The main purpose of this thesis is to identify the discursive techniques through which women are delegitimized, belittled and "Othered" in Croatian media. On top of that, the goal is to identify patterns in news framing processes which reflect the structures of a patriarchal society. This thesis looks at discourse with an aim to identify and address the dynamics of “othering” and “silencing strategies” in Croatian media and their most popular informative talk shows, "Sunday at 2" and "Fifth Day". The question of whether HRT complies with their own laws as well as the laws on gender equality in the media is also raised. This thesis employs critical discourse analysis to examine four different talk show episodes where problems of sexual violence and access to abortion were discussed. Additionally, power relations between men and women enacted through discourse are observed, revealing the frames behind them. Results suggest that agenda-setting and news framing are powerful tools through which Croatian media presents women as inferior or“Other”, while delegitimizing their struggles. The male figures on Croatian television are shown to perpetuate stereotypes and gender inequalities, violating Croatian Radiotelevision and Gender Equality Laws. Ultimately, this thesis observes Croatian media in the light of the process of retraditionalization in Croatia and the broader backlash against women's issues across Europe. Finally, this thesis highlights the conservative patriarchal values reflected in Croatian media and encourages research on media framing of women in Croatia. However, further research is needed to better understand framing effects on public's perceptions of gender inequalities in Croatia.

The purpose of the current study was to examine how the media's positive and negative portrayals related to racism impact the viewer's attitudes regarding African Americans. Previous research has shown how misinformation in the media can implicitly affect one's level of racism. Previous research has also shown that gender and one's sociodemographic status can affect the way individuals perceive misinformation. This study aimed to address the relationship between misinformation depicting racist views directed toward African Americans and consumer's attitudes toward African Americans. It was hypothesized that exposure to misinformation will have a significant impact on participants' level of racism. A Series of linear regression analyses were conducted to determine how race, sex, social class, right-wing authoritarianism, religious involvement, political preference, and exposure to real and fake news combined predict the pro-black and anti-black views of participants. Results indicated that exposure to fake news did have a significant negative impact on a pro-black viewpoint. However, the results of the study indicated that real or fake news did not significantly impact anti-black views.

This study studies the way trafficking for sexual exploitation is constructed by the EU and the ASEAN by analyzing their discourse in their policies. Further, the study also seeks what potential implications exist in the policiesand how it is problematized. The following policy documents; Directive2011/36/EU, The EU Strategy on Combatting Trafficking in Human Beings 2021-2025, ASEAN Convention Against Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children and lastly, ASEAN Plan of Action Against Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, were analyzed in order to meet the aim of the study. The discourse analysis of the thesis is called “What’s the problem represented to be?” and will be used as the analytical framework, while the framing theory acts as the theoretical framework. The results of the study reveal that trafficking for sexual exploitation is a problem of law enforcement and judicial cooperation, a violation of human rights, and due to gender inqeuality according to the EU, while the ASEAN consider the issue as a regional problem benefitting from poor regional instruments, a violation of human rights and increasing government corruption and lacking criminalisation. Further, the way the organizations construct victims endorses gender stereotypes.

The framing of news stories is found to be changing throughout time. This thesis advances a quantitative, longitudinal content analysis to examine the news coverage on climate change in five different countries over a period of ten years. Applying Chyi and McCombs two-dimensional measurement scheme, this thesis finds that the international frame was the most deployed spatial frame, while the present frame was the most used temporal frame. The political action, environmental risk and science frames, in their own regard, were the most deployed topical frames. Centrally, the analysis showed that the environmental risked frame is increasingly superseded by the science frame. This suggests that scientific considerations have become increasingly important in climate change journalism. Additionally, a higher climatological vulnerability of a country does not appear to translate to a risk focused framing of news articles. Moreover, the analysis finds that the societal spatial frame is increasingly used, pointing to emphasised national considerations in climate change journalism. Finally, the data of the thesis supports the emergence of a previously unconsidered climate action frame.

This study examines how The Swedish Armed Forces (SAF) communicates via their commercials and how this may affect their brand. The Swedish Armed Forces has always been an important authority and their priority is to prevent war and crisis in Swedish society. According to SAF themselves, one of their strategies with using commercials frequently is to attract potential recruits. Even though this is their goal, the SAF hasn't always been as open minded as today. In fact it’s been a relatively closed authority in earlier years, according to previous research. This has created a lack of knowledge among the public regarding what they do. This study compares two time periods to see if their commercials have changed. The first time period extends from 2011 until 2016 and the second period extends from 2017 to 2022. The theories that are applied to this study are semiotics, framing and representation theory and the methods that are used are a quantitative content analysis and a semiotic analysis. By using these theories and methods it might be possible to discover similarities and differences in the commercials and also to seek for a greater meaning in the empirical material. The reason why this topic is interesting to research is because the SAF is one of the most important authorities in Sweden and also because Sweden re-introduced compulsory conscription in 2017. Because of that it is of importance that the SAF appears as an attractive brand and a good employer. The result of the study states that the commercials have developed a lot over years and that they nowadays exhibit several parts within the SAF and that they represent diversity. In earlier years only one type of human was represented in their films but by the years they have included humans with different ethnicities, gender, sexuality and lifestyles within their films. They also show parallels between daily life and the life within the armed forces. By doing this they appear to be closer to the people which creates a feeling of safety and importance towards their work.

It has become increasingly more common to promote cosmetic surgery on social media with the help of influencers. A debate about the phenomenon has recently been evoked in Swedish media, where concepts such as power and responsibility are often discussed. The study “Influencers, the ideals and the sponsored cosmetic surgeries” aims to shed light on how power relations and responsibility is portrayed in connection with influencers' marketing of cosmetic surgeries. By analyzing content from a documentary made by SVT, we have been able to distinguish different social actors who are assigned specific roles, where the documentary genre has an impact on how the content is presented which can have effects on the audience. The study's theoretical framework is based on theories of habitus, field and capital as well as the framing theory. The analysis is based on the method multimodal critical discourse analysis, where we have used analysis tools such as lexical choices, attributes and stage environment and social actors as well as Fairclough's three-dimensional model. In the result, we distinguished five distinctive discursive themes, where the result showed discourses about influencers as actors with power who are partially taking responsibility, although influencers being portrayed as victims were most prominent in the documentary. The discourse about society as a collective, platforms and clinics as actors with power was portrayed from a more critical perspective where a big part of the responsibility was placed on those actors, and not on the influencers promoting the surgeries. Another conclusion of the study is that the creators of the documentary have a big role in shaping the portrayals of the actors and the discourses in the documentary.

Abstract   Wickzell, Arvid. Magic mushrooms or a miracle drug? The Swedish media coverage of psilocybin. Bachelor’s thesis, Umeå University, 2023.   Abstract.   This bachelor’s thesis presents a study on how Swedish mass media is covering the subject of psilocybin. With a social constructionist, critical discourse, framing and agenda setting perspective, the thesis aim is to analyze the media discourse around the subject and to answer the main research question; how does Swedish mass media report about psilocybin? The main question is followed by sub questions; (a) how is psilocybin being framed, (b) whose opinion is voiced in the media, (c) has the way mass media reports on the subject changed over time?   The research questions are answered by using quantitative research method, and critical media discourse analysis, on material from four Swedish publications, both web and print based. The material spans from the year 1995 to 2022. Results show a change over time. A higher interest in the subject, and a change in types of texts being produced. A new way to frame the subject, changing from articles mainly about psilocybin in a crime context, to articles about psilocybin in a medical context. The opinions that are being voiced in the media are mainly by scientists, medical professionals, and law enforcement.    Key words: agenda setting, drugs, debate, discourse analysis, framing, media, press, psilocybin, newspapers, Sweden.

This thesis examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on racist and xenophobic hate crimes. I argue that perceived threat and strain generated by the pandemic trigger negative emotions such as fear, frustration and anger. These negative emotions are directed to the group that is blamed in public discourse for the cause and/or spread of the Coronavirus. As a result, I argue that these hostile attitudes are expressed through racist and xenophobic hate crimes. Drawing on this proposed causal mechanism, the hypothesis the COVID-19 pandemic caused an increase in the number of racist and xenophobic hate crimes is developed. The hypothesis is tested by examining a period of 11 months before and 11 months during the pandemic by conducting an Interrupted Time Series Analysis (ITSA). The results show that the hate crime trend changed from a small decreasing trend before the pandemic to a less decreasing trend during the pandemic, yet the results are not significant. Thus, the results do not support the hypothesis. Concerns regarding the sample selection and theoretical limitations are expressedand open up avenues for future research.

A preliminary technical framing of climate change in the evidence of citizens' climate assemblies (CCAs) might lead to closing down policy options and ignoring other sides of climate change, such as questions of power. A limited range of frames can negatively impact epistemic conditions for deliberation and lead to decreased engagement by participants who do not share the values proposed by the dominant frames. As climate change framing can affect the policy recommendations participants produce, a dominating technical framing may reinforce narrow and incomplete views on climate change and reduce novel and potentially transformative policy ideas. I developed a framework to study climate change framing in CCAs and used it on general climate change and topic-specific (energy) information provided to UK, German and Global CCA participants. Although the three CCAs differed in many aspects, no major differences in the framing of climate change stood out. More differences in framing arose between different speaker types and between the written material of the Global assembly and speaker presentations across assemblies. Also, the framing within the topic group energy was more technical than in the general climate change information. In total, frames regarding human safety, governance issues, fairness between people and countries and technology and energy were used most in the general climate change information. There was little mention of the role of science, communication, economy, personal agency or human-nature relationship. Literature suggests that a technocratic view on climate change dominates the evidence of CCAs. However, my findings do not fully confirm that. Nevertheless, there remained room for improvement in applying a more diverse set of frames and including alternative and potentially transformative views in the three case studies. Future research can use my framework to systematically assess the framing of climate change in the evidence of CCAs.

This study examines the framing of the sinking of the Russian cruiser and flagship of the Black Sea fleet Moskva in 2022 during the Russo-Ukrainian War, focusing on the variation in the post-hoc battle for meaning. Specifically, the analysis explores the role of targeting and its relationship to strategic narratives. Employing a framing analysis approach, the study investigates how the framing surrounding success, failure and deterrence was communicated. By examining various textual sources, including media reports and official statements, the analysis uncovers different framing strategies employed by the different actors involved. The findings shed light on how the event was portrayed, the underlying narratives that shaped the framing and the implications of these narratives on the perception of success or failure and the concept of deterrence.