Mediated public diplomacy plays an important role in attaining foreign policy objectives by communicating with foreign audiences in order to establish a dialogue intending to inform and influence. The Russian state-funded global network RT serves as an important tool of Russian mediated public diplomacy. Its purpose is not only to cover major global events that are often missed by the Western mainstream media, but also to apprise an international audience of an alternative pro-Russian perspective. Interestingly, although there are a few researches analysing Moscow's efforts to rebrand its international image in the last decade, there has been very little work done giving a good insight into Russian media. This dissertation seeks to participate in the discussion about public diplomacy in general by applying the framing theory as a tool of mediated diplomacy. A qualitative analysis of 97 articles discussing the effects of international sanctions imposed on Russia in the aftermath of the escalation of the Ukrainian crisis, revealed a constructed pro-Russian narrative. Several strategies are pursued to convince its audience about the rightness of the Russian stance and gain support for the Kremlin's assertions. Finally, RT aims to wipe out the demonisation of Putin and its administration and counterbalance the penetration of the West in its sphere of influence.

The National School Lunch Program, established in 1946 under the National School Lunch Act, has grown from a commodity surplus distribution program in its early days, to its current incarnation as a nutrition program for lower income students. This paper addresses the following question, “are particular framing choices influenced by a representatives’ district or individual characteristics, or are party considerations more important in determining framing language?” Certain frameworks may be more effective for creating policy change, and given that framing shapes the way humans conceptualize a problem space, framing should be a deliberate tool used in order to constrain the debate around certain problems. In support of this claim, existing framing literature and literature on human cognition indicates that framing plays a vital role in defining the terms of debate and mobilizing the public around certain issues. However, the actual details of debate shifts and issue framing often become a ‘black box’ in theories of policy change. Content analysis of floor statements made over a 16-year period regarding the National School Lunch Program reveals that policy framing is highly dependent on district characteristics, but that language use itself does not appear to have changed significantly in the time period studied. / text

In the past years the usage and growth of social media has increased, through the increase in popularity, growth and use, social media has become an all the more important arena. Politicians need to communicate with the public, where the public is, in order to be elected and right now a large amount of the public is on social media. This research studies how four of the largest political parties in Sweden, Socialdemokraterna, Moderaterna, Sverigedemokraterna and Miljöpartiet, together with an upcoming party Feministiskt initiativ, used social media in the governmental election in Sweden 2014. In order to study how these political parties used social media, the posts made on Facebook and Twitter were selected. The posts were selected from the two weeks leading up to the election. The posts on Twitter had a higher quantitity and were studied through a quantitative content analysis; while the posts on Facebook included richer text and were studied through a qualitative content analysis. The choice to include both a quantitative and a qualitative content analysis were made to give a richer result with a more including picture. The result showed that there is not one universal media logic used by the parties on the posts posted on Facebook and Twitter, however the elements used were the same, but in different extent. One of the parties, Miljöpartiet, had a consequent media logic of all of the selected post made by them on Facebook. On social media political parties become gatekeepers themselves, without relying on journalists to bring forth their ideals, election issues, and topics of importance. On social media the political parties decide what to publish and how to publish it. The political parties frame the topics to benefit themselves and argue for why their approach is the right choice and why the viewer of the post should vote for them.

Den här uppsatsen belyser hur Tysklands förbundskansler, Angela Merkel, representerades i svenska och spanska nyhets- och opinionsartiklar på webben mellan datumen 3 januari 2011 och 29 december 2012. Merkel blev en allt viktigare politiker inom EU i och med eurokrisen som tog fart år 2008, då Tyskland var ett av de länder som gav mest pengar till de stödlån som EU utfärdade till bland annat Spanien. Idag anses Angela Merkel vara en av Europas viktigaste politiker, främst då Tyskland som ekonomisk stormakt inom EU har ett stort inflytande vad gäller beslutsfattanden i EU-frågor. Vi analyserade fyra tidningar med olika politisk bakgrund: Aftonbladet, Svenska Dagbladet, El País och ABC. Studien baserades på en kvantitativ innehållsanalys kombinerat med en kvalitativ textanalys. Den kvantitativa undersökningen fungerar som en översikt och belyser hur stor plats rapporteringen om Angela Merkel tar upp i svenska och spanska webbtidningar, under vilka kategorier artiklarna faller in samt vilken narrativ roll Merkel tillskrivs. Begreppet "narrativ roll" kommer från Van Gorp, som menar att nyhetsmedier, medvetet eller omedvetet, kan tillskriva människor en viss roll genom artikelns utformning, vilket i sig påverkar läsarens uppfattning om dessa. I den här studien användes de konstruerade rollerna skurk, hjälte eller neutral, som pekar på olika sätt att beskriva Angela Merkel genom språklig utformning. I den kvalitativa delen analyserades åtta artiklar för att på ett djupare plan se hur språkliga grepp som ordval, stil, faktaurval, metaforer och disposition av materialet påverkar framställningen av Angela Merkel i nyhetsartiklar på webben. Som referensram användes Lundgren, Ney och Thuréns massmedieretoriska modell. Vår förförståelse var att ländernas olika sociala och politiska bakgrund och förhållanden till Tyskland skulle avspegla sig i medierapporteringen Undersökningen visade däremot att Angela Merkel oftast tillskrevs en neutral roll i nyhetsartiklarna, både i spanska och svenska webbtidningar och oavsett tidningarnas politiska bakgrund. I opinionsmaterialet framställdes hon oftast som skurk, även om hon nästan lika ofta tillskrevs en neutral roll. Studien analyserades utifrån Strömbäcks gestaltningsteori och Hallin och Mancinis teori om olika mediepolitiska system i västvärlden.

A qualitative study of the Swedish Instagram account Kvinnohat´s framing of media criticism. The Instagram account Kvinnohat is an example when citizens with a feminist agenda participate in a public debate. With a critical point of view Kvinnohat approach society; which media is a part of. Social network with photo-sharing implement such as Instagram is a quite new type of social media. Instagram has quickly become a part of many peoples everyday life, especially among adolescents. Kvinnohat allows guest admins to do personal photo-sharing from the account Kvinnohat so that different feminist users have an opportunity to express their opinions. We have analyzed how Kvinnohat use rhetorical strategies and frames to express their opinions about media. By analyzing the frames with help of Robert Entmans (2004) Cascading Activation Model the result of the study shows how Kvinnohat frame their content. The semiotic analysis reveals the visual rhetoric in the post and is a supplement for the rhetorical analysis in which the strategies appears. The result of the study showed that the attitude in Kvinnohat's media criticism is both negative and positive. Kvinnohat and like-minded followers are not only consuming media but also questioning the content and the media industry. The founders of Kvinnohat often recommend their followers a positive media content where the content shows a norm critical perspective. The negative critique practiced by Kvinnohat tend to inform and educate their audience of a problem. To strengthen a relationship between Kvinnohat and its followers, Kvinnohat tend to be personal in their posts by relating to their followers, and inspire them to interact.

On July 19, 2010, conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart posted a story on his website claiming USDA worker Shirley Sherrod was racist in her work with farmers. The edited video included with the story as proof, showed Sherrod speaking at an NAACP banquet. Sherrod was subsequently vilified in the media and fired from her job, only to be exonerated and rehired later that week. Although the media claims their routine writing and reporting practices (such as newsworthiness, source selection, objectivity, and perpetual news cycle) make the industry better, researchers have shown that these practices lead to the use of shortcuts and stereotypes. This is especially detrimental to Black women because of the double-dose of stereotyping they are subject to when they are portrayed in the media. The purpose of this study was to understand how media practices influenced the framing of race and gender in the media coverage of Sherrod. In order to integrate key elements of critical theory (i.e. activism, intersectionality, speaking position, subjectivity) I chose a mixed-methods approach for my framing analysis. This included open-ended reading of the news stories, constant comparative analysis of possible frames, quantitative coding sheet, analysis of statistics in SPSS, and inclusion of qualitative examples. I analyzed a total of 93 news articles from 12 news sources for this study. Most of the news stories came from newer, online publications (n=67, 72.0%) and over half came from new sources with a liberal philosophy (n=47, 50.5%). I found three frames that were used to describe Sherrod in terms of race and gender: victim, good woman, and above her place. I also found that these frames were closely aligned with news values that help determine a story’s newsworthiness. I found seven sources were used repetitively and selectively associated with the frames. I also found differences in frames by news source type and philosophy. Finally, I found that the frames followed an identifiable news cycle. The results of this study show that the media do indeed utilize negative stereotypes of Black women in their products and that media’s use of routine writing and reporting practices exacerbate this problem.

The aim of this study was to determine to what degree the framing of the political party the Sweden Democrats had changed in swedish media, from 2010 in contrast to 2012. Particular interest was directed towards the framing of the party as a problem.This was done by studying the news articles during 12 weeks in 2010, and 12 weeks in 2012, in the newspapers Aftonbladet and Expressen. These particular newspapers were especially interesting to study since they have been outspokenly critical of the party. Both of the newspapers can be said to be among the most clearly critical towards the Sweden Democrats.I studied 256 published articles retrieved through the news database Newsline. Quantitative content analysis was used to determine patterns and tendencies. The theories used to determine variables and the analysis of the articles were the framing theory of Robert Entman (1993) and Jesper Strömbäck (2009). Theories regarding the function of news media in democracy were also used in the analysis from the context of Nord & Strömbäck (2012).The study showed that a slightly more negative framing of the party occurs in 2012. Framing of the party as a problem for the democratic principles occurred less, and moral evaluations were similar between the years. The term xenophobic was mostly used to describe the party in the the overall few instances it was used during both years, with a slight shift towards more neutral and less evocative descriptions like immigration critical in 2012.

In today’s society media constitutes an arena with the opportunity for social communication. The arena is made up of subjective opinions that often leads to free debates about the subjects written about. The recent refugee situation has been highlighted in Swedish media during 2015 and has received widespread attention from various media outlets. The purpose of this paper is to examine how different Swedish newspapers chooses to portray the arriving asylumseekers. The material used is a selection of editorial pages in five daily newspapers. The theories used to evaluate how the newspapers are portraying the asylum seekers is the framing theory and agenda-setting theory. This research uses a qualitative case study approach that is complemented with a media analysis. The results of the research indicate that editorial writers do not differentiate in their description between different ethnic or cultural groups that are seeking asylum. Rather, there is a strong focus in writing about how the refugees are contributing negatively in the development of the Swedish society. The results also showed an indication that the content differs depending on the political standing of the newspaper.

Information is power in the 21st century and strategic narratives through framing are nowadays regarded as part of the modern armoury of war. States constantly compete to create credible narratives in support of their actions on the international policy arena. After the Crimean crisis in 2014 the world was forced to open its eyes to medias new usage in modern warfare. State funded news agencies play an important role in this recent development and one of the most prominent actors is Russia. This thesis seeks to contribute to the discussion of strategic narratives and framing in the news media through a case study of the Russian news site Sputnik News. The thesis focuses on the news agency’s depiction of five empirical events in which the Swedish and Russian armed forces were involved during 2014 and 2015. A qualitative analysis of 25 news articles discussing the five events has detected proof of pro-Russian framing processes. The aim of Sputnik News seems to be a transformation of the general Swedish frame regarding Russia itself and perhaps more specifically Russia’s recent change in foreign policy.

abstract: This study explores how newspapers framed the weight-loss drugs Xenical®(orlistat) and Alli® (over-the-counter orlistat) during the time period of three months prior to their approvals by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration until one year after each became available on the market. As of June 2011, orlistat is the only weight-loss drug available for long-term use in the U.S. Newspapers are influential sources of information about health issues. Agenda-setting, framing, and priming in news articles can have a powerful effect on public perceptions and behaviors. To conduct the content analysis, researchers first developed a codebook containing variables that described the sources of attribution and the features of each drug. They tested the codebook in a series of pilot tests to ensure inter-rater reliability. The sample of texts for the content analysis, drawn from LexisNexis Academic, contained 183 newspaper articles composed of 85 Xenical articles and 98 Alli articles. The overlap was 25% for inter-rater reliability as well as intra-rater reliability. Frequencies were tabulated using Predictive Analytics SoftWare, version 18.0.3. Results demonstrated that Xenical and Alli were framed differently in some critical ways. For example, there were twice as many quotes from the manufacturer for Alli than for Xenical. Researchers concluded that the reporting on Alli was heavily influenced by the manufacturer's multi-media public relations campaign in the months prior to the market-release date. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Nutrition 2011