This master's thesis explores the discourse in Swedish media concerning humanitarian crises resulting from war, with a focus on the crises in Ukraine and Gaza. The focus of the thesis is to analyze how the Swedish media writes about these humanitarian crises, as well as highlighting differences in their portrayal. The method and theory used in the study is critical discourse analysis, and the three-dimensional model developed by Norman Fairclough. According to Fairclough, an interdisciplinary perspective that combines textual and social analysis is needed when analyzing discourse. The model consists of three levels of analysis: textual level, discursive practice, and social practice. This study primarily focuses on the textual level, with brief discussions of the other two levels in terms of trends and tendencies. The findings suggest that there are differences in how the humanitarian crises in Ukraine and Gaza are portrayed, particularly in terms of responsibility attribution. The crisis in Ukraine is depicted as a consequence of Russia's actions, while the crisis in Gaza is portrayed more as a natural phenomenon or as a result of Hamas attack on Israel on the 7th of October 2023.

This paper examines how three prominent news outlets in the United States: specifically CNN, Reuters and Fox News, depict the death of Mahsa Amini in Iran and the protests that would follow. The purpose of this study is to examine whether or not political ideology affects news reporting done by these online news outlets. Subsequently, the aim is to determine how that news reporting affects readers and in turn, influences public opinion and cultural ideology. This is done by employing Fairclough’s three-dimensional model, a framework used in critical discourse analysis to examine three dimensions within communicative events. To complete this analysis, historical context, political context, and the news genres’ limitations and expectations are taken into account. This paper finds that political ideology does impact the production of news headlines in terms of lexical choices made both to emphasize the focal point of different news sources, as well as where they stem from and what narrative they enforce. Finally, empirical evidence to support these claims is presented and interpreted.