The purpose of this study is to explore differences in television news format and news framing between the US and Sweden. The study focuses on the news programs broadcast by the top three television networks in the US and the top two public service channels and the leading commercial television channel in Sweden: CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News and ABC World News, and Rapport, Aktuellt and TV4 Nyheterna, respectively. Using the most different systems design, the content analysis reveals significant differences between the two countries across a number of important variables: amount of domestic vs foreign news coverage, level of journalistic visibility, length of politicians’ sound bites, attribution of responsibility and thematic vs episodic framing of the news. The discussion addresses the possible causes for these cross-cultural differences as well as the potential implications for news audiences in both countries.
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