The rise of digital media has caused transformations and new phenomena in different fields. In the digital age such branches as personal sports branding and nation branding has acquired new opportunities for development. The research focuses on representation of the personal sports brand of Zlatan Ibrahimovic on digital media platforms and its connection to the nation brand of Sweden. Previous research deals with existing studies on personal branding, personal sports branding in digital media, and nation branding. Theoretical framework includes appropriate concepts and perspectives that guide the analysis such as the TOPSTAR model, theory on types and specialization of personal brands, advertising, cultural branding and the nation brand of Sweden. The study combines different research techniques: quantitative content analysis and semiotics. The data is gathered from official accounts of Zlatan Ibrahimovic on social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the mobile application Zlatan Unplugged. Furthermore, the data for analysis is also received from YouTube videos concerning two campaigns: the Volvo XC70 commercial and “805 million names” awareness campaign by World Food Program. The results of the research outline main characteristics of the personal sport brand, show differences in representation of the brand depending on digital media platform and identify the leading attributes of the personal sports brand. The investigation uncovers a connection between the personal sports brand of Zlatan Ibrahimovic and the nation brand of Sweden and shows how the personal sports brand functions on the cultural level. The thesis might be interesting for both researchers and practitioners in the spheres of media and communication studies, personal sports branding and nation branding.

In this essay, we have studied whether the Swedish newspaper Sportbladet reporting on the French football league (Ligue 1) is different from the season before to season after Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s arrival at Paris Saint-Germain FC in the summer of 2012. The teories that we applied were news values, framing and personalization. In order to complete our investigation, we used two different methods: a quantitative content analysis and critical discourse analysis to see if the news valuation and framing are different, but also to see what impact Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s arrival has on the media coverage of the league. The result of the quantitative content analysis and the critical discourse analysis shows huge differences between 2011/12 and 2012/13 seasons. Sportbladet published ten times as many articles during Zlatan’s debut season in the league in comparasion with the previous season. The articles became generally larger, better placed in the newspaper and contained more columns about the subject. We could also note more focus on individuals in the articles. This change is mainly explained by the increased geographical and cultural proximity during the 2012/13 season, which arose in connection with Ibrahimovic’s transfer from Milan to Paris Saint-Germain. The result was pretty much as we had expected. The 2012/13 season was way more covered with a particular focus on Zlatan and his team in the articles. That shows what kind of importance a national super star like Zlatan Ibrahimovic has on the reporting from the French league.

Jag har med hjälp av Norman Faircloughs modell för kritisk diskursanalys bearbetat 60 mediatexter som på något sätt berör fotbollsspelaren Zlatan Ibrahimovic och två särskilda händelser under hösten 2003. Jag har redovisat teorier som diskuterar samband mellan nationalism, rasism, identitet, idrott och media, samt några klassiska sociologiska teorier om identitet och maktstrukturer. Syftet har varit att söka svar på hur den mediala bilden av Zlatan Ibrahimovic tecknas och vilka egenskaper han framställs som bärare av, på om det förekommer några nationalistiska och/eller rasistiska diskurser i materialet, samt på om Zlatan Ibrahimovic representeras som svensk eller som invandrare, en Annan, och vilka orsakerna skulle kunna vara till den representation materialet ger. Jag fann att texterna om Zlatan Ibrahimovic i stort konstruerar en medial bild av honom som en Annan, och att det sätt Zlatan Ibrahimovic omtalas kan jämföras med hur invandraren generellt omtalas i svenska medier. Jag har även funnit att det sportjournalistiska textmaterialet är starkt präglat av nationalistiska diskurser, och även av diskurser som flera av de refererade teoretikerna i detta arbete placerar under en övergripande rubrik av rasism. Jag gör därtill antagandet att Zlatan Ibrahimovic placeras i en invandrarkategori i stor utsträckning på grund av sitt namn och på grund av den svenska dialekt han talar, eftersom både språk och den språkliga aspekten namn, utgör viktiga identitetsbestämmande markörer i den starkt nationalistiska kontext som sport och sportjournalistik kan anses utgöra. Jag finner även att de diskurser som dominerar i textmaterialet stämmer överens med och snarare stärker än försvagar rådande diskursordning kring svenskhet och kring den i den nuvarande diskursiva och samhälleliga praktiken utbredda dikotomin svensk-invandrare, såsom den diskursordningen beskrivs av flera av de i detta arbete refererade teoretikerna.