In the public eye: Swedish school inspection and local newspapers: exploring the audit–media relationship

Abstract

Abstract This paper focuses on the dual dependencies apparent at the intersection of the media society and the audit society by empirically exploring and discussing the relationship between Swedish local newspaper coverage and school inspection activities. The research questions pertain to the Inspectorate's media strategy, how inspection is represented and conveyed, the messages sent, and who gets to speak. Literature on governance, and the role and function of the media in the wider audit society is applied theoretically. Four municipalities were selected to represent different demographical and economical structures and previous inspection experiences. The empirical material includes interviews with leading inspection officers and newspaper articles. The local newspapers portray the Inspectorate as a legitimate institution acting on behalf of and protecting the public, and even more so, the educational consumer. The current format used by the Inspectorate – a succinct reporting only on deviations – links with a favored format of the media, reinforcing the tight media–inspection relationship and leading to implications for education governance and policy. Keywords: school inspectionSwedenmediastrategygovernancelocal news Acknowledgements The authors acknowledge support from The Swedish Research Council (VR) for financing the two projects 'Swedish national school inspections: Introducing centralised instruments for governing in a decentralised context' (no 2007-3579, Rönnberg) and 'Governing by Inspection. School Inspection and Education Governance in Sweden, England and Scotland' (no 2009-5770, Segerholm, Lindgren, Rönnberg). The authors further acknowledge Umeå University for financing the project 'Inspecting the 'Market': Education at the Intersection of Marketisation and Central State Control' (no 223-14-09, Rönnberg, Lindgren). We also wish to thank the anonymous referees for their valuable comments. Notes 1. According to SI inspectors interviewed in the project, the ambiguity of the earlier reports – with their space for positive and negative judgments – was abandoned partly because they opened them up for different interpretations on behalf of schools (i.e. criticized schools were able to hold onto positive judgments and downplay the negative). 2. The number of complaints has increased dramatically: during the first quarter of 2010, complaints to BEO and SI increased by 70% compared to the same period in 2009 (BEO Citation2011). 3. The revised School Act implemented in 2011 is however designed to provide the Inspectorate additional 'teeth,' for instance, by introducing economic sanctions such as fines (SFS Citation2010, 800).