Political Ads in the Swedish 2006 and 2010 Parliamentary Elections: Focus on the Sweden Democrats and the Role of Audiovisual Media

After nearly gaining representationin 2006, the nationalist right-wing party the Sweden Democrats entered the Swedish Parliament in 2010 following a heated election campaign. In their transformation from a peripheral enterprise into a Parliament party, audiovisual political adsplayed an under-examined yet crucial role. By analyzing the party‟s use of political ads in the 2006 and the 2010 elections, this article shows that the use of audiovisual media differed drastically, in terms of budget, distribution and rhetoric, between the two elections. Furthermore, this article analyzes how the changing media landscape, from television to online video-sharing sites such as YouTube, became a central component in the negotiation of the Sweden Democrats media image. The article concludes that the Sweden Democrats, through their use of new media and the juxtaposition of different distribution platforms, further underlined their self-proclaimed outsider status in Swedish politics.


Introduction
In the election campaigns 2006 and 2010, the nationalist right-wing party the Sweden Democrats (SD) emerged as a difficult subject to handle not only for the parties already represented in the Riksdag (Parliament), but significantly also for various media outlets. For the former, a recurring topic of debate concerned which media strategy was most efficient: to ignore the at-the-time still marginalized party or to face their politics head-on. In press, television and online, meanwhile, the main question concerned whether SD"s advertisements were publishable or not. In the general election in 2010, SD entered Parliament after receiving 5.70 percent of the votes, much to the disappointment of large segments of the Swedish society. 1 On the day following the election night, demonstrations in Sweden"s major cities mobilized thousands of people upset with the election results (BBC News 2010). Noticeably, this was the first time since SD was founded in 1988 that it gained representation in the Parliament. During this election campaign, SD received much attention both from politicians and the media. Additionally, SD spent approximately 8 million SEK on public relations and media campaigns. 2 Although this puts them in the bottom half of the parties spending most on public relations, their spending is relatively high when considering that the party was not represented in Parliament at the time. In comparison, the two biggest parties outside of the seek the answer to the question: how did the changing media landscape affect the Sweden Democrats media presence in the Swedish election campaigns in 2006 and 2010? Although the political landscape at large formed the Sweden Democrats transformation from a peripheral enterprise into a Parliament party, their use of audiovisual political ads in a changing media landscape played an under-examined yet crucial role. By studying how the Swedish Democrats use filmic techniques, rhetorical devices, and different media platforms, I want to argue that by gradually going into polemics with major media actors, turning to alternative publication forms such as online media on the website www.sverigedemokraterna.se and the video platform YouTube, the party cemented their status as an alternative to the mainstream in Swedish politics. were three of the most prominent organizations in this unification (Rydgren 2004: 215), although the party also attracted members from white supremacy fractions (Lodenius 2009: 15 other ads in the sense that the party itself produced it, and therefore it seems important to examine it in greater detail. The ad is a forty-five second segment consisting of 10 stills with various iconic shots of the Swedish landscape: in the first four shots, the Swedish archipelago, cairns, a yellow field of oilseed rape, and a sailboat with a lake in the foreground are seen.

History of the Sweden Democrats
These images are followed by a medium-shot of a kitten sitting in front of a Falu red cottage (wooden houses traditionally colored with a deep red paint), a clear-blue beach, a pier, a close-up of a Gärdsgårds-fence, and lastly the Swedish yellow-blue flag against a clear-blue sky.
According to the Professor of Political Marketing Bruce I. Newman, a successful campaign necessarily communicates "a singular message that establishes the product"s or the president"s major virtue. It must convey this message in a distinctive way so that it is not confused with similar messages from competition" (1999: 93). In the case of this political ad, the final shot delivers the Sweden Democrats message in a clear fashion, with three intertitles reading: first, "Sweden is worth defending"; second, "Let Sweden remain Sweden"; and lastly, "The Sweden Democrats -Safeness and Tradition". In contrast to the history of US election campaign films, which Joanne Morreale notes center much on establishing "a [Presidential] candidate"s character or credentials", Swedish political campaigns tend to focus less on individual leaders and more on a distinctive singular political concept that the party in question desires to promote (1993:27). By relating iconic images of the Swedish landscape, nature and culture with the Sweden Democrats" rhetoric, this film attempts to highlight the party as a safe keeper of "Swedishness". Notably, the film uses images to capitalize on nostalgia for a Sweden that now is changing due to the transformations of the welfare state. According to the official party doctrine, Swedishness is today constituted by culture and not by race. Here SD has switched its focus from ethnicity to an emphasis on culture and impermeable cultural differences (2011: 61).
By focusing more on symbolically charged images and on the importance to preserve, it seems that this film becomes yet another sign of the rebranding process of SD"s antiimmigration rhetoric.
That a reverence of Swedish culture constitutes one of the major cornerstones in the Sweden Democrats politics is further signified by the music accompanying these images. The score for this film is the iconic Swedish hymn "Den blomstertid nu kommer" (Now the time of blossoming arrives), commonly referred to as an unofficial national anthem and often played in schools at Graduation Day and at other official ceremonies. Significantly, one must note that the Graduation Day ceremony nowadays rarely takes place in churches, emphasizing that Sweden is a secular state. Similarly, the last verses of this hymn, which have a clear Christian message, tend to be excluded when this song is performed in relation to these kinds of ceremonies. This has been met with sharp criticism from SD. By using a symbolically powerful song with connotations to official ceremonies and rituals, then, a sense of nostalgia is coupled with the Sweden Democrats politics. Additionally, there is no copyright law protecting the hymn, written by Israel Kolmodin and first published in 1695, and as such use of the song falls under public domain. This is important because artists, such as the winner of the Swedish round of the Eurovision Song Contest Roger Pontare, have previously attacked the Sweden Democrats for unlawfully distributing their music through the SD online web shop and using it in promotional material (Expo 2003). By using Kolmodin"s hymn, SD effectively eliminates the risk of critique from artists themselves.
Lastly, one must further note the poor production value of this election campaign ad; it does not include any original film material, but rather the short clip consists of a collage of still images. As we shall see in the following section, the 2010 election campaign highlights an altogether different philosophy of the importance of production value, for instance in terms of shooting, editing and distribution. Given that this was the first election in Swedish history in which television commercials were allowed, comparatively few parties focused on the television medium to run targeted ads, including SD. As we shall note in the next section,  The narrator comments: "Politics is about priorities. Now the choice is yours". Following this, a medium shot showcases two separate piles of money. Whereas one pile is marked administration of pension funds, the other pile is marked administration of immigration.
Furthermore, one must note that while there is a pile of 100 SEK bills behind the sign labeled immigration, there is nothing behind the label senior citizens. When the camera zooms out, a medium-shot shows that there is a huge stack of boxes on the side labeled administration of immigration, whereas on the other side comparatively there is relatively little paper work; this further symbolizes the view that immigration puts a strain on Swedish society. Following this, a red light is lit while a siren goes off indicating that the budget has hit a crucial low-point. In this sense, it seems that the main message of this film is to pit the needs of senior citizens against the needs of immigrants while emphasizing that the situation is rapidly becoming an urgent issue that requires political action. In the following shot, the camera angle and the lighting further juxtapose the two groups of senior citizens and immigrants. Whereas left until the election, and we have the chance to gain representation in the Parliament, it is remarkable that a television executive can arbitrarily decide which information the voters should receive" (Baas 2010, own translation).
On the editorial pages of Sweden"s leading daily newspapers, the Sweden Democrats" ad was a major topic of debate. Whereas certain commentators centered on how the Sweden Democrats" advertisement affected the debate climate in Sweden, others suggested that SD deliberately constructed a provocative film in order to become censored and stir debate. Five days later, on September 1, TV4 decided to allow a reedited version of the film. In terms of content, SD decided to remove the entire race between the elderly woman and the immigrants.
Instead, a text appears on a blurred background, reading: "Censored by TV4. Watch the uncensored film at www.sverigedemokraterna.se". This image lingers for over ten seconds, making up approximately one third of the total airtime of thirty seconds. By relocating the viewers from television to the Internet, the Sweden Democrats not only criticized the policies of the mainstream media in one of their main outlets, but also further emphasized their party as an alternative to the political norm.
With the 2008 US election campaign fresh in mind, and particularly President Barack Obama"s successful mobilization of social media, covered intensely in Swedish media, the Swedish Parliament parties all spent significantly more on their web presence than they ever had done before. For instance, by contrast to the 2006 election, all of the seven Swedish parliament parties were represented on YouTube at the start of the election campaign in 2010.
Yet, when comparing the amount of views the eight Swedish Parliament parties" most widespreadelection films received, it seems that the Sweden Democrats was by far the most successful one in attracting attention through this new media outlet. In fact, none of the films produced by the Moderate Party, the Liberal People"s Party, the Centre Party, the Green Party, the Christian Democrats or the Left Party managed to procure more than 100,000 views. Besides SD, the Social Democratic Party was the only party to do so, collecting 128,758 views for one single ad. This contrasts strongly with the attention paid to SD"s election film. Not only did it engage the highest number of likes, dislikes, and comments, but it also gathered more views than all of the other seven most popular ads combined. Notably, this table does not take into consideration the views gathered on the parties" own websites. While the amount of views indicates that the Sweden Democrats did manage to distribute their commercial successfully, one must note that a significant part of both the comments and the likes were negative. In the article "Filmic experience", film theorist Francesco Casetti notes that the act of watching movies is increasingly becoming an act of "doing" given that a central aspect of the experience is the building of a network of "sharing and exchange" shortly after the election, claiming to be the "uncensored version" of the ad, manipulates the film in several ways: first, the iconic swastika symbol has been edited into the film; second, the non-diegetic texts have been edited to contain references to Nazi Germany; and lastly, the background music has been replaced with speeches by Adolf Hitler. While none of these clips surpassed the original film in terms of views, comments and likes, they did manage to procure a view count in par with the established political parties" election films.

Conclusion
When comparing the election films in 2006 and 2010 based on Aristotle"s different modes of persuasion--ethos, pathos, and logos--it seems the ads" rhetorical strategies strongly contrasts (Kennedy1991). First of all, the 2006 ad relies heavily on ethos to establish the reliability of the Sweden Democrats. For instance, by celebrating various aspects of Sweden, from the landscape to traditional forms of housing such as the Falu red cottage, SD showcases a reverence for Swedish culture and vows to protect it. When taking SD"s extreme right-wing past into consideration, it seems that SD uses ethos to persuade the voters that the party has an honest esteem for Sweden rather than an aversion for other cultures. This rhetoric contrasts strongly with the 2010 election film which predominately centers on using pathos to convince the audience. By pitting the needs of senior citizens against the needs of immigrants, SD"s message signals that the situation is unjust in today"s politics. By further leaving out concrete facts and figures altogether, instead using filmic techniques such as uneven lighting, grandiloquent music, and swift editing to enhance this rhetoric, it seems that the pathos of the film is enhanced whereas the logos appeal is basically non-existent. As documentary film expert Bill Nichols argues, "Once we embark upon the presentation of an argument, we step