The purpose of this study is to examine how five Swedish newspapers portrayed the Black Lives
Matter (BLM) movement and supporting demonstrations during a time period between May 25th and June 14th, 2020.

The theory of framing, how people’s perception of a subject is affected by the media portrayal, is the
motivation behind this study. Theories about common news values and news angles are applied to
the articles. Additionally, quoted sources and descriptions of violence are investigated to determine if a protest paradigm, a pattern of news coverage that tends to focus on violence and disruption rather than the reason behind the demonstration, can be found in Swedish newspapers.

The study uses a quantitative content analysis of 266 articles about the Black Lives Matter movement
published by the newspapers Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter, Expressen, Göteborgs-Posten and Sydsvenskan. During the analyzed time period, major demonstrations were held in Sweden’s three
largest cities: Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö. With a cumulative approach, the theoretical
framework has been operationalized to create a codebook for analyzing the articles.

According to previous research, there are many signs of a protest paradigm in American newspapers.
This pattern was similarly present in the Swedish articles, evident in their recurrent use of official
sources like politicians and police. However, in the analysis of all the articles about BLM, the
protesters were quoted more often than police. While in the articles specifically about demonstrations
in Sweden, protesters were more likely to be excluded. For example, protesters were more often
mentioned than quoted compared to the police sources. This study confirms signs of the protest
paradigm in the articles about the demonstrations, evident in the great focus on violence and
disruption and the lack of protester voices. Unlike previous research, all protesters are not blamed for
unlawful activity that occurred during the demonstrations. Swedish newspapers tend to carefully
distinguish provocators from peaceful protesters. Finally, the covid-19 pandemic affected the media’s
portrayal of BLM and the demonstrations. The global pandemic was frequently mentioned and often
used as a news angle in the articles.

Aim of thesis: The aim of this study is to investigate how the journalists at SVT Nyheter Väst experience their public service assignment in relation to geographical representation of the published news. We will fulfill our aim by studying journalists opinions about news selection and
evaluation. In addition to this we will ask the respondents about their thoughts on possible
consequences of geographical underrepresentation.

Theoretical framework: The thesis is inspired by earlier research concerning the same field. Our study will be based on three theories: the theories about news evaluation and selection, democracy and public service. The theory about news evaluation and news selection highlights the balance between
news that is important for the citizens and the news that usually attracts many readers, but
might not be as important. The theory of democracy defines the concept of democracy and
emphasizes the importance of media in a functional democratic society. Public service is
funded by the state and therefore is obligated to be impartial and objective in its news reporting. Public services’ most substantial challenge is to find a balance between news evaluation and democracy.

Method: The study was carried out using a qualitative interview method. We have designed an
interview guide based on our theories that has been the base when interviewing our respondents. The selection of respondents consists of reporters and editors at SVT Nyheter Väst. They are all in different ages, sex and have worked various amount of years at the editorials office.

Results: The results show that the respondents think highly of their public service commitments. They
believe it is important with media that can be entirely impartial and objective, especially
since the amount of information in the media society increases over time. Furthermore, the
study illustrates that the journalists prioritize news that solely affects the masses. Simultaneously it is important to represent the smaller communities as well, even though it might not concern as many people. The general view is that geographical underrepresentation can lead to several consequences, for example reduced faith in SVT Nyheter Väst and public service.

The purpose of this quantitative study is to find out how the media image of Sweden, Norway
and Denmark has been framed by the leading evening press in the other countries during the
initial three months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study aims to answer which frames that
dominates the mediapicture, if Sweden’s, Norway’s and Denmark’s handling of the initial
three months of the COVID-19 has mainly been portrayed in a positive, negative or neutral
light and who is being interviewed in the news coverage.

The study aims to bring forward generalizable facts regarding the mediapicture of the
different countries and how the news has been framed. Therefore, a quantitative method has
been chosen since it offers good basis to systematically work through and analyze a great
amount of data and to fulfill the aim of study.

The theoretical framework in this study consists of framing, news evaluation and agenda
setting theory. These theories have contributed to fulfill the aim of the study.

Framing has been used to answer how the news coverage has been framed through different
lenses and that how the news is being framed also influences the opinions of the newsconsumer. News evaluation has been relevant for the study since it offers an understanding of why some events are deemed too have a higher news value than others. Agenda setting theory has been included in the theoretical framework partly since it is closely related to the theory of framing and also because it explains how the choices bigger news outlet make regarding which articles to publicize and how the general frame of those articles are designed also influences the choices smaller news outlets make when it comes to their daily work. It is therefore reasonable to argue the point that the journalistic choices the newspapers included in this study has made during the time interval the study analyzed also influenced the general opinion of readers not only exclusive to readers of the chosen newspapers.

The method use in this study is a quantitative contentanalysis. This method has been chosen
with the aim of answering the study’s purpose too find out if and how the media coverage of
the Scandinavian countries differentiates in different Scandinavian countries. Factors such as
the general tone in the article (e.g. positive, neutral or negative), which frames being used
and who is being interviewed and the interviewed statement has been coded in the
quantitative contentanalys that has been used.

The study has shown that a majority of the articles published during the chosen time interval
concerning the other countries handling of the COVID-19 pandemic has been negatively
framed. The study also shows that a majority of the articles published has been framed
through a public health frame. The articles concerning Sweden had the biggest share of both
negative articles and articles framed through a public health frame.

The study also shows that officials are the most commonly interviewed occupational group in
the articles included in the study. This was most common in the articles regarding Sweden
and this result is in line with previous studies.

The aim of this study is to examine the international digital media image of Sweden during
the corona crisis of 2020. The purpose is to gain knowledge about how the corona pandemic
has affected the perception of Sweden and discuss in what way it could continue to affect the
country in the future. The study is carried out by investigating the four following research
questions: (1) Has the image of Sweden during the corona crisis 2020 been positive, negative
or balanced? (2) Which themes and key individuals are defined in the articles? (3) How does
the image of Sweden vary between the different countries? (4) Has the image changed or
further developed in pace as the pandemic progressed?

The approach taken in order to answer these research questions is a quantitative content
analysis of articles published in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and France.
The articles used in this study are collected during the months of April and September in the
year 2020 and they are collected from The Swedish Institute’s selected articles concerning
the corona virus and Sweden. Throughout this study, a total of 392 articles were encoded
with the help of the framing theory created by Gaye Tuchman and further developed by
Robert M. Entman (1993). According to Entmans definition, frames are about the selection,
observance, definition and formulation of a problem. The variables were emanated by several
various themes, frames, stereotypes and key individuals.

With the four research questions in regard, a conclusion could be drawn that the image of
Sweden through this pandemic has been fragmented. The statistics show that most of the
articles were neutral. However, we were able to verify that a majority of the articles analyzed
in this study were negative. The majority of the articles focused on the Swedish strategy of
choice during the pandemic and they often depicted the Swedish citizens’ behavior and the
number of deaths caused by the coronavirus. The most frequently used frames had to do with
either conflict or responsibility, while the most narrated stereotype was that Swedish citizens
are law-abiding. Throughout the study, the Swedish prime minister Stefan Löfven and state
epidemiologist Anders Tegnell were the key individuals that were mentioned most
frequently.

When analyzing the results, we could see that it varied depending on two variables, time and
origin. For example, more articles were published in April in comparison to those published
in September. We could also identify that the articles published in April were categorized as
negative while those published in September were categorized as the contrary. The most
neutral image of Sweden could be found in the articles published in the United States and
France. The articles published in Britain were the most positive, while the ones published in
Germany were the most negative. We could also identify that in Germany, America and
Britain the most common frames were the responsibility frame and the conflict frame.
However, the articles published in France were mostly narrated with the human-interest
frame.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate how Sveriges Television, specifically Lokala Nyheter
Väst, is distributing its news between the 49 different municipalities in the Västra Götaland
county in terms of frequency, which subjects are covered in the news and how these subjects
are presented or framed.

The mission of Swedish public service is to have a broad supply of news that reflects the
entire country and all its municipalities. The mission includes, among other things, local and
regional news reporting. There is a general reduction in commercial local journalism around
the country, and this reduction of local media increases the responsibilities of public service.
Since 2014, Sveriges Television has been the only media to broadcast local and regional
television news, after the commercial TV4 discontinued its local and regional broadcasts.
This thesis explores whether or not Sveriges Television lives up to this mission, and the
increased responsibility.

To reach our result, we have employed theories on framing, news selection and news
evaluation. The method we have used is the quantitative content analysis. Our material is
collected from two synthetic weeks of Lokala Nyheter Väst’s TV broadcasts with 240 news
features in total. Rather than investigating the 49 municipalities individually, we have divided
them into groups based on population density and the number of residents who commute to a
larger city or municipality for work.

The result of our analysis shows that Gothenburg, which is the largest city in the county by
far, is portrayed in the media much more frequently than any other municipality. The news
regarding Gothenburg are also portraying a much broader variety of subjects compared to
other municipalities, or groups of municipalities. A conclusion can be drawn that the smaller
a municipality is, the more extraordinary the news have to be in order to appear in Lokala
Nyheter Väst’s broadcasts. There are also certain municipalities where all news are about one
subject, for instance crime, medicine or the environment. This leads to a potentially skewed
image of these municipalities, which can result in preconceptions and bias towards these 3 areas or cities. The result also shows that out of the 49 municipalities in Västra Götaland, three of them lack both local media within the municipality and representation in the material we investigated, hence being true so-called “white spots”, areas entirely lacking local media representation.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the live feed used on Aftonbladet’s website during the
corona pandemic and investigate how inviting the audience to participate with their own
content affects the crisis journalism. This will be done by quantitatively analyzing the
readers’ and journalists’ posts in Aftonbladet´s live feed about the corona pandemic that was
started on February 24th, 2020. The main point of the study is to find the answer to three
questions:

• How are the three classic journalistic ideals – to inform, explain and investigate –
reflected in Aftonbladet’s live feed about the corona pandemic?
• How is the audience’s participation in the live feed reflected?
• Does the content of the live feed change over time?

In order to answer the questions, and to understand our data, this article uses theories about
journalism and its role in the democratic society, media logic in traditional news and in social
media, gatekeeping, participant journalism and the media’s role during a crisis.

The results showed that information was the most prominent of the three classic journalistic
ideals in the live feed. However, this changed over the course of time. At the start of the live
feed the journalists published information almost exclusively, but as the pandemic went on,
they started to publish explaining posts in the same extent. Posts of investigating character
was however not published at all.

The audience´s participation followed the same pattern as the journalistic posts in the feed –
information was requested in the greatest extent, but explanation was increasingly requested
further into the pandemic. The study also showed that criticism from the audience increased
with time, mainly towards Aftonbladet and its news coverage.

Aim of thesis: The aim of this thesis is to study how the covid-19 pandemic has affected the
Swedish sports journalism.

Method: Qualitative in-depth interviews with ten Swedish sports journalists, both reporters
and editors-in-chief. The interviews were carried out during the autumn of 2020, when the
covid-19 pandemic was still ongoing. The interviews were transcribed and analysed, based
on the theoretical framework.

Theoretical framework: The results were compared to Richard J. Peltz’s as well as Galtung
and Ruge’s theories about news values. We also compared our results to Kevin Hull and
Miles Romney’s study about the experiences among sports broadcasters in the USA in the
early stage of the covid-19 pandemic. The same comparison was done with Maja Björklin’s
findings. To see whether Swedish sports journalism has changed in quality the results were
compared to Gavin Weedon’s findings. Finally, the interviews involved a question about
whether our subjects find it true that sports newsrooms are seen as a ‘toy department’. This
question was inspired by Richard J. Peltz’s study.

Results: There is a concern among several Swedish sports journalists regarding the potential
of less accessibility to some clubs, first and foremost to the largest and most elite clubs in the
country. The Swedish sports journalists had to be more creative than before due to the pause
of live sports. That meant more in-depth reportages, economical coverage and interview
series for example. Some new technical solutions appeared as well. Video call programs may
have a positive effect on the accessibility. Some sports journalists were transferred to the
regular news desks, and even some transmission times decreased for a period of time.

Aim of thesis: The aim of this study is to investigate why people aged 50 to 75 years watch the Swedish public service-produced program Svenska nyheter. The aim is also to understand how a
satire-program like Svenska nyheter promotes audience engagement in different ways, and
what kind of exchanges the program gives its audience. It seeks to show how different needs
can be gratified by watching the program.

Theoretical framework: The study relies on two different theoretical frameworks. To understand why people use different types of media and content, like the program Svenska nyheter, we have chosen to
apply the Uses and gratification-theory. In order to apply this theory, the audience needs to
be active through awareness of their media-choices, and through rational choices towards a
specific goal. The second theoretical framework involves theories about engagement and how
different media engages its audience.

Methods: The method used for this study is qualitative, implemented through semistrucured interviews with twelve different participants in the age between 50 to 71 years. The participants of this
study watch Svenska nyheter on a regular basis. The choice of a qualitative approach means that this study does not attempt to make generalizable facts and the results are based on the participants knowledge and their answers.

Results: The results show that the audience gets various exchanges of watching the program. They get
exchanges through entertainment, information and knowledge and social exchanges like
feelings of community. The results also show that the program promotes different forms of
social and civic engagement.

The aim of this thesis is to find out whether increased media attention in relation to the covid19 pandemic of 2020 has any effects on the staff of intensive care units in Sweden. And if it
in any way shapes the professional identity of the healthcare workers at the units.

While healthcare always appears high on the daily agenda of most news media, the intensive
care unit barely ever takes part in that attention. However, during the covid-19 pandemic, the
intensive care units started to flourish on the front pages on a daily basis due to the high
amount of patients that the virus generated.

For this study, the main theoretical framework used is professional identity, specifically
Lipsky’s theory on street-level bureaucrats, as we found this theory most fitting for defining
intensive care unit workers and their identities.
For researching the newfound attention we used the agenda-setting theory created by Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw. News evaluation, as described by Jesper Strömbäck, as well as the theory of news framing as described by a variety of writers.

The study was conducted by deep and ingoing interviews with nurses, doctors and assistant
nurses working in an intensive care unit with patients afflicted by covid-19 during the
pandemic of 2020.

By carefully analyzing our interviewees experience of media and their own profession, we
tried to figure out whether or not their professional identities were changed or affected.

While most of our subjects did notice the increase in media attention, and all of them had different views and opinions on what it meant for them, none of the interviewees found that it had any direct impact on their professional identity or their work as a healthcare worker.

We discovered this to be because of the stable foundation of which the medical workers
professional identity is built from.

However, a few of the interviewees expressed that if the press were to put the intensive care
unit and the people who work there in a bad way, there is a risk that it could have an impact
on their professional identity.