Dumbing Down or Reaching Out? Norwegian News Coverage for Children During Election Periods

Children's participation in society in general, and political processes more specifically, is contingent on understandable information about political issues. There is rich potential to offer such information through children's news, but few studies have explored how and to what extent this is done. In this article, we draw on a content analysis of Supernytt , a Norwegian news programme for children. Our aim is to map news coverage during periods of parliamentary and municipal elections between 2013 and 2021 and explore potential changes in coverage, with a particular focus on politics as presented to a child audience. The analysis shows that information about elections remains an important area of focus during election periods. However, there is a clear decrease over time in news coverage about politics in favour of ‘soft news’ categories. These tendencies reflect broader trends in news media and assumptions about what types of news are interesting and appropriate for children. Using perspectives on tabloidisation and dominant understandings of childhood, we discuss what the shift to a softer news profile suggests about views on children as news consumers and political beings.