The purpose of this paper is to understand how different fractions of Sweden’s left wing (the Social democrats, the Communists, the Syndicalists and the Socialist party) framed the end of the Spanish Civil War and the defeat of the republicans. To answer the purpose four newspapers Arbetaren (syndicalist), Folkets Dagblad (Socialist party), Ny Dag (communist) and Socialdemokraten (social democratic) have been analyzed qualitatively. The thesis has focused on how the different ideologies have framed the war, how they framed the other labour organizations and themselves plus how they relate to information about the war during the period of February 1st1939 till April 5th1939. The analysis shows that the Social democrats and the Communists framed the war as a conflict between fascism and socialism, whereas the Syndicalists and the Socialist party framed the war as a socialistic revolution. Because each side had their own view, their opinions on what threatened a republican victory differed. The Social democrats were most concerned that a non-democratic movement would win the war and the Communists feared that fragmentation within the republicans would threaten their chances to win. In contrast, the Syndicalists argued that the nonintervention policy would make the revolution impossible and the Socialist party framed the threat as the Communists, because of their non-revolutionary agenda.

Social research specifically aimed at evaluating the efficacy of coastal zone management programs at the parish (county) level in building local capacities has been meager in academic literatures and absent from Louisiana Department of Natural Resources evaluative reports. This study addresses this deficiency by examining the effectiveness of Louisiana's Local Coastal Program (LCP) in building local coastal zone management capacity. Using levels of LCP development as a proxy for capacity-building, the study examines the influence of: 1) aggregate level social and demographic characteristics, 2) structural differences, and 3) different types of issue framing (i.e. "regulator" framing versus "regulated" framing). A multiple case design, using survey, interview, observation, and archival methods of data collection, produces two multi-layered data sets - one at the parish level (nineteen Coastal Zone parishes) and the other at the individual level (a target population of parish officials, CZM administrators and advisory panel members). Patterns in findings from quantitative and qualitative analysis are matched to rival theories, namely, resource mobilization theory and social construction theory. The analyses show that parishes with LCPs have a much stronger presence of "regulator" framing than do parishes without LCPs. The "regulator" frame is particularly strong among LCP/CZM advisory panel members, while agreement with regulator frames is lowest among parish council or police jury members. Coastal hazards vulnerability is highly salient to parishes both with and without LCPs, but the translation of hazard impacts to economic vulnerabilities, such as infrastructure damage, property loss and business interruption, is far weaker for non-LCP parishes. Themes prevalent in the data include contentions over wetland mitigation issues, disjunctions between the restorative and regulatory arm of LADNR, and disparate perceptions between non-LCP parishes and LCP parishes concerning the benefits of a parish LCP over developmental and maintenance costs. Overall findings indicate that while resource mobilization is necessary to programmatic participation and the building of capacity, social construction theory can explain the differences between respondent agreement with the regulator frame, and thus the presence of institutional capacity.

In the aftermath of armed conflict, peace and justice are no longer perceived as contradictory. Scholars and practitioners alike have increasingly argued that societies emerging from periods of conflict or repression need to address legacies of past mass violence and human rights abuses in order to sustain peace. This is the rationale behind the evolving field of transitional justice. While it is stated that transitional justice also makes headway in contemporary peace agreements, existing literature tends to remain unspecific. Albeit being the most victim-centred among the range of transitional justice mechanisms, the incorporation of reparation for victims of mass violence into peace agreements is particularly under-researched. This research gap is even more puzzling as it is a “basic maxim of law that harms should be remedied” (Roht-Arriaza 2004: 121). In response to this, this thesis establishes that only around a third of intra-state peace agreements signed from 2000 to 2009 have addressed reparation. Further, by means of an analytical framework that embeds thematic analysis within the structure of framing theory’s model of meaning-making, it maps how the studied peace agreements assign meaning to reparation in their texts. As a result, two themes labelled ‘reparation as the fulfilment of basic needs’ and ‘reparation as an act of justice’ are identified as constituting the broader patterns of meaning held within peace agreements’ reparation provisions. While the language of the latter equips harmed individuals with rights as victims, the former theme focuses instead on individual vulnerability and collective development needs. It deemphasises the link between harm experienced and violation committed. As it is suggested that the employment of particular themes and terminology lifts certain issues up the agenda while marginalising others, peace agreements’ authoritative meaning-making directly impacts on the lives of those victimised during conflict. Hence, this thesis highlights the need for more systematic research in this area to strengthen evidence-based reparation advocacy during peace processes.

Sweden is top ranked in indexes measuring democracy, but the country is also a major weapons exporter. The contradiction is reflected upon in this paper, where Sweden as a well established democracy seems to be going against its own democratic values when exporting weapons to non-democracies. Previous research is limited and lacks sufficient explanation to why Sweden exports weapons to non-democratic states.  The aim of this study is therefore to analyze arguments behind the Swedish weapons exportation to countries with a low degree of democratic freedom. By applying Framing theory and argumentation analysis, selected statements arguing for weapons exports, expressed by Swedish government representatives have been analyzed. The justifications for weapons exportation to dictatorships have been categorized, depending on emphasis, into four frames namely; security, development, credibility and reliability. The research result showed that the most commonly used arguments to justify weapons exports to non-democracies include following; (1) There is a need of a defense industry for Swedish security reasons, (2) It is positive for international exchange and trade and (3) The rules for weapons exports are strict enough and well established in politics. The different ways of justifying the weapons export shows that the concerned Swedish government representatives frame their arguments in a way that supports their political opinion and the current government.

This thesis examines whether there is a frame difference in online news coverage of the controversial 2014 Crimean referendum by The New York Times and the Russian newspaper, Kommersant. The research is grounded in framing theory and literature on the attribution of news sources. The study is conducted in two languages and it seeks to examine how media systems, perspectives on the issue, journalistic standards, as well as cultural backgrounds and historical ties influenced framing of the event. Sample online articles from each newspaper were selected and a quantitative content analysis was performed in order to identify the main themes, frames and source attribution patterns in media news coverage about the referendum. The pattern to quote official sources for providing justification and legitimacy to news stories has influenced the coverage in both newspapers: both The New York Times as well as Kommersant heavily relied on their respective government officials and experts. However, The New York Times provided a greater diversity of opinions supporting the values of a libertarian media system. Politics was the dominant theme of the referendum-related articles in both newspapers, however, Kommersant and The New York Times touched on economy and military themes with different frequencies. A comparison between themes in two periods (before and after the referendum) has not shown a meaningful difference for both newspapers. Kommersant’s online coverage was less critical of Russian policies and frequently utilized a set of the For-referendum frames, rarely touching upon Russian military activities on the peninsula. However, the frame depicting breach of international law appeared with the same frequency as the For-referendum frames, showing that Kommersant tried to maintain independence under the Russian neo-authoritarian media system. The New York Times focused on the illegitimate character of Crimean annexation and exposed every move of Russian troops, which is in line with U.S. foreign policy aims. However, the American publications did not hide the cultural and historical ties between Crimea and Russia and frequently mentioned the illegal character pertaining to Ukrainian protests and a temporary government.

Master of Science / Department of Journalism and Mass Communications / Angela Powers / The country of Myanmar started political reforms in 2010. Along with the process of becoming more democratic, peace and reconciliation have become very important due to the decades-long civil wars that continue to rage between ethnic minority groups and Myanmar Army. The Myanmar media have the potential to play a huge role in national reconciliation. One conflict between the Muslim and the Buddhist of Rakhine State of Myanmar has gained international attention. Research shows that media play a destructive or constructive role in conflict resolution depending on which news frames they adopt in reporting. This uses the theoretic peace journalism perspective, in which media take a careful, consistent and conscientious approach to report stories that create opportunities for society at large and emphasizes non-violent responses to conflict (Lynch, 2008). Using mass media framing theory and existing peace journalism literature, this study investigates the prominence of war and peace journalism framing in the media coverage of an ongoing conflict in the Northern Rakhine State of Myanmar between a group of Muslims and Buddhists who inhabit the region. This study employed a comparative analysis to examine war and peace journalism frames from stories published in four newspapers; two from Myanmar, one from Bangladesh, and one from the U.S. The analysis was guided by Galtung’s (1986) classifications of peace and war journalism and operational definitions derived by Lee and Maslog (2005). Findings suggest that war journalism frames are dominant in the coverage of the Rakhine conflict regardless of media origin. Even though not statistically significant, the government-run newspaper from Myanmar was revealed to produce more peace journalism stories than the other three newspapers. There was a slight difference in coverage of the conflict between English-language and Burmese-language newspapers in terms of peace/war journalism framing. English news stories were more likely to be framed as war journalism than peace journalism. In addition, news stories produced by U.S. journalists and foreign news wire services such as the Associated Press and Reuters were more war-dominant than stories produced by local/regional journalists of Myanmar and Bangladesh. This study calls for international and local journalists to reevaluate their current conflict reporting practices to promote their positive roles in peace processes.

Previous research has shown a difference on the athletes’ portrayal based on gendered language use on television broadcasting of sporting events. A content analysis on the 2018 Tennis US Open Championship Weekend for both men’s and women’s tennis matches explains the structure of the broadcasting commentating done by the network that has the rights to this tournament. The study looks at different categories of the content of the comments and the descriptors that are used to refer to both female and male athletes. Framing and priming theories were the theoretical frameworks for this study. Findings revealed no significant change was observed with athletic skill and strategy-based comments for either gender. The findings also showed that descriptors related to emotionality were more common in the commentary with women.

This study offers the framing analysis of local and foreign-based media on the coverage of "Rohingya: Gambia files case against Myanmar at ICJ" for over nine months period and examines the bias in their new contents and attention to the case. Evaluation of the number of coverage published by each media shows that local media do not pay as much attention as foreign-based media, and undermines the seriousness of the issue. Moreover, the finding highlights that the news representation of local media is evidently in favor of the Myanmar government in support of iconic national leader - Aung San Suu Kyi while abetting in covering up the violent action of the Myanmar military. Findings also suggest that foreign- based media covered the case most with genocide frame whereas self-defense frame was the most popular one in the coverage of local media. This study employed comparative content analysis to detect the bias and observe the different framings of media. Keywords: Bias, Frames, media frames, Framing theory, Myanmar, Rakhine, Bangladesh.

This study focuses on how important foreign policy crises are interpreted and used to construct images and framing of transnational threats. Since Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Ukraine 2014, the security order in Europe and within the European Union has been affected in various ways because of how Russia is portrayed as a potential threat. Accordingly, the aim of the study is the examination of the extent of EU’s framing of Russia as a military and political threat in the annual Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) reports between 2012-2020. Through a qualitative content analysis with a quantitative conception, the aim is to identify the negative frames of demonization that can be distinguished in the CFSP reports that correlate to EU’s framing of Russia as a threat. The theories of neoclassical realism, demonization and framing are used to provide the deductive approach of indicators that construct the frames of categorization for Russia as a military and political threat within the CFSP reports. The study concludes that the EU has framed Russia as a military threat in relation to Russia’s border transgression within Ukraine, implementing the annexation of Crimea, and Georgia. Russia is also demonized as a political threat through means that intend to cause instability in neighboring states in order to influence domestic policies, for example economic-induced pressures, spread of disinformation, and different kinds of hybrid weapons.

This essay has sought out to study the ideological debate in the Swedish press using the Spanish civil war. To complete this task three newspapers editorial pages were studied during the period 13/07-14/10 -1936. The three newspapers that were studied were Dagens Nyheter (liberal), Norrskensflamman (communist) and Svenska Dagbladet (moderat). This essay used qualitative methods to reach the answers it set out to achieve. The method consisted of thoroughly reading through the editorial pages of the chosen newspapers to highlight how each newspaper framed certain aspects of the conflict. Since this essay was on a small scale the results can only be seen as an indication of how the debate looked and was framed. If the same study was conducted but with more newspapers and a longer time period the results could have been broader. The results show that the different newspapers differentiated on who was to blame, why the civil war had broken out and who they wanted to win. The results also show that the different newspapers framed certain aspects of the war differently. / <p>Slutgiltigt godkännandedatum: 2023-06-02</p>