, and priority. Three new cultural programs were announced in early 2001: a daily cultural news show to cover topical events and investigative stories (Kulturnyheterna), K special which hosts cultural documentaries, and finally a cultural magazine by the name of Kobra. Presented cryptically as a “new” type of cultural program, the Swedish press wrote that the title Kobra referred to the ambitions to be “venomous, knowledgeable, speak with a forked tongue and /. . ./ would sometimes shed its skin” (Sidenbladh 2001, 46). It aimed to be innovative and go beyond the “usual” cultural institutions (Kronbrink 2001), tell “powerful” and “surprising” stories (Wennö 2001) and cover global cultural trends, putting “Swedish developments in architecture, dance, art and music in an international context” (Wahlund 2001, 62). Kobra’s “surprising” aspects included creative title sequences and jingles, innovative visuals and music, and a mix of everyday and established culture that could be seen as tools to “create” a new cultural audience. Indeed, in its first year, Kobra drew an average of 464,000 viewers (spring season) and 481,000 (fall season) viewers—far beyond what was usual for a cultural program (Sundvall 2001).

This study looks at Kobra’s development over time and analyzes it through three lenses: as an example of the increasing journalistification of cultural journalism (Hellman and Jaakkola 2012; Sarrimo 2017), to determine how transnationalism is constructed in the television text, and to ascertain how cultural/societal criticism is articulated in the program. “Journalistification” refers to cultural journalism’s increasingly topical orientation, and its more objective and descriptive voice, rather than the evaluation and commentary traditionally associated with cultural criticism (Jaakkola 2015). This is studied through tracking Kobra’s title sequences and structure, its visual features, and SVT’s own intentions in relation to the years analyzed. For transnationality, the analysis highlights how the episodes’ themes are constructed, its geographic reach and how different parts of the world are connected in the years studied. A close reading of three episodes from three different years underscores how transnationality is constructed in the text and reveals if and how critical questions are raised about societal structures and cultural expression in Kobra.

The term transnationality is used to denote connections and exchanges across national borders that do not necessarily take place between representatives of states—relationships between people, ideas, goods, and industries at the local, national, regional or global level. For example, in world metropoles, there can be artists/writers/authors with hybrid identities, and collaborations or inspiration between people in different small towns or regions. Transnational ideas may be global issues for humanity (migration, climate change, artificial intelligence) or issues shared by people in the same region across national borders. Transnational arenas can emerge where grassroots movements, specialist networks or artists operate or when new cultural forms based on hybrid identities emerge, for example like HipHop music in different countries (Janssen et al. 2008). Research has established that Swedish cultural journalism is characterized by a transnational perspective in most of its cultural stories, but that its transnationality is not necessarily global (Roosvall and Widholm 2018). In both Sweden and many European countries, cultural journalism tends to be focused on Europe and the United States (Janssen et al. 2008; Purhonen et al. 2018). Whether Kobra has a more global reach is an empirical question.

Why investigate the degree and articulation of criticism in Kobra? As a public service company, SVT must balance impartiality and the right of reply with its task to produce, monitor and scrutinize different art forms and cultural expression (Sveriges Television. 2000, 64−66). Despite the existence of long-running magazine programs reviewing literature and film, ¹ SVT had long been criticized for showing rather than evaluating culture (Nordmark 1999, 330). At the time of reorganization of SVT in 1999, the Cultural Department aimed for a more journalistic—or less sycophantic—critical coverage, and more international culture in its output (Riegert and Roosvall 2017, 104–105). ² A second reason is that cultural journalism in radio and television have been found to be characterized more by narrative text types (reportage, documentaries) and dialogic text types (talk shows and studio discussions) than cultural journalism in the press, where evaluative and descriptive text types dominate (Widholm et al. 2021). While a descriptive text type is more often less critical than an evaluative one, it is not possible to characterize narrative text types without analysis: they may be evaluative, descriptive, or argumentative (Virtanen 1992). Given this, the question is the extent to which Kobra as a type of knowledge production contains critique and how it is articulated (Corner 2007, 368). Critique is here conceived as a “broad analytical and interpretive approach to cultural phenomena” including “reflections on broader societal and political issues” (Kristensen et al. 2021).

In 2005, Kobra won the Swedish television award Kristallen for “Magazine Program of the Year.” In 2009, it won in the category “Culture and Society Program of the Year.” Three years later, it was nominated in the category “Factual Program of the Year.” This may say more about the television industry than about Kobra, but it is indicative of the blurry line between societal and cultural issues that characterizes Kobra, indeed Swedish cultural journalism in general. (Riegert et al. 2015).

Kobra’s World in Four Acts

According to SVT, Kobra was originally intended to appeal to a broad national audience, wider than those previously watching cultural programing (Sveriges Television. 2000). The aim was to follow cultural events and trends, but also to reflect culture as different ways of life. This meant reflecting the Zeitgeist through artists, performers, authors, and cultural personalities’ interpretations of existential, social and political issues, but also through a more creative audiovisual profile. Kobra spotlighted little known sub-cultures, such as segments on schnapps songwriters, games of chance and Soviet-era theme parks.

It is not reasonable to review all the nearly 400 episodes of Kobra during its seventeen years on air, so certain years were selected: the first year it aired (2001), two years in the middle (2005, 2011), and one year before the program was canceled (2016). This selection aims to capture change over time, but also to study episodes in very eventful years from a global perspective. In 2001 the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and two other sites led to the US-led global “war on terror.” The Danish Muhammad cartoons marked 2005, which triggered cultural conflict between the Islamic world and Europe. The Arab Uprisings characterized 2011, and Europe dealt with the aftermath of the so-called “refugee crisis” in 2016, when also Donald Trump was surprisingly elected President of the United States.

When Kobra began broadcasting in spring 2001, each episode had a running time of forty-five minutes (nineteen episodes in total). By 2005, it had a more streamlined format and was shortened to thirty minutes and the two seasons contained twelve episodes each, with a China Special and a Kobra Special at the end of the year (twenty-six episodes in total). In 2011, Kobra had two seasons of thirteen episodes each, a Kobra Special and Ten Years of Kobra Special (twenty-seven episodes). In 2016, Kobra had only ten episodes per season, with a special Kobra on David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust album rebroadcast to mark the artist’s death (twenty-one episodes in total). This analysis is based on eighty-nine of the ninty-three episodes that aired during the four chosen years. ³ The years studied do not include many of the episodes broadcast from different cities across the world, particularly during 2008−09 (e.g., from Ethiopia, Thailand, Buenos Aires, Tijuana, Iran, Bombay, Tel Aviv, etc.), so they are not representative of Kobra’s geographic spread, but they provide sufficient evidence for an analysis of change over time relating to journalistification, transnationalism, and critique. The next section focuses on the structure, segments, and vignettes in order to demonstrate the show’s increasing journalistification and how its transnationalism becomes consolidated.

Kobra Popularizes Cultural Programming—2001

The original structure of Kobra differed from all the later years due to its setting, length, and the key role of animations and music video jingles that function as transitions between about seven segments. The red thread between the segments consists of host Ingvar Storm in different hotel rooms in towns and cities across Sweden. Also exclusive to this year are the guests who visit the hotel room and bar, with live music ending each episode. Kobra explores literature, theater, art, film, photography, design, fashion, music, and architecture, but also pop culture and tourism in segments like: “Why is Lill Lindfors popular in Japan?” (2001-03-29), “Print your own book with new print-on-demand technology” (2001-04-12), and “The new Swedish experience industry” (2001-05-03). ⁴ Kobra also touches on societal issues through architecture and history. There appears to be a trend in architecture’s relationship to well-being, such as Kobra’s visit to architect Richard Neutra’s “Health House” in Los Angeles and the segment on the impact of prison architecture on inmates (2001-04-12). A later episode deals with the historic architectures of “insane” asylums (2001-05-10).

The first Kobra year is less international than in any other year examined here. The host is never seen outside of Sweden. Instead, it showcases visitors to Sweden—novelists like James Ellroy and Zadie Smith, or a Cuban vocal sampling group—or Swedes abroad in Italy, Japan, the US and Germany, but the geographical emphasis is on different parts of Sweden. Many of the speaking actors in Kobra are “ordinary” people: prison wardens, Swedish-Americans, neighbors of buildings and monuments, “ambassadors” in the experience industry, people who participate in art projects, etc. The themes of the episodes are not clear from some of the headlines: “Hunters of various kinds” (2001-10-04), “Language—new words and word wars” (2001-11-08), “The drawbacks of rewards” (2001-12-06).

In between the segments, there are jingles resembling short music videos, with different ideas of their own to convey. ⁵ The most important of these is the “Read My Lips” series, some of which are still available on YouTube. The production company Atmo was responsible for both this and other jingles, as well as for the title sequence of Kobra ⁶ called “Dabo” (Figure 1), which has a multicultural/house-inspired sound set to images interspersing Swedish cultural personalities and people from around the world.

Figure 1.

Kobra Title Sequence 2001. Photo courtesy of Atmo. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOsslNrV5TA.

Characteristic of Dabo and Read My Lips were short clips, lip-synched world leaders, animations, a high tempo remix of house and world music or a famous song or nursery rhyme contrasting with what is shown in the images. ⁷ The animations recall the then popular “viral” GIFS from this time period, but many of the videos are satirical, aimed at dictators, presidents, mass culture or consumerism. One of these jingles went viral in autumn 2001—a duet set to the song “Endless Love” in which US President George Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair appear to be singing about their love for each other. ⁸

In addition, several satirical jingles from different episodes target Swedish or global power structures. One “Read my Lips” segment consists of a stop motion animation entitled “Film Chronicle from Tora Bora,” in which a figure representing Osama bin Laden sits outside a cave in Afghanistan next to a small television. Bin Laden is voiced over by Harry Schein, the legendary founder of the Swedish Film Institute. He reviews the Rambo II movie, giving it only two “Kalashnikovs” because it is a Hollywood film that is “too violent” (2001-12-20). Schein also voices over two other animated shorts: “Message from SVT” and “The Legitimacy of SL Transit Tickets!.” The former responds to accusations of nepotism at SVT by announcing that the problem of spousal hire can be solved by cloning existing employees (2001-04-12). The latter accuses the Stockholm Transit Authority (SL) of being “a state within a state” and “tonight we will tell you how SL is segregating Greater Stockholm through violence, control and travel documents” (2001-04-26). Atmos’ jingles are segments that break the cozy atmosphere in the rest of the show with biting social satire, unexpected animations, and creative audio-visual editing.

Kobra’s first year gives a disjointed impression, characterized by sudden breaks in tempo and style, moving between live performances and intimate conversations from the meta to the hyperlocal, but with an inclusive approach to lived culture through its vox pops with ordinary people. The drawback of such a strategy is the lack of a red thread running through the episodes. The title sequence “Dabo” expresses a multiculturalism that is not really reflected in the content 2001.

Kobra goes all in—2005

SVT’s annual report in 2005 states that it will continue to prioritize cultural content by launching several new cultural programs: Sverige!, Studio Pop, Format and Babel. Kobra is now profiled as a “somewhat narrower, more avant-garde and more sophisticated program emphasizing international culture” and was moved to the niche channel 2, rather than the broader channel 1. SVT writes that Kobra is not tasked with “monitoring” culture, but “nevertheless it chose to address some of the most important current events. Each episode featured a weekly or monthly topical event” (Sveriges Television 2005, 27). SVT also emphasized Kobra’s innovative audiovisual form.

Kristofer Lundström had replaced Ingvar Storm as host already in 2002. The structure has been streamlined to about five segments with video promos for next week’s episode. Atmo’s jingles and music videos were replaced by odd camera angles, playful images, and sounds that mark transitions between the segments. There are now recurring feature segments with cartoonist Jan Stenmark and columnist Jessika Gedin, and a parodic segment consisting of an impersonator dressed as Sweden’s then Culture Minister Leif Pagrotsky getting into various embarrassing situations. Atmo’s “Dabo” title sequence remains, but the imagery has been switched to show Swedish cultural personalities from different artistic domains in different situations on the same stage. ⁹

The most important difference to 2001 is that the episode format for Kobra is starkly themed and more coherent in 2005. Each episode is now theme-based in one of two ways. The first is a topic theme that gathers different geographical and cultural domains with titles like: “Weapons,” “Sound in Film and Politics,” “Science Fiction,” “Surveillance,” “Culture and Climate.” The other format can be called a country/city theme, where the host goes to different countries or cities and presents aspects of cultural life there. In 2005, entire episodes are devoted to Kiev, Sarajevo, Cairo and China. These country or city themed episodes could also feature artists based somewhere else if they were relevant to the cultural scene in question, thus making transnational connections between that place and another geographic location. The use of cities rather than countries suggests a cosmopolitan focus in that it makes transnational links.

Kobra Sheds Its Skin—2011

Journalistification is evident in a myriad of ways in 2011. According to SVT’s annual report, Kobra was tasked with covering international events as part of its obligation to “monitor, reflect and critically examine events in various fields of cultural life” (Sveriges Television 2010, 15). This formulation marks a change in SVT’s description of Kobra: from “avant-garde” with no obligation to “monitor current events” (2005) to a task traditionally given to SVT’s news shows (“monitor, reflect and scrutinize”). The title sequences and sound mixes shift between the spring and fall season from a festive, playful, and colorful array of sight and sound to a more lofty view from above, signaling a more philosophical monitory role for the program. The spring season’s title sequence has a festive up-tempo sound, depicting an anonymous folk festival in a field with sports cars and brightly colored flags. ¹⁰ The color scale shifts several times during the sequence, ending with a brightly colored blank full screen containing one or two words that relate to the episode’s themes. Between this, short clips from the coming episode are inserted. For the fall season, the music is more spartan and the visuals are based on giant balloons with the word Kobra on them. ¹¹ A balloon is released by a person in an empty landscape whereupon the next clip shows what the ground, the clouds, the stratosphere, and space look like from the rising balloon. Common to both seasons is that the title sequence now comes after several headlines, similar to the title sequence in television news.

The visual transitions between segments of previous years are now replaced by a brightly colored blank screen with a word from the theme on it. There are still playful camera angles on the host Kristofer Lundström, and the format still includes two recurring feature segments, one comic strip by cartoonist Liv Strömquist and a short film segment (Niklas Hansson Loma)—they are reflective, subtle, and dissimilar to the reportage-like interviews in other segments. The topic themes and country/city themes mark each episode. Some examples of the first are: “Homophobia,” “Meat,” “Revolutions and the Media,” “True Crime,” “Our Love-Hate Relationship with Plastic,” and “On the American Expression White Trash.” The country/city themed episodes are from London, Baku (Azerbaijan), Lagos (Nigeria), Brazil and Macao.

The segment producers are now credited as “reporters,” and the orientation is clearly on current events. Kobra covers the London riots (2011-09-27), culture after an election in Nigeria (2011-04-26), the cultural scene in Baku, slated to host the Eurovision Song Contest (2011-12-13) and the cultural role of the media related to the Arab Uprisings (2011-03-22). Episodes deal with censorship, human rights, class, racism and sexuality in different parts of the world.

Kobra in the raw—2016

Reflecting its more monitory role, Kobra was moved back to the broader channel SVT1 in 2012, but the audio-visual changes to the title sequence took place in 2016. It is very short, very tight and the music is more subdued than in previous years. It is visually marked only by a purple lace place mat with the word Kobra on it, and a subtitle with the episode’s theme fades in. The audience is brought straight into the program via various clips from the evening’s episode, and the host’s voice is heard introducing the evening’s episode, like in the evening news shows. The music is generic and not immediately recognizable as part of any musical tradition. Instead of audio-visual transitions between segments, we see the placemat with a hashtag, #SVTKobra, between segments.

In 2016 Kobra has two hosts: Kristofer Lundström and Lina Thomsgård. During the spring season, the pair will stand on a street and take turns to say their piece at the beginning and end of each episode. The format has become even more like television news: segments with interviewees, interspliced with packages with a different voice or archive footage that provide more background. Gone are the parodic or satirical segments, the commentary, the cartoonists, and short films. Judging by the credits, the editorial staff has been slimmed considerably, even if the autumn season saw a strengthening of resources and a change allowing the hosts to work every other episode.

Both topic themed and country/city themed episodes continue, but now there is a more post-colonial, hybrid sensibility to the themes. The presenters start with a headline: “What happens when art clashes with science?,” “The disappeared publishers: how is free speech really doing in Hong Kong?” or “The end of waste? The global vintage industry.” There are episodes on Angola’s cultural artifacts stolen by colonial powers, Cape Verde’s Creole music culture, the misunderstood voodoo of Haiti, and “Afrofuturism” - a trend in music, literature and film in which black people star in various visions of the future. As in the past, Kobra also produces country themed episodes from Hong Kong, Poland, North Korea, the United States, and Finland.

To summarize, the Kobra format underwent various changes during its seventeen years. It was launched as a broad quirky cultural program, which became more “avant-garde” in 2005, only to became more popularized and journalistified in the 2010s. The program’s audiovisual playfulness and satirical edge were strong in the first two time periods, while the last two periods demonstrate an evolving journalistification of the format coupled with the heightened demand by SVT for topicality. The last period was characterized by global, post-colonial and existential questions about the future, but the format no longer allowed for reflective, essayistic, or visually creative elements.

Stability and Change in Kobra’s Geographical Reach

The previous section established quite substantial changes over the years in Kobra’s format: title sequences, visuals and music, transitions, and segments, but there is also stability in its transnational orientation. According to the case study in Riegert et al. (2022, 174), the overall coverage of the most important cultural domains in Kobra—visual arts, popular music and political/societal issues—remains stable across the years studied. The prominence of political and societal issues is related Kobra’s focus on the surrounding world, not least on countries outside the West where issues like freedom of expression, censorship and corruption affect cultural life. Interesting in this context was the focus on class in several episodes in 2011. Class was related to racial discrimination in episodes about Brazil (2011-04-12) and the London riots (2011-09-27), but more to societal or lifestyle issues in episodes like Meat (2011-10-04) and White Trash (2011-11-22). In 2016, episodes relating political/societal issues are about forensic architecture and war crimes, the US election, controversy around history in Polish film, cultural heritage and post-colonialism (Riegert et al. 2022, 174–175).

Regarding Kobra’s geographic reach in the years studied, Riegert et al. (2022) found that Kobra consistently gave three geographical areas the most attention: Western Europe, Sweden, and North America (actually, the US). This pattern is consistent with other studies of Swedish and European cultural journalism (Lauronen et al. 2019; Roosvall and Widholm 2018). Two caveats though: Kobra gives more attention to non-Western countries than Swedish cultural journalism normally does (Riegert et al. 2022, 120), and there is a noteable shift in attention after 2001 from the Nordic countries and Eastern Europe/Russia, to Asia, the Middle East, South America, and, especially Africa, which increases in 2016.

Graph 1.

Geographic regions per episode in Kobra 2001, 2005, 2011, 2016 (in percent).

If the regions of the Global South are amalgamated, they have more attention in Kobra than Western Europe in 2016. One should not overinterpret this, given that the Nordic countries and Eastern Europe/Russia got more coverage in 2001 than Asia did in any single year, despite its many countries and cultures. Further Sweden and the US are somewhat underestimated, as more segments from the same country in an episode are not counted multiple times, but Sweden still dominates in 2001 and 2011. Despite the general Western dominance, Kobra clearly shifts its focus by 2016 from Sweden and North America to the Global South.

As noted in the previous section, apart from the jingles and title sequence, Kobra’s initial year was pedestrian, essentially focusing on visits to Sweden and Swedes’ abroad. The format change in 2005 wove the episodes into one of two themes: either basing the episode in a city or country, or intertwining art forms and geographic location into a topic theme. The latter can be exemplified by a blurb about the episode “Desert” (2011-10-18):

We meet the desert blues band Tinariwen, who live and record in the desert of northern Mali, and American artist Andrea Zittel, who runs an art project in the Mojave Desert outside Los Angeles. Kobra has also visited the ruins of the experimental town of Llano del Rio, located in the Californian desert. Presenter Kristofer Lundström travels to Europe’s only desert, Almeria in southern Spain (SVT2, 2011 Swedish Media Database 2011, my translation).

This blurb does not include the interview with geographer Nick Middleton in the Moroccan desert or the segment on why Hollywood films are shot in Morocco. So, there are four geographical locations here, but also a myriad of transnational relations that can be read. It is in the topic themed episodes that Kobra weaves together music, art, film, geography, and societal issues. But even in country or city-based episodes there are often links established between cultural life there and other places, not least through protagonists’ geographical mobility or hybrid identity. As noted above, 2016 stands out as a strong year for transnational issues involving non-Western countries. So, while there is stability in the cultural domains covered, the show’s transnationality developed from somewhat stereotypical transnational connections in 2001 to thematic treatment of more global issues with ramifications in different parts of the world.

A Critical Perspective in Kobra?

SVT’s public service report wrote that Kobra’s task was to “monitor, reflect and critically examine” international areas of cultural life (Sveriges Television 2010, 15), but does this mean that Kobra was meant to scrutinize in the journalistic sense, that is, a critical look at the cultural field from the perspective of freedom of expression, gender, racism, class, etc., or was it meant to evaluate culture itself? In 2001, Kobra broadened the focus of cultural magazine programs to everyday experiences, and it was celebrated for Atmos’ satirical videos critiquing societal and transnational power structures, but these disappeared in the other studied years. Certainly, Kobra’s hosts could be critical of human rights abuses, corruption and repression in country-based episodes outside Sweden, but given its public service mandate, how is criticism articulated in an episode about Sweden? The episodes chosen for the close reading were among those that seemed most critical at first glance and the analysis tries to ascertain how it is accomplished within the narrative text type.

The framework for the close reading of three episodes in Kobra is inspired by cultural critic Axel Andersson’s (2018) meta-reflective essay on how criticism can reclaim societal relevance in the era of “second generation democratization and digitalization” (p. 11). He advocates revisiting basic taken-for-granted concepts and structures of criticism: the seeming dichotomies between selection and automation, professional and amateur, and time and place, arguing that rethinking these will give criticism a more robust role in public discourse. Of relevance for a close reading of Kobra, is the notion of selection in criticism as a “series of choices between conscious and unconscious, or automatic, positions. The first selection is what work is to be criticized. The second is what in the work should be described and the third selection leads to the evaluation of the work” (p. 15, my translation). Andersson argues that reflecting on what becomes the object of criticism is important since much everyday cultural criticism is based on habitual choices resulting from previous knowledge of certain cultural producers, institutions and industries. Furthermore, such habitual processes are related to socio-economic class, and what can be considered culture and worthy of criticism. The second set of critical choices of how to describe the work involves a range of considerations having to do with whether it is intended for an initiated or uninitiated public (which influences what is highlighted), but here too are routine choices found in the conventions of different artistic domains for what aspects or actors need representation, not to mention how powerful cultural producers attempt to shape the way their works are described. Finally, the evaluation, or judgment, he argues is seldom cased in absolute terms, but is more often relative, comparing previous works that are better or worse - more or less relevant to the contemporary moment (p. 24). These too, are based on conventional expectations guiding notions of quality (i.e., style, form, contribution to knowledge, social values), which in themselves may be weighted differently by actors in a certain domain. All too often, he claims, an opinion is conflated with criticism; to say a work is popular (a bestseller or a musical) has “no critical potential” unless there is a relationship to the individual who makes this judgment (p. 24). Using Andersson’s reflections as tools, the close reading aims to pinpoint the way criticism is constructed in the television text.

“After the Cold War”

This topic themed episode (premiered 2005-11-09) opens with host Kristofer Lundström at the Muskö naval base asking where globalization and the global world order stand today, after the Cold War. The thrust of the episode is explain systemic criticism of the West from various cultural worker’s perspectives. Three of the main segments of the episode consist of an interview with famous Cold War author John le Carré; a reportage from India on its success as a fashion industry export nation; and two interviews with acclaimed young authors who have “roots across several continents,” both of whom are said to “ask difficult questions” about globalization and where it is leading us.

In the context of a new film based on his book The Constant Gardner (2005)—John le Carré proclaims that he is more disillusioned about the global world order than ever. Le Carré says his story is about corporate greed and Western complicity in the unethical practices of the global pharmaceutical industry in Africa. After the Cold War, he says, Western leaders “have sacrificed their principles and their humanity” and “sanction torture.” Iraq was invaded because “the United States cannot unite as a nation without an external enemy.” This prompts Lundström to ask whether le Carré is not afraid his outspokenness about the Iraq war and globalization will alienate his readers, to which le Carré replies that it is a necessity for fiction writers to “reflect truths that otherwise would not come out in public.”

Transitioning from this bleakness, host Lundström says that there is also something positive to be said about how Western cultural hegemony is being challenged by countries like China and India. Jane Magnusson’s reportage shows that some Indian fashion designers are successful in Western fashion capitals paradoxically through exploiting the West’s penchant for individuality. She says: “It’s almost nice to hear that Indian fashion designers are exploiting us, it’s usually our fashion designers who exploit Indians [. . .] Where we have fantasy images of an India full of elephants, maharajas and crazy dance numbers, they are now creating fantasy images of us.” Fashion designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee’s concept, “The Frog Princess” represents his image of Western bohemians, with runway models in dreadlocks and tattered pants. Magnusson explains approvingly that Mukherjee “wasn’t selling poverty, he was selling his image of the Western world. The roles are reversed, and this is probably how it will remain.”

Lundström leads into the last segment by saying that after the fall of the Berlin Wall, both globalization and anti-globalization movements appeared, and that in connection with this, religion made a comeback in people’s everyday lives. “Two of the most acclaimed writers in the world today,” an Englishman and a Canadian from the same generation, are interviewed: Hari Kunzru’s novel is about how the globalized IT industry makes “cannon fodder” of his Indian protagonist in Silicon Valley, and Irshad Manji, who is presented as a female Muslim believer and called “Osama bin Laden’s worst nightmare.” In her book, she calls for ishtihad, a tradition of critical thinking in and about Islam. In the segment, she argues that Swedes should not avoid asking critical questions about Islam for fear of being called racists. Kobra’s producer Johan von Sydow underlines that both authors believe that if we do not ask “critical questions,” there is a risk of conflict between the Global South and the West.

Thinking about the episode along the lines of Andersson’s first component, criticism through selection, Kobra has chosen well-known and even celebrated subjects, and lets them describe Western leaders’ unethical use of torture, critique of big pharma, self-indulgent individualism and capitalism’s pursuit of profit—all elements critical of Western hegemony. Regarding Andersson’s second component description, each segment highlights the ways that literature and fashion question Western leaders, or reflect our stereotypes back to us, or how critique of the Western lifestyle can be used as a competitive advantage or presages cultural conflict. Regarding the evaluation, no critical evaluations are made about the interviewees’ work, just that some are “acclaimed.” The criticism comes mainly from the interviewees or through the selection of works in two of the segments, while in another segment, the interview responses are interpreted and evaluated from a positive view of post-Western global change. This can be called systemic criticism, but it is mainly carried by the interviewees, and only through the selection of subjects by the cultural journalists at Kobra.

Brazil—Can People Have Rhythm in Their Blood?

Kobra in Brazil (premiered 2011-04-12) is a country-themed episode that is itself highly thematic since almost all the interviews are linked to a critical examination of race and the myth of the “smiling, dancing” Brazilian culture. At the same time, there is a whiff of exoticizing travel show which defeats this ambition, something not unusual for Kobra’s country-themed episodes. The first images circulate over the city called the “face of Brazil,” Rio de Janeiro with host Kristofer Lundström sitting in a tourist boat promising a look behind the scenes. Next, Kobra’s historical segment is shown, focusing on Brazil’s history of African slaves and Europeans, which Lundström says gives Brazil’s people “its unique mixed character.” Statistics are kept, says Lundström, and

Even today, every newborn Brazilian is classified according to the colour of their skin. In the 1930s the concept of racial democracy was introduced in an attempt by the authorities to make racial diversity a strength. Samba, joy and rhythm have been important parts of the image of a Brazilian. [. . .] but now there are those who question the clichéd image - can one really have rhythm in one’s blood?

The next segment flashes images of the Swedish Employment Agency, Systembolaget [state-owned liquor stores] and the Social Insurance Agency, as “reporter” Johan von Sydow compares Swedish myths about having the world’s best social safety net to Brazilian mythmaking. The Brazilian myth is that dance and joy can overcome the large race and class differences between indigenous people, descendants of black slaves and Europeans.

Following this, Lundström interviews a documentary filmmaker whose film “The Samba Within Me” is about “one of the world’s most famous samba schools” in the slum area of Mangueira. The film was shown at the Stockholm Film Festival in autumn 2010, he says, and illustrates one of Brazil’s problems, that “the middle class and the slum dwellers live next door to each other, but the distance between them could not be greater.” Lundström does not review the film other than to say that it is “extremely beautiful” and says that it took a long time to finish to circumvent the “clichéd image of violence.” The problems of race, racial discrimination and low social status are discussed in the segments that follow: interviews with two men who founded an all-black dance company, a black actor and an anthropologist. In the last segment, Arto Lindsay, “one of the world’s most innovative guitarists,” raised in Brazil in the sixties and seventies, but living in New York from the seventies, provides a kind of closure to the main question of the episode. Lindsay compares the Brazilian myth to the US myth of freedom, saying that myths are a necessary part of society.

The episode is obviously structured around the contrasts between idyll and reality, Brazil’s external façade and the stories it tells itself. Kobra’s desire to convey complexity clashes at times with segments depicting Brazilian stereotypes relating to soccer and music. In Andersson’s terms, the episode is an example of criticism through its selection of interviewees: most of whom relate to the notion of rhythm, racial/social structures and myths. Regarding description, the artists’ work is described through the prism of the country’s racial and class structures, with the exception of Arto Lindsay. Although the transnational links are inherent to the country’s hybridized population, there are somewhat forced references to Swedish and US national myths. In terms of evaluation, despite the difficult balancing act between the exoticizing myths (images of Bossa nova, soccer, street parties), and the discrimination and wealth inequalities in Brazil, the episode is an example of a narrative text type that is fundamentally a critical look at how cultural life reflects racial and class divisions in a society. However, as in the previous analysis of “After the Cold War,” there a no real attempts by the Kobra host to review the cultural expressions themselves.

“The Battle for Crafts”

This topic themed episode (premiered 2016-04-12) begins with the two hosts introducing handicrafts as something increasingly “popular,” but also controversial, since a battle has ensued about “who really owns the concept.” Handicrafts are introduced as not only a “hobby and diversion,” but also a symbol and arena for strong opinions, anti-consumerism, for feminism, as well as the “reactionary preservation of nationalism.” It has the following segments: the history of the handicraft movement from the nineteenth century, a reportage from the Örnsberg auction, interviews with a professional handicraftsman, an interview with the author of the book Gerillaslöjd [Guerilla Craftism], an interview with the cultural policy spokesman for the far-right Sweden Democrats, Aron Emilsson, and an interview with the Director of Uppland’s Museum, Håkan Liby.

Regarding Andersson’s first component criticism in “selection,” the episode is based on the rise of the global “craftivism” movement for solidarity and sustainability, against mass consumption. The historical segment sets the stage for this by pointing to the way handicrafts have previously been seen: originally as folk protests against industrial capitalism, but later as folk culture, museums and tourism. The author of Gerillaslöjd describes global craftivism by demonstrating the uses of embroidery and street art to protest and express feminist sensibility and solidarity in the public space. In two consecutive segments we see how in 2010, far-right politicians used handicrafts and folk costumes as symbols of Swedishness. Folk musicians and others are given soundbites refusing to allow their work to be “hijacked” for nationalist ends. The Sweden Democrat cultural spokesman is interviewed about whether folk culture really is Swedish, followed by a segment with the Uppsala museum director, who confirms that Swedish folk textiles are central European. The segment refutes the nationalists’ embrace of folk costumes, describing them as not uniquely Swedish, but essentially transnational phenomena.

Regarding Andersson’s notions of criticism in description and evaluation, the interviewees are primarily responsible for the descriptions of the various works presented, and in this case, also for a critical evaluation of one type of work. The Örnsberg auction is presented as recycled goods, innovative design, something that Kobra says is extremely popular and belongs to the “front lines of the future.” ¹² However, professional craftsman Jögge Sandqvist is critical of the quality of these products; saying that the whole purpose of sustainability is defeated if products are not made to last. Thus, the episode delineates two lines of criticism, that between folk music/handicrafts and the cultural appropriation of nationalism, and between traditional craftmanship and the contemporary craftivist movement. In doing so, it reflects central debates about migration and Swedishness, and about consumerism and quality. This is accomplished through Kobra’s choice of interview subjects and their descriptions of the context. Again, the evaluations of the objects themselves are left to the interviewees.

In short, in all three episodes Kobra’s host and reporters make few assessments of the artistic works they cover, but they use the term “popular” and “acclaimed” to justify their choices of interviewee or topic—conferring value on their selection. The interviewees are authors, actors, musicians, dancers, fashion designers and craftspeople who are themselves engaged in social/cultural systemic criticism—about relations between the Global South and the West, about race and class, and about transnational solidarity, anti-consumerism, and nationalism. So, criticism is articulated mainly through the Kobra staff’s choice of themes and subjects. Relating back to Kobra’s public service remit, it could be said that allowing interview subjects to express criticism protects the program from charges of bias by the Swedish Broadcasting Authority. ¹³ In the event, systemic criticism was evident in both topic themed and country-themed episodes, so one could say that criticism is woven into the transnationality of Kobra.

Conclusion

The analysis shows that while Kobra retained its original identity, its format and mandate became more journalistic from the 2010 and onward. It retained a broad and original concept of lived culture—covering the arts, popular and subcultures—interweaving culture with political/societal issues and distancing itself from the usual cultural institutions. The topic themed episodes were methods to construct transnationality by bringing together different cultural domains, actors and geographical areas. Kobra’s journalistification was a decision by SVT who tasked it to “monitor” current cultural events and labeled producers “reporters.” This paved the way for more topical culture—riots, uprisings, race, class, and sexuality issues, as well as format changes that ultimately removed the segments typical of a cultural magazine—reflective, essayistic, satirical, short films, or visually creative sequences. When the format was most “newsified” in 2016, the treatment of global and post-colonial issues increased.

Kobra’s first year distinguished its format and content from mainstream cultural programing and used innovative satirical jingles about power politics, musical remixes, and viral animations. In terms of criticism, these jingles represented Kobra’s own voice (even if they were created by an independent producer). In contrast, the close reading of three episodes from 2005, 2011, and 2016 shows that criticism was articulated in different episodes through Kobra’s selection of topics and the subjects interviewed. This type of criticism differs from evaluative text types in the press and radio, and even from reviews by critics in SVT’s Cultural News (Hellman et al. 2017). However, it demonstrates how cultural critique is interpreted by producers of an audio-visual format within the confines of increasing journalistification by a public service organization.