Arguably, populism has become increasingly topic across different spheres: the media, the academia and even the vox populi; and it has become quite common to find political movements and leaders labelled as populists. Therefore, one can say that Populism is on the rise across the globe.

Large debate takes place to define what populism is, what the criteria to label a political leader as populist should be, and whether it is healthy or not for democracies. However, must of the research on Populism seems to take place in the European and North American context, and to a lesser extent in other areas such as Latin America – area that some scholars have labelled as “the land of Populism”.

Following a communication-centred understanding of Populism and a dictionary-based quantitative text analysis, this study aims to determine to what extent Latin American political candidates use populist communication during their campaigns using Twitter. In total, N=13,256 tweets from 30 different candidates across the Latin American region were analysed. The results show that most candidates engage to a certain extent with populist communication. Moreover, on top of demonstrating which candidates engaged with populist messages, the study provides insights into the type of messages employed to communicate the populist idea. Lastly, the study analyses the relationship between populist communication and mis- and disinformation as a label. The results show a correlation (R=0,060***) between populist communication and disinformation as a label to discredit or delegitimize the media or opponents.

Vaccine hesitancy has long been recognized in separate research disciplines concerning different vaccines and societal contexts to comprehend what factors determine individuals’ vaccine choices. Likewise, communication scholars have distinguished how it is possible to select the information that aligns with pre-existing beliefs – particularly in the high-choice media environment with copious information channels. Considering that many
individuals stayed at home for large parts of 2020 and 2021, abundant opportunities existed to choose what information to consume. Thus, given the enormous supply of information related to covid-19, this might have affected individuals’ perceptions about the virus and later of the supplied vaccines, leading to vaccine hesitancy.

Therefore, this study departs from the field of political communication. The purpose is to examine how Swedish citizens who have not received a covid-19 vaccine reason regarding their decision and to understand their world of thinking concerning media use, virus-related information, and trust towards traditional media, as well as societal institutions and other members of the public. The main focus is, however, on media use. The study employs a qualitative method with a receptive approach and uses the theories of the Reinforcement Spirals Model and Selective Exposure as a prism through which the research process and analysis are performed. Semi-structured interviews were held with 20 Swedish citizens who had chosen not to take the vaccine. The gathered data was then
divided into a thematical analysis and shed light on different aspects related to media use, institutional and interpersonal trust, pandemic implications, and perceptions of vaccines.

The results suggest that a confirmation bias operates through selective exposure to vaccine information. The research also considers the Reinforcement Spirals Model, where some of the findings imply that the role of selfperceived
identity is an underlying aspect of vaccine hesitancy. Although the findings cannot be generalized to a larger population, the lack of societal debate and reporting on different perspectives from traditional media during
the pandemic caused a decrease in trust related to the mass media, the government, and associated agencies. As a result, many turned to other information sources, primarily online, where user-generated content seemed to reinforce their skepticism towards the establishments mentioned above. The research findings underline that it can
be problematic from a democratic stance if certain groups of people create counter-publics where alienation and suspicion of established democratic channels are encouraged and magnified, rather than feeling that they are allowed to participate in the mainstream public debate on equal terms as vaccinated citizens.

Social media is rapidly being used as a source of information, including crisis-related information. The current study investigates how the sources of information available on social media affect users’ trust in certain information. The study adopts the covid-19 pandemic as an empirical crisis to investigate the trust. The study was conducted among students at the University of Gothenburg. Specifically, a survey was conducted among students at the university measuring two trust constructs, the trustworthiness in social media crisis information and the willingness to follow crisis instruction on social media.

The theoretical framework for the study was the MAIN model where Authority heuristics and focus heuristics of the model were examined on how they trigger trust. User’s trust in crisis information on social media was tested on three main sources, Authoritative source, known source, and unknown source. The results of the study indicate that Authority heuristics triggers high trust in respondents’ trust in social media crisis information. These findings have numerous implications for crisis communication theory and practice. These ramifications are examined, as well as the study’s shortcomings and future research prospects.

Purpose: The purpose of this case study is to add to research on crisis communication, accountability, and scandals in evaluating a German state Minister of Interior’s exoneration strategies through their representation in news media. Additionally, it aims to offer insights on German legacy news media’s treatment of a rightwing radicalist crisis and implications of its potential failures. The relevance of this study comes from its timeliness within the German ‘Einzelfall’-crisis, a series of publicized cases of right-wing radicalist affiliations in GED-agencies stylized as singular events, as well as from the lack of existing research on this topic.

Theory: Crisis Communication Theory, Image Repair Theory, Critical Discourse Analysis, Discursive News Value Analysis

Method: Critical Discourse Analysis, Qualitative Discourse Analysis

Result: Media representation of the scandal and crisis stages of this case successfully made ‘Causa Caffier’ a serious public issue. However, the individualization of the reporting–narrowed down just to Caffier–has to be regarded as a failure of
journalism to depict structural and systemic issues. In a parallel to historic blind spots surrounding GED-agencies’ (especially the police) entanglements with right-wing radicalist ideology and groups, German legacy news media, for the most part, represented the case as an individual moral transgression (i.e., a scandal) instead of a sign for a systemic crisis.

In a situation of ecological degradation and rapid climate change, environmental movements aim to create debate and attain political change. Here, news media is an important actor, possessing the power to represent movements and their cause in ways that legitimize or disqualify their voice in public debate. This study explores environmental movements and news media as participants in discursive struggle, where both may shape eco-political debate to either reinforce or challenge prevailing political narratives and ideas. The study analyzes a case of Extinction Rebellion (XR) airport actions in Sweden on Oct 31, 2021, where their acts of civil disobedience created significant coverage in Swedish press.

Within research on eco-political discourse, theorizations of post-politics and depoliticization have been important, and regard the shift where consensus- and technocratic approaches have displaced discourse that acknowledges ideology and conflict. In depoliticized discourse, ideology is replaced by rational or moral arguments of right and wrong, good and evil, turning legitimate adversaries into delegitimized opponents – thereby hindering political debate.

Against the context of depoliticized eco-politics, the study explores how XR and news media contributed to depoliticizing (closing) and politicizing (opening) debate around the XR airport actions, using a framework for critical discourse analysis. The data includes press releases and social media posts from XR, as well as news articles and opinion pieces published in three of Sweden’s largest newspapers. The analysis contains a particular focus on how the discursive strategies of positioning and (de)legitimization are used to steer and create boundaries for debate in politicizing and depoliticizing ways.

The analysis found that whereas XR mainly used politicizing strategies to initiate political debate, challenge the status quo, and expand boundaries for debate, the news media material mainly showed signs of depoliticizing discourse. By focusing on apolitical themes such as law enforcement and airport safety, debate was dismissed. XR were repeatedly delegitimized as a political actor, and the eco-political issues raised in the actions were largely overlooked. When debate occurred, it regarded XR’s use of civil disobedience, but not eco-politics. The results can be explained in terms of a closed discursive opportunity structure for movements, meaning they are delegitimized and marginalized as participants in political discourse. The attempt from XR to initiate debate can be described as an aim to repoliticize an area that has been characterized by post-political tendencies. However, this study shows that news media have significant power to steer and limit debate in ways that may hinder environmental movements attempting to repoliticize eco-political discourse in the public sphere.

This study analyses the vaccination guide project performed in Gothenburg during the Covid-19
pandemic. The project was launched as a collaboration between the local and regional governing units, city of Gothenburg and region Västra Götaland, in the summer of 2021. The aim of the project was increase Covid-19 vaccination rates in areas of the city where the population experienced vaccine hesitancy and the vaccination rates were particularly low. These low rates have been argued to be a result of e.g. having a low language proficiency as well as experiencing
cultural barriers and a low level of trust towards the Swedish society and its institutions. The
vaccination guide project to a large extent relied on interpersonal communication efforts, employing and consulting key individuals from the civil society that were to be called vaccination
guides. The vaccination guides share the target groups’ ethnic and cultural background as well as
their native language. In addition, the vaccination guides in general have a significant trust capital
among the target group due to their belonging to the same community.

This study is limited to analyse the area of Northeast in Gothenburg and its smaller districts, some of which during autumn of 2021 constituted the least vaccinated areas in Sweden. The analytical
purpose of the study is to learn more about interpersonal risk and crisis communication efforts
targeted towards ethnic minority communities. Therefore, the overarching research question to
guide this study is: How can the vaccination guides reach hard-to-vaccinate immigrant individuals with information about Covid-19 vaccination? This broad question is narrowed down to two more specific research questions that are the following:

1. How does the vaccination guide project and its implementation align with the model procedure established in previous research?

2. How do the vaccination guides perceive the possibilities of reaching hard-tovaccinate
immigrant individuals with information about Covid-19 vaccination, and the conditions of success of this communication

The central framework of this study is CERC (Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication), that relates to risk, crisis, and health communication. Anchored in research, a model procedure on how to reach hard-to-vaccinate immigrant individuals through interpersonal risk and crisis communication efforts is presented. The empirical material consists of interviews with three employees from the city of Gothenburg and region Västra Götaland as well as four vaccination guides. The interviews were analysed through a qualitative thematic analysis, identifying relevant and interesting themes to answer the research questions.

The results of the study show that the vaccination guide project and its implementation to a
significant extent has been performed in alignment with the model procedure established in
research. The vaccination guides emphasise the importance of their role in terms of reaching hardto-vaccinate immigrant individuals with information about Covid-19 vaccination. They argue that the conditions of success of this communication lies in employing trusted key individuals, such as
vaccination guides, thus making linguistic and cultural adaptions. However, the target group’s
significant level of distrust towards the Swedish society, and the spreading of misinformation, is
considered aggravating conditions for the vaccination guides’ work and the project itself.
Nonetheless, it may be concluded that local interpersonal communication efforts, such as the
vaccination guide project, can arguably be seen as a crucial step towards bridging the figurative
gap between normative Swedish society and ethnic minority communities.

Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to gain insights into alternative news media in crisis communication by addressing the news media portrayal of COVID-19 vaccines, inoculation campaigns and the implementation of vaccine mandates by alternative news media outlets in Sweden (Fria Tider and ETC/Dagens ETC). With an exploratory and comparative approach, the study’s overall aim is to investigate how news regarding COVID-19 vaccines (including the vaccines themselves, vaccination campaigns, vaccine passports and mandates) has been portrayed in different Swedish alternative media outlets, and how this compares to traditional mainstream media. The relevance of the chosen research problem revolves around the changed preconditions of alternative media in today’s media market and the function of the media as an information disseminator during crises.

Theory: Framing theory, alternative media anti-systemness matrix, issue attention cycle

Method: Quantitative content analysis

Result: The findings confirm that there are differences between the alternative news media outlets, also when compared against mainstream media, albeit the findings being indicative in nature. The differences concern the portrayal of actors with less praise, more criticism, and lower levels of neutrality. Alternative media were found to focus on the severity and threat to people’s health, with a greater tendency to define the problem and possibly casting blame, as well as a greater focus on conflicts and alarming content in prominent positions of the news items examined. Additionally, a larger share 3 of emotion-evoking frames was found in the main text of the news items. Differences between the alternative news media outlets were also found in terms of thematic/episodic framing, focusing on actors on different levels, which could indicate different approaches towards responsibility attribution.

In academia, the concept of populism is a topic that is treated as frequently as it is controversially. In trying to grasp the concept, this study takes a two-parted approach as it is not only considering the concept in its entirety and examines the extent of its existence in German daily newspapers, but also how those newspapers deal with populist-minded politicians and parties. Through a theory-based breakdown of populism into its stylistic and ideological components as well as the additional consideration of the concept of media populism, which is closely related to populism, corresponding insights are gained. To this end, this study examines the con-tent of two national German daily newspapers, a tabloid (the BILD Zeitung) and one broadsheet newspaper (the Süddeutsche Zeitung), in three open ways, that allow for all possible outcomes: by means of a quantitative and two qualitative content analyses. Each of these analyses is characterised by different focal points and approaches to the concept of populism.

The findings allow the conclusion that both newspapers show clear populist characteristics, especially the stylistic aspect of populism stands out. In addition, it can be determined that the tabloid newspaper tends to show more populist traits than the broadsheet newspaper. A critical attitude towards populist German parties can be found in both newspapers, but here the broad-sheet dominates the tabloid. With reference to media populism, this study additionally establishes which role can be assigned to the two newspapers in the context of their reporting in a populist sense and how said reporting can ultimately be named for both.

Purpose: The goal of this dissertation is to contribute to the framing studies by looking at the
discussion about overtourism in Barcelona over a period of intense media attention (2016-2020). It also aims to complement the few previous studies on overtourism discourses by providing the first situated account of the debate. As a still recent and under-researched issue, it presents good opportunity to look at the processes of strategic
framing involved in configuring the issue.

Theory: Framing theory, social constructionism, strategic framing, overtourism literature

Method: A qualitative content analysis over a sample of regional news articles was combined with the methodological implications of the constructionist approach to reconstruct the main frames in an inductive way.

Result: Three main frames were found —stranger in one’s own home, Devil’s bargain and Law and Order—, each of them endorsed by one of the principal actors in the debate. Framing coalitions and contests were found, providing some evidence of strategic framing. The results challenged several insights presented in studies of the overtourism
debate in international forums, suggesting that a situated perspective was indispensable to grasp the issue.

Although research on alternative news media has been growing over the last decade, the focus is still predominantly on the far-right wing alternative media landscape. There is still little knowledge on the differences among different alternative news media and how they are embedded in the overall news media landscape.

This thesis sets out to get a better understanding on how alternative news media reported on the COVID-19 vaccination process in Germany and to what extent they might make use of mainstream news media’s mechanisms when reporting on a crisis. Using a dataset of 670 news articles, the thesis aims to provide a comparative analysis among different alternative news media on their news coverage in relation to mainstream news media.

Relying on the framing approach by Robert Entman, the present study used a quantitative framing analysis based on the codebook by Semetko and Valkenburg’s news media frames. Adjusting the codebook, it provided a total of seven frames with various subcategories that operationalize the specific frames, actors, context and tone of the news item. The data contains 670 news articles that reported on the vaccination process in Germany from three different alternative news media (Compact, NDS, RT Deutsch) and one mainstream news media (Tagesschau). The content analysis used cross tabulation analyses and chi-square tests to estimate the association between news outlet and frame usage.

The results suggest that there are differences regarding the frame use among different alternative news media. One thing in common however, is their high usage of fear and misinformation when it comes to the vaccine as well to possible restrictions that are related to the vaccination. Their high usage of different fear frames underlines the understanding of alternative news media as their own diverse conglomerate that might adapt dominant news frames from mainstream news media to some extent but with a broad range of different connotations and meanings. In that sense, alternative news media might, despite their political diverging perspectives offer generic news stories to some degree. Yet, they cannot be reduced to the assertion as being a homogenous counterpart of mainstream news media. Their different frame use indicates that their political orientation is indeed an important factor to some degree.