The overall purpose of this essay is to contribute with knowledge about medias portraying. This by examining whether the two terrorists Rakhmat Akilov and Brenton Tarrant is presented differently in the two Swedish newspapers Aftonbladet and Expressen. These two terrorists were chosen because of their different backgrounds. It also aims to study whether the medias portrayal of the terrorists reproduce mechanisms between ”us and them”. The method that was used in this essay was a content analysis with a qualitative approach as the essay aims to examine the entirety of the articles and to capture the central content that they present. The theories that has been used to analyze the empirical data is Orientalism by Edward Said and the theory of othering. These have been used as a key to understand the representations. The result of this essay shows that the representations of the terrorists both have similarities and differences. The portraying of Akilov have focused on what sets him apart from ”us” and he is described as an individual who is a part of something structural. In the case of Brenton Tarrant he is presented from a individualistic perspective, where the attack is explained by the individual and not by the group.

The aim of this study was to seek knowledge about how the media audience interprets media representations of immigrants as well as the construction of ”us” and ”them” that is created from the media report. We implemented two focus group interviews, one containing only ethnical Swedes and one holding a variety of people with different ethnical backgrounds. The focus groups got to read nine news articles from different Swedish news papers selected by us, based upon previous research. These articles got to serve as the basis of the discussion.To supplement the focus groups, which got to represent the media audience, we also interviewed two different persons we choose to call informants, whom are both immigrants and are or have been politically active and often appear in local media.The interviews were our empirical material which was used for analysis. The method we used was qualitative analysis of meaning and was based upon a hermeneutic starting point, meaning that all humans are interpreting beings. As a theoretical base we used a social constructivistic perspective, with central theories such as stereotyping and representations. The result showed that the media audience sees through the distorted media representations of immigrants. There was an obvious awareness among the participants but at the same time they admitted being affected by the stereotypes and incorrect representations of immigrants. Reluctant racial prejudice could be discerned in the shape of implicit racism in spite of the awareness that was proved. All the participants agreed on the fact that Muslims are the people who are seen as collective representatives of all immigrants. The reason for this bias they all thought originated from the extreme representation of Muslims in the media, that is, there are more often fundamentalists who are allowed to be seen and to make statements in the media than ordinary people. There were also dissimilarities in the interpretation of the media representations between the Swedish group and the group from mixed ethnic backgrounds.

<p>The aim of this study was to seek knowledge about how the media audience interprets media representations of immigrants as well as the construction of ”us” and ”them” that is created from the media report.</p><p>We implemented two focus group interviews, one containing only ethnical Swedes and one holding a variety of people with different ethnical backgrounds. The focus groups got to read nine news articles from different Swedish news papers selected by us, based upon previous research. These articles got to serve as the basis of the discussion.To supplement the focus groups, which got to represent the media audience, we also interviewed two different persons we choose to call informants, whom are both immigrants and are or have been politically active and often appear in local media.The interviews were our empirical material which was used for analysis. The method we used was qualitative analysis of meaning and was based upon a hermeneutic starting point, meaning that all humans are interpreting beings. As a theoretical base we used a social constructivistic perspective, with central theories such as stereotyping and representations.</p><p>The result showed that the media audience sees through the distorted media representations of immigrants. There was an obvious awareness among the participants but at the same time they admitted being affected by the stereotypes and incorrect representations of immigrants. Reluctant racial prejudice could be discerned in the shape of implicit racism in spite of the awareness that was proved. All the participants agreed on the fact that Muslims are the people who are seen as collective representatives of all immigrants. The reason for this bias they all thought originated from the extreme representation of Muslims in the media, that is, there are more often fundamentalists who are allowed to be seen and to make statements in the media than ordinary people. There were also dissimilarities in the interpretation of the media representations between the Swedish group and the group from mixed ethnic backgrounds.</p>

Author: Amanda Hedberg &amp; Julia Rindhagen   Title: “If we come to Sweden ...Will they welcome us?” A qualitative studie of how the representation of refugees have changed over time in the genre reportage in the newspaper Aftonbladet. Location: Linnaeus University  Language: Swedish  Number of pages: 41 The aim of this study was to examine if there were any differences in how the swedish newspaper Aftonbladet represented refugees over time. The main question examined was: How do the newspaper Aftonbladet represent refugees in the genre reportage over time? We added three more questions in order to get a more precise result. The questions were: Which discourses were found in the years 1995, 2005 and 2015, were there any differences or similarities? Have the representations of the actors of the text changed?  How can the texts contribute to stereotypes of refugees in order of the postcolonial theory with focus of “us” and “them”?  We made a critical discourse analysis of 15 reportages over time. Five reportages of three different years; 1995, 2005 and 2015. The result showed that Aftonbladets representation of the refugees over time in the genre reportage had an up going curve in the focus area of “us” and “them”. Through all the examined years, the refugees were described as victims. In 2005 Aftonbladet started to represent the refugees as “the others” and in 2015 the refugees started to be described as “a threat”.

Bakgrund: Kvinnors identitet i förorter Syfte: Uppsatsens syfte är att studera hur kvinnor i förorten utformar identiteter i spänningsfältet mellan olika identitetserbjudanden och hur kvinnor förhåller sig till dessa identitetserbjudanden. Metod: En kvalitativ studie har genomförts utifrån fokusgruppsintervjuer där vi har lyssnat på respondenternas personliga upplevelser. Sammantaget deltog 4 kvinnliga respondenter i åldern 22-45 år som sedan analyserades. Resultat: Studiens resultat vittnar om att respondenterna delar gemensamma åsikter kring utanförskapet som existerar i deras respektive bostadsområde. Kvinnorna nämner kontinuerliga anpassningar som behöver tas ställning till när de befinner sig utanför förorten. Respondenterna delar också uppfattningen att utseende och bostadsområdet (förorten) begränsar handlingsutrymmet exempelvis när de söker arbete. Kvinnorna antyder även att omgivningen och miljön är företeelser som begränsar och reglerar möjligheten att utforma den egna identiteten.

This study focuses on the official political line of Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen. By conducting a qualitative text analysis in the form of a structured, focused comparative study on President Tsai’s National Day addresses over the period of 2018-2022. The chosen research questions of the study are; how are President Tsai Ing-wen’s official statements on the diplomatic relation to China presented in the National Day Addresses over the period 2018-2022 and to what extent do they differ? And how is Taiwan's National Unity presented by President Tsai Ing-wen in the National Day Addresses over the period 2018-2022 and to what extent do they differ? The study deemed the themes China, ‘Us’ and ‘ Them’ and National Unity to be of importance. Furthermore, the conclusion showed that President Tsai's National Day addresses seem to have adapted to the increase of severity in threats that Taiwan faces over time. As the threats from China have grown more severe, but also as the world faced a pandemic, economic difficulties and other major conflicts world wide. Finally, President Tsai referenced Taiwan's international allies increasingly over the years. Emphasizing the importance of like minded democratic allies to strengthen Taiwan’s National Unity and security.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how three Swedish news publications writes about integration and immigrants. The news articles were analyzed with a rhetorical analysis. The method was supplemented with theories of media and ethnicity, agenda setting theory and gatekeeping theory. This study resulted in the conclusion that racist discourses are found in the three news publications, regardless of political color, writer or article genre. Many of the articles makes a clear division of "us and them", where "them" is defined by the text's "us", who are often Swedes. "Them" is described by the attributes that ”us” don't want to be associated with. Immigrants are often portrayed as victims of their culture or as a threat to Western society. There is also a clear link between immigrants, Islam and Muslims irrespective of where the immigrants come from. The articles on integration continues to talk of immigrants as a unified group but these articles are accusing politicians and organizations to a greater extent, for the integration problematics. Both topics are discussed mainly on the basis of values and feelings and statistics showing the whole context is missing.

Denna uppsats undersöker vilket innehåll USA:s president Donald Trump fyllde begreppen ”vi” och ”dom” med via sitt Twitterkonto under de sista tre veckorna av presidentvalrörelsen 2016. Analysen motiveras av att den kan ge en fingervisning om vilken politik Trump kommer att verka för som president. Forskningsfrågan för studien är: Med vilket innehåll fyller Donald Trump, genom sitt Twitterkonto, signifikanterna ”vi” och ”dom”? Uppsatsen ingår i forskningsfältet politisk kommunikation och utgår från ett teoretiskt ramverk som lägger stor vikt vid språkets funktion i konstruktionen av verkligheten. Som metod används diskursanalys, där betydelserna för ”vi” och ”dom” tolkas utifrån hur begreppen sammankopplas med andra betydelsebärande begrepp och den kontext som tweetarna är skrivna i. I uppsatsens analys framkommer det att Trump konstruerar en motsättning mellan ”vi” och ”dom” som baseras på religiös tillhörighet och ursprung, och där ”dom” som är muslimer eller har invandrat från Latinamerika utgör problemet. Utifrån den konstruerade problembilden kan politiska krav som att stoppa invandringen från muslimska länder och att deportera miljontals invandrade från Latinamerika, framstå som logiska lösningar. Lösningar som också har presenterats av Donald Trump. Denna typ av politiska förslag riskerar leda till att ytterligare öka främlingsfientligheten och de sociala spänningarna i USA. / This paper examines the content US President Donald Trump filled the terms "us" and "them" via his Twitter account during the last three weeks of the presidential election campaign in 2016. The analysis is motivated because it can give an indication of what kind of policy Trump will suggest as president. The research question for this study is: With what content does Donald Trump, through his Twitter account, fill the signifiers "us" and "them"? The essay is part of the research field of political communication and is based on a theoretical framework which places emphasis on the function language has as a tool for the construction of reality. Discourse analysis is used as method, which implicates that the meanings of "us" and "them" is interpreted on the basis of how the concepts are connected with other meaningful concepts and the context in which the tweets are produced. According to the analysis of this paper, Donald Trump constructs an opposition between "us" and "them" based on religious affiliation and origin, in which "them" – who are Muslim or immigrants from Latin America – are the problem. Based on this constructed conflict, the political demands to stop immigration from Muslim countries and deport millions of immigrants from Latin America, appears as logical solutions. Solutions that has also been presented by Donald Trump. This type of policy proposals could lead to a further strengthening of the social divisiveness and an increase of xenophobia in USA.

<p>This thesis deals with questions concerning ongoing constructions of heterosexuality as a norm in the Swedish church. Empirically the study is based partly on interviews with thirteen homo- and bisexual priests, one district visitor and one church politician and partly on some of the church’s own inquiries and documents concerning the question of Christianity and ”deviant” sexuality.</p><p>The aim for this study is to examine how norms for sexuality, coexistence and gender are repeated in the documents created by the Swedish church itself about homosexuality and Christianity and to discern how these norms are present and have sense – are reproduced, challenged and transformed in life stories of Christian homo- and bisexual individuals. To be able to see how the notion of homosexuality as abnormal is reproduced, secured and challenged I have chosen to interpret texts, observations and life stories from a critical discourse perspective. In this theoretical tradition it is central to stress how, or rather to investigate what strategies are used to produce and maintain notions of ”abnormality”.</p><p>One dominating view in the discussions within the church is that homosexuals and heterosexuals have equal value but that partnership cannot be equated with marriage. This understanding is expressed in my examples of formations of heteronormativity within the church.</p><p>In the interview persons’ narratives there are discourses represented that are articulated in the church’s own inquiries but the narratives also express counter discourses. They speak about themselves in relation to, for example, imperative heterosexuality, homosexual ideals, core family ideals, theological way of thinking and dichotomizing understanding of gender. I have identified several ”uses” in the narratives and all of them are contained in an overall Christian homosexual ”us”.</p><p>Instead of viewing themselves as being ”wrong” some of the interview persons have moved the problem to the heteronormativity. Experiences of not being part of the norm have made them strong and willing to struggle and fight for their rights. This position, outside the norm, is by some viewed positively. The homosexuals’ experiences of oppression have led to a desire to liberate the church from homophobia and show ”the true” church, where no one is discriminated.</p><p>Homosexuals are accepted within the church, but only as deviants. This way heterosexuality is being made the superior category. Its meaning and superior position cannot be questioned according to many of the church’s representatives. Still, this is exactly what is happening when homosexuals are increasingly visible to the public and when they challenge the heterosexual norm. This provocation makes the heterosexual norm visible and forces representatives of the norm to deal with it!</p>

Sarajevo is a city in which, for centuries, people of different religions and ethnicities have lived together. But the war in the early 1990s partitioned the country into almost ethnically homogenous parts. The aim of this work is to find out, how young people between the ages of 18 - 29 years old perceive the identity of contemporary Sarajevo and to what extent they identify with the official narrative of Sarajevo as a multi-ethnic city. An online survey was conducted in March 2016 by a sample of 66 young Bosniaks, Bosnian Serbs, and Bosnian Croats. The research examines how they identify with the Sarajevan urban identity and the influential factors, such as ethnic categorization, religious beliefs, origin, or dominant information sources. To provide a deeper insight, the online survey was extended to include 15 in-depth interviews with young Sarajevans. There, the author uses a metaphor of a bridge to analyze the young Sarajevans' point of view regarding inter-ethnic relations and identity of their city. The outcome of the research is recognition that young Sarajevans often deny the ethnic categorization and perceive the every- day contact between different ethnic groups as non-problematic. As a consequence, the participants see Sarajevo as a unique city in the Bosnian context and typically distinguish...