The purpose of this study is to examine how the acquisition of the newspaper Värmlands Folkblad by their largest regional competitor affected the content of the news in Värmlands Folkblad. These effects are studied by examining the subjects, the places and the actants that are represented in the news, before and after the acquisition.

To further understand the situation, this study uses theories about diversity, market concentration, commercialization and how outer factors affect the news. These theories help to better understand the situation and how the media market is changing and how it might affect the content of the news. There is some earlier research in this subject area that is relevant to this study. There is not a conclusive answer on what market concentration does to the content of the news, some researchers claim that it in some ways can be good for diversity, other researchers disagree. This study adds to the already existing research and gives valuable contribution to the subject area.

The study uses a quantitative method of content analysis. 2574 articles were coded in three periods before and three periods after the acquisition. As a complement to the content analysis, several people with insight in the situation were interviewed. These people contributed with background information which helped to better understand the results from the content analysis.

The results of the content analysis show that there have been no significant changes to the content of the news in the studied newspaper. Some organizational changes have been made that can be connected to theories about how outer factors affect the content of the news. The largest change can be found in the sports editorial. Three sport reporters lost their jobs and some of the sport coverage is now made by the larger newspaper. Hence the biggest change in subjects and actants is found in the variables sports and athletes. However this change is not substantial and the most important results of this study is that there has not been any major change. Therefore the acquisition could be seen as successful as there is no big change to the diversity of the regional media market. It is important to keep in mind that the time frame for this study is quite limited, which means that we cannot make any conclusions about the long-term effects of this acquisition.

On October 1 2017 the citizens in the region of Catalonia held a referendum on independence from Spain, which was declared illegal by the Spanish government. On October 27 2017 the regional government of Catalonia declared independence. This made the Spanish government in Madrid activate article 155 in the national constitution, which gave them the power to set aside the regional government in Catalonia and take control over the region.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the framing of the independence movement in Catalonia during the fall of 2017 in three large news outlets in Sweden; Aftonbladet, SVT Nyheter and Dagens Nyheter. We investigated the prevalence of six generic frames described in previous research on framing of political events; attribution of responsibility, conflict, human interest, economic consequences, morality and game. We performed a random sample and applied a quantitative content analysis on 60 news stories published online. We also designed an assay to implement a qualitative text analysis based on previous research.

The main findings in this study show that, overall, the conflict frame was the most commonly used in the news published online by the three news outlets. It was closely followed by the attribution of responsibility, game, human interest, economic consequences and morality frames, respectively. The framing did not vary much between the different news outlets, and confirmed results in earlier studies. The most significant difference was found when the human interest frame was implemented. Previous studies showed that more sensationalist news outlets often times used the human interest frame to a larger extent than the more serious ones in political news stories. Our results implied the opposite in this case. Aftonbladet, which is a more sensationalist news outlet, used the human interest frame less than the more serious and sober news outlet Dagens Nyheter.

Based on the qualitative text analysis we found that the expression of some of the generic frames differed between the three news outlets. In the attribution of responsibility we found that the ex-regional president of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, was often times held responsible for the independence movement. In the conflict frame we found that the conflict was regularly expressed in the form of the management of the Spanish government, rather than the actions of the regional government of Catalonia.

When the automobile company Saab applied for bankruptcy in December 2011 three thousand workers lost their job and income. It was a big disaster for the Swedish town Trollhättan where the unemployment numbers doubled overnight.

The crisis and bankruptcy was big news in Sweden. This study’s purpose is to explore the portrayal of workers in media during this time using quantitative content analysis. A total selection of the images depicting Saab, published in the newspapers TTELA, Göteborgs-Posten and GT during December 2011, have been analyzed. The chosen newspapers all lie in the region of Västra Götaland where Saab is located.

With theories of framing and elite centralization the following questions have been answered and analyzed. Who are in the images depicting Saab’s bankruptcy? Is there a difference between how workers and elites are being photographed? What type of location are workers versus elites photographed in? Are workers versus elites active or passive in the pictures?

The results showed that a majority of people in the images depicting Saab were elites like the CEO, politicians and trustees, while only 20 percent were workers. Elites were more likely than workers to have their power strengthened by photo perspective and location. They were also shown as being more active through emotions and by being photographed while working.

For Swedes it is easy to feel national pride, at least when it comes to Eurovision Song Contest. The Swedish entry has won six times. Only Ireland has a better record. The success seems to interest Sweden since approximately three million of its inhabitants are watching the international music competition every year. With the years, the event has also grown to be a more popular topic in Swedish media coverage, especially
among tabloids. But how does the media report about this and what images are constructed through them?

In this bachelor thesis we examine how the Swedish tabloids, Aftonbladet and Expressen, report about ESC during two separate years. One year when the Swedish participant Loreen won the competition (2012) and another year when Anna Bergendahl failed to qualify to the final (2010). The purpose is to investigate whether frames, descriptions and forms of national identity vary depending on the result of the  competition.

In order to do this we have practiced qualitative comparative text analysis with theories such as framing theory, attribution theory and theories of national identity. By comparing the outer points of failure with success, we discover what is constant and inconstant in Eurovision coverage. In addition, we also compare our research material to previous research conclusions.

The main outcome of this study is that Swedish tabloids concentrate its articles to different themes that most likely relate to the result of competition. During Swedish success, the winning performer is highly acclaimed and the victory is explained by her personal attributes while Swedish failure is explained by external causes in relation to the performer.

Nationalist interpretations are frequently recurring and seem to stay unproblematized. After success the Swedish artist is seen as a national star with the possibility of an international career, which is considered desirable. During the year of defeat, however, the media tries to find identification with Swedish songwriters in other countries’ entries in order to maintain the self-image as a proficient country in music. A Swedish national identity is eminent in which Sweden is a nation of great musical competence – deserving to win and undeserving to lose.

In 2015, something extraordinary happens that has never happened before. The Swedish political party Moderaterna elect a female party leader for the first time in their political history. Anna Kinberg Batra becomes the new party leader who has to take over after the previous party leader Fredrik Reinfeldt. Her mission is to try to steer Moderaterna on the right course after the election loss in Sweden 2014, at the same time as Sweden is experiencing the greatest political crisis in
modern times, as of the December agreement.

Media has the ultimate power when it comes to creating and shaping the image of a party leader. One usually encounters with the party leader for the first time in media and it is by what you see in the media that you base your fact on whether you approve of the party leader or not. Therefore the images that media choose to feed their audience with become the foundations of how citizens perceive various party leaders.

The purpose of this thesis is to compare how Sweden’s four largest newspapers, Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, Expressen and Aftonbladet chose to portray Anna Kinberg Batra and Fredrik Reinfeldt during their first year as the party leader for Moderaterna. This is a unique opportunity to
compare two party leaders who come from similar backgrounds and where the only difference is gender.

To answer our purpose, we have collected a material of 801 analytical units which we analyze in this thesis using a qualitative text and image analysis. By applying our theoretical framework, Body’s semiotics, Visual and Verbal Rhetoric, Framing as well as Gender theory to the analysis, allows us to answer the following questions;

– Are the party leaders presented differently from a semiotic interpretation perspective?

– Is the representation of the respective party leaders sex stereotypical, seen from a gender scientific perspective?

– How does the associated text affect the experience of the image and vice versa?

– Does the presentation differ depending on the newspaper’s political affiliation?

– What different interpretations of the political leaders during their first year, opens for theoretical discussion?

The results show that there is a difference in the portrayal of Anna Kinberg Batra and Fredrik Reinfeldt. However, the difference in the representation based on gender is not as big as we first believed, which brings us to the conclusion that gender and sex are not decisive in the preparation of the two party leaders.

What we can say is that it differs in how the newspapers have chosen to portray Anna Kinberg Batra and Fredrik Reinfeldt from a body semiotic interpretation perspective. Set to inclination and emotional mode, Fredrik Reinfeldt is somewhat more positive than Anna Kinberg Batra, who is primarily portrayed neutrally. We can also see that image and text affect each other and can also therefore theoretically affect the reader.

The political designation of the newspapers may in some cases be part of the portrayal of the party leaders. Evening papers tend to frame them both slightly more negatively than the morning papers. The distance in the picture is also a part of the portrayal, as we were able to interpret that Fredrik Reinfeldt is more often portrayed in a personal distance compared to Anna Kinberg Batra. In conclusion we can establish that the overall impression of image and text in a larger range is positive for Fredrik Reinfeldt than for Anna Kinberg Batra.

Purpose: The main purpose of this study is to examine how the individuals, who is a part of our focus groups, themselves experience their own trust or not trust for media in order to illustrate how it looks for these individuals. This is because we won’t be able to draw a general conclusion.

Method: Qualitative in-depth interviews with five focus groups with four to six members in each group.

Procedure: We put together five focus groups representing the age range which we are focusing on. Thereafter the groups participated in semi structured discussion under our monitoring led by themes regarding their media trust. After that we transcribed and analyzed the material based on
“Intergrative model of organizational trust” by Roger Mayers, James Davis and David Schoormans theory about how to build trust and “Det viktiga institutionsförtroendet” by Sören Holmberg and Lennart Weibull.

Results: How the respondents themselves look at their trust, or lack of it, to the media. How they, in many cases, feel utilized in relation to the media that, in their opinion, only chase clicks on their onlinepages and to sell.
The respondents trust varies depending on content, platform and company. This depends on factors such as the time of the relationship to the media, the reputation of the company in question and if they advertise a lot or not. All respondent sees a connection between the digitalizacion, the hard competition between the companies and their lack of trust for them. They also state that the major source-critical focus they had under their education plays a big role in their attitude.

Purpose: Our purpose is to find out how an audience perceives Instagram posts from influencers that have been reported for improper advertising.

Method: A qualitative research receptions study.

Procedure: A focus group interview that was transcribed and analyzed with mainly Stuart Hall’s Encoding/decoding model.
Results: After analyzing the discussion from our focus group we found out that there is a noticeable difference in the way the audience perceives a photo, compared to a post in its entirety with picture and text combined. That may come into account on whether an audience interpreters an Instagram post as advertising or not.

Purpose: The main purpose of this study is to examine what attitude journalists have to influencers and whether journalists witness that there is a border between journalists and influencers. Also how journalists define the most important ideals, what standards they believe exists in their areas and
what ethical decisions journalists take in their daily work.
Method: Qualitative in-depth interviews with seven Swedish journalists working in the magazine industry. The interviews were thereafter transcribed and analyzed with help by theory.
Theoretic context: To help us explain the results of this study we used Jane B. Singers theory of standards for distinguishing professionals from non-professionals, Deuze and Witschges beyond journalism theory and Matt Carlssons theory of metajournalistic discourse.

Results: It was identified that all of the journalists experienced that there is a so called grey area between themselves and influencers where the audience sometimes confuse the two different groups. They also believe that there may be competition among the professions as a consequence of
the fact that they both act within the same areas and produce similar content. The ideals drives the journalists and serves as a guide in their daily work, but also as something they seek to achieve in the longer term. We also found that journalists mainly use ethics to separate themselves from influencers. Ethics is for instance used as help when it comes to what journalists can and cannot do in terms of collaborations with other companies.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the occurrence of gender stereotypes in the Swedish online news reporting of the 2018 Winter Olympics. The aim is to find out to what extent the Swedish media uses stereotypical attributes and contexts in the portrayal of athletes through a gender perspective. The theoretical frameworks used in this study are mainly the theories of framing and gender. Furthermore, the operationalization of the different attributes, depictions and contexts used in the analysis, are based on previous research in the field.

The mediums that have been examined in this study are Dagens Nyheter, Aftonbladet and SVT Nyheter. This selection was made based on the three different areas of the media landscape that these online news outlets cover. Both a quantitative content analysis and an ethnographical content analysis have been applied in this study. For the former method, a total of 1 221 headlines and leads have been examined. These were chosen as a total sample of the articles published during this year’s Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang. For the latter method, 21 full articles were studied in detail to provide a deeper understanding of underlying messages and nuances. These were chosen as a total sample of the articles containing three or more of the stereotypical depictions.

The findings of the study show that there are no major quantities of gender stereotypes in the Swedish reporting of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. However, out of the cases where they do occur, there are certain tendencies worth noting. It is more common for the female athletes to be portrayed with typical female stereotypes, particularly with emotional attributes, than the male athletes. On the contrary, women are attributed typical male stereotypes to the same extent as men. Furthermore, the female athletes are given the typical male attribute of power, in an even higher extent than the male athletes. In a comparison between the three online newspapers, the main difference noted is that Aftonbladet uses female stereotypes much more frequently than Dagens Nyheter and SVT Nyheter.

The results from this study do not strongly correspond with the theories and results of previous studies, which tend to show much larger differences between the sexes. Furthermore, they even break the typical female stereotype of impotence, and therefore go against the tendencies found in previous research. It does, however, correspond with some aspects, regarding the higher frequencies of female stereotypes used for the female athletes.

This bachelor thesis is a quantitative content analysis of the Swedish nazi group Nordiska motståndsrörelsen (NMR), their demonstration in Gothenburg on the 30th of September 2017
and the counter demonstrations against it. Using theories of framing we examined whether the demonstrations were framed in an episodic (event- or exemplar-oriented) or thematic (issueoriented) way, and whether it differed between newspapers. In addition to framing, we used theories of newsworthiness and commercialisation to analyse the results.

The way in which an event is being framed in the media influences how the public perceive the issue at hand and how they form opinions about it. Therefore, it is relevant to study how different events are framed and presented. In total we analysed more than 700 articles from 133 different newspapers published during a two week period before, during and after the demonstrations.

The results showed that the overall coverage of the demonstrations was primarily episodic— specifically episodic event-oriented. However, the counter demonstrations had a higher rate of thematic coverage than the NMR demonstration. Regarding the difference between newspapers, we found that tabloid newspapers to a higher extent framed the events as
episodic rather than thematic. Conversely, the daily newspapers had a higher rate of thematic rather than episodic coverage. However, the results showed no difference between local or national daily newspapers.

Our conclusion is that although the coverage of the NMR demonstration had a higher percentage of episodic framing, it is inaccurate to state that it was entirely the responsibility of
the journalists. Due to the refusal of NMR to speak to the media, journalists were required to turn to official sources such as the police instead. This led to the fact that the majority of the articles were written from a police perspective. As thematic framing often depend on demonstrators offering their point of view, coverage of the NMR demonstration was naturally less thematic.