The purpose of our study is to map changes in credibility within the editorial caused by the introduction of native advertising in the two Swedish newspapers Svenska Dagbladet and Aftonbladet. The purpose of the study will be examined through three main questions: • Has the journalists credibility regarding their own news product changed because of the introduction of native advertising? • Does the journalists think that the readers credibility for the news product has changed because of the introduction of native advertising? • Does the journalists consider native advertising an important source of income for the news product to carry independent journalism? To answer the questions above we applied a quantitative study by using a web-¬‐ based questionnaire. The questionnaire was sent to 188 journalists employed by either Aftonbladet or Svenska Dagbladet. Out of those 188 journalists 31 answered the questionnaire. Considering the low frequency in answers the ambition with the results of the study is to only draw conclusions on the actual respondents. The results may however give a hint on how the credibility has changed amongst a broader population of journalists. Our results shows that journalists employed by Aftonbladet has a more critical view on the usage of native advertising compared to Svenska Dagbladet, where native advertising didn’t affect the majority of the respondents credibility negatively for their own product. The journalists from both newspapers widely agreed on that the readers credibility for respective newspaper may lower because of the appearance of native advertising. The results also show that differences in credibility vary depending on years as employed on the newspaper, profession and level of education. Journalists that have been working on a newspaper for more than four years are more critical towards native advertising. The credibility of the own news product tends to lower for reporters because of the usage of native advertising. That compared to the news editors, who’s credibility remains relatively unaffected. Respondents without any form of journalistic education tend to have a more negative attitude towards native advertising.

In this study, we examined the views of Swedish journalists on social media. The study focused on their attitudes and opinions regarding social media in relation to journalistic ideals and as a tool in the working procedure. There have been many quantitative studies focusing on how and how much journalists use social media. Our study contributes with examples of how journalists evaluate social media as a tool and how it has affected the ideals of the profession. We carried out a series of qualitative interviews with journalists that use social media to various degrees. The results have been summarized and analyzed in relation to theories on how technology is appropriated, how uses of technology changes through time, the professional ideals of journalism, the working procedure of the journalist, and newsworthiness. As the study has no notion of generalizing, the results are to be viewed as examples of opinions. Our results indicated that the journalists have appropriated social media as a tool. They appreciate the capacities that social media brings: as a news source and as a tool for communication, but they also show a certain ambivalence towards them. The use of social media in the work procedure can lead to a stressful environment, and the journalists see a development where news that produce a lot of traffic to the associated website are prioritized over more useful, important news. Our study points to a need for further studies in how the use of social media can negatively affect journalistic professional ideals.

On September 2 2015 a three-year-old Syrian boy named Alan Kurdi was found dead on the beach in Bodrum, Turkey. Alan Kurdi is one of thousands refugees who have drowned while taking the dangerous boat ride over the Mediterranean Sea to escape terror and war in Syria. The shocking picture of his body became the starting point of massive media coverage of the refugee situation in Europe today. According to UNHCR, over 50 million people in the world are refugees today and about 900.000 of them have arrived in Europe by the Mediterranean Sea in 2015. In this Bachelor thesis we are examining the Swedish media portrayal of the refugee situation in Europe. By using a quantitative method and applying theories of newsworthiness and social identity, we have studied 490 articles from September 2015 in Sweden’s four largest newspapers: Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, Aftonbladet and Expressen. Our aim is to find out how the refugee is portrayed by looking at each person’s gender, age, name, title and position in the article. We want to find out if there is any stereotypical way of presenting the refugees. Furthermore, we want to know if the refugees get to define their own situation or if there are other actors such as politicians, organizations or journalists speaking above their head. Our results show that the newspapers are providing a rather chaotic picture of the refugee situation. Words such as catastrophe, crisis and stream are frequently used to reinforce the impression of turmoil. Forceful words like these can create negative associations amongst the readers and has the potential to influence their opinion about refugees. Refugees get to speak in approximately 60 percent of the articles, but they are rarely the most cited actor. Politicians and columnist are often speaking above their heads. Moreover, we have found a significant difference in the portrayal of men and women. Men are overrepresented in all of the categories in our study. This can partly be explained by the fact that there are more men than women amongst the refugees (according to UNHCR). Nevertheless, the female refugees that do occur in the articles are less likely to be presented with a professional title and less often occurs as the main actor.

The purpose of this study is to analyze how the Swedish media publishes personal records in their coverage of three infamous murder cases in Sweden in 2015: the murder of Lisa Holm, the murders at Ikea in Västerås and the school attack in Trollhättan. The study also seeks to compare differences between alternative right wing media’s and mainstream media’s coverage of the cases. The results of the study will be compared to the Swedish rules of press ethics. The method in use will be content analysis, and the material will consist of articles in the Swedish daily newspapers Aftonbladet and Expressen, together with the right wing alternative news sites Avpixlat and Fria Tider. Articles that are published within the first month of the events. The main results showed that there are big differences between how the alternative and the mainstream media publishes personal records. The alternative media has for example published the name of the suspects in all three cases. They also have a bigger focus on ethnicity when writing about both suspects and victims. The alternative media have also broken more of the Swedish rules of press ethics, although the traditional media also has broken quite a few.

In this bachelor thesis in journalism studies we explore how the role of the mother is portrayed in the swedish magazine Mama. Mama is marketed towards women and is one of Sweden’s most widespread magazines in the segment of children and parents. Every issue of this magazine includes a profile story portraying a famous mother. We have analysed twelve of these stories. With the method of qualitative textual analysis we have studied four areas of interest: the relationship between the mother and her career, the relationship between the mother and her children, the relationship between the mother and her partner and what part the journalist takes in creating the discourse surrounding motherhood in these portraits, regarding in what way questions are asked and what hidden premise that may shine through in remarks made by the journalist. Our main results include that most of the women are portrayed as a supermother, who can handle a very successful career whilst still taking the main responsibility at home. We can also conclude the norm of the conjugal family is still strong in our material. Furthermore the study shows that the journalists who have written the profile stories often take the role of a friend and entrusted both towards the interviewee and the magazine readers.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether Swedish foreign aid and diplomatic policies has any effect on the selection of foreign news in Swedish news media. We set out to study news concerning countries that experienced a change in their relation to the former Swedish government, which was in rule between 2006 and 2014. The countries we chose for this was Nicaragua, Laos and Senegal, where the Swedish embassies were closed in this period. For Nicaragua and Laos the aid was also reduced. Further, Bolivia, Cambodia and Mali were chosen since the Swedish government opened embassies there, as well as strengthening existing aid programs. Our theoretical points of departure have mainly been a set of different studies on news values; the science of what events becomes news. We have included both the broader theories concerning foreign journalism in general and more specifically those concerning the relationship between foreign journalism and foreign policies. We had two research questions: Has there been any change in the amount of news material from reaching us from these countries since the changes in Swedish representation took place? Has there been any change in the kind of information that reaches us from these countries? Our study was conducted as a quantitative content analysis in which we have studied the amount and nature of news material from our countries of choice in Swedish news media, before and after the changes in Swedish relations towards these countries took place. The results of the study shows that changes in Swedish relations did not seem to affect the presence of those countries in Swedish news media, nor how they were represented in the major Swedish newspapers. No clear patterns were found except that of the general decrease of news from the countries we chose for our study.Our conclusion was that any further studies on this subject would need to encompass a much greater amount of material and a greater knowledge of the editorial circumstances of each news media-object.