Black Lives Matter protests and rallies erupted in the summer of 2020 following several cases of police brutality in the US, including the death of George Floyd after video of him being killed by a police officer were shared in the media. These protests quickly spread internationally and pushed countries to face their own histories and structurally embedded racism, including Sweden. The aim of this thesis was to examine how the global spread of #BlackLivesMatter in 2020 helped mobilize a nationally relevant movement in Sweden via Facebook, despite its cultural history of disregarding the concept of race and the implications that has had on today. This is achieved through the exploration of interpreting information on social media and the construction of reality in media spheres, with the help of digitally networked action and transnationalism. This framework is accompanied by an inductive thematic analysis of the Black Lives Matter Facebook page in their first 30 days on the platform (June 3-July 3), which is where the organization based itself upon creation, ultimately leading to a sample of 52 posts. The main results of the study yielded three themes: US References, Nationally Relevant Issues (which produced three subthemes), and Action & Organizing. In conclusion, with regard to the research focus, the thesis reveals that this is achieved by a few choices. The organization's ability to use elements that greatly influence the US movement is balanced with factors that are more culturally specific to Sweden and the Black and brown communities here using a connective action frame in which users were able to seamlessly support and participate online and spread the message further. The conclusions implicate that the avoidance of discussing race/racism in Sweden clearly hasn’t helped or prevented Black and brown communities from being negatively impacted and that further research could potentially help guide future policies to solidify Sweden’s image of inclusion and equality.

This study examines The Guardian’s portrayal of intersectional feminism, with a focus on gender and race, analysing how social movements, particularly Black Lives Matter, influence its political coverage. Arising from Kimberlé Crenshaw’s concept of intersectionality, which recognizes the interconnected nature of various forms of oppression and privilege, the research employs a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods to analyse 647 political articles. Quantitative methods, including topic modeling and keyword frequency analysis, provide the structural framework of the thesis. Topic modeling reveals twenty topics, and keyword frequency analysis emphasizes in nine keywords related to intersectional feminism and their prevalence. Qualitative methods, such as collocation analysis and close reading, examine particularly “gender” and “race”. Close reading is used for a deeper examination at every step of the analysis. Despite theme variations, certain subjects like the gender gap and gender identity consistently underscore their enduring significance. Discussions related to Black Lives Matter show spikes in coverage post – 2020, indicating an increased emphasis on diversity and racial justice themes. However, the infrequent use of the term “intersectionality” suggests a potential disparity between the conceptual framework and its direct representation in The Guardian’s political articles.

In this paper, Kait Spong examines alternative practices of mothering that are strategic nature, heavily analyzing Patricia Hill Collins’ concepts of “othermothering” and “preservative love” as applied to Toni Morrison’s 1987 novel, Beloved and Harriet Jacob’s 1861 slave narrative, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Using literary analysis as a vehicle, Spong then applies these West African notions of motherhood to a modern context by evaluating contemporary social movements such as Black Lives Matter where black mothers have played a prominent role in making public statements against systemic issues such as police brutality, heightened surveillance, and the prison industrial complex.

This study examines how racism and police brutality are illustrated in The hate U give and Dear Martin, which are two bestselling novels that emphasize the importance of resistance, and willingness to fight back against abuse of power and the oppression of African Americans in the US. Through the use of critical discourse analysis, power structures and race relations in the US are analyzed by means of postcolonial and power theory as well as by means of narrative theory. Moreover, the textual elements that are of importance to the analysis are the study of characters, motives and themes, specifically how the characters are affected by harmful stereotypes and forced into silence by the legal system in an attempt to justify police brutality. The analysis presented here indicates a colonial discourse, where the power structures in America are designed to work against African Americans. The characters’ actions and reactions to police brutality and oppression are therefore of importance in my study to depict how the novels creates a meaning for resistance and for finding a way for “the other” to be heard. My conclusion is that the characters’ voices are their weapons against police brutality, abuse of power, and oppression. To fight with one’s voice is to prove the stereotype, “thug”, wrong about African Americans, a stereotype that is often used by the police and the media to justify police brutality.

In this article, we explore the Black Lives Matter activist Alicia Garza's Twitter usage during the month of June in 2020 with a critical discourse analysis (CDA). Our aim with the study was to examine the underlying motives and values in Garzas tweeting, and if there were any prevailing themes, in order to see if there was a difference between the discourse used for personal matters and the discourse related to her activism. To support our analysis we utilized critical theory to gain a critical reference and the two-step flow hypothesis to delve into the possible effects Garza's position as an opinion leader has on her tweeting. After processing and examining a total of 48 tweets from the month of June, through the use of coding, our analysis suggests that there are several prevalent themes that can be distinguished in her tweeting. The themes we found were personal tweets, tweets expressing solidarity, tweets urging for action, tweets exuding authority, and promotional tweets. The line between personal matters and the discourse related to her activism was found to be fluid and unable to be strictly defined.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka om skildringen av Black lives matter skiljer sig mellan olika tidningar baserat på dess politiska ställningstagande. Genom en kvalitativ innehållsanalys kommer följande frågeställningar att besvaras; Hur ser språkbruket ut i några mediers rapportering om Black Lives Matter? Finns det systematiska skillnader och likheter i språkbruket för olika medier? Vilka ställningstaganden kan urskiljas i nyhetsrapporteringen? Resultatet visar att Fria tider och the American Spectators rubriker, formuleringar och innehåll visar att det präglats av tidningens politiska färg medan Svenska Dagbladet har en mer neutral rapportering. I diskussionen dras slutsatser om vilka följder observationerna i resultatet kan få i förlängningen. Slutsatserna är att majoriteten av artiklarna publicerade på Fria tider och The American Spectator visade på språklig systematik där värdeord och formuleringar användes vilket hade en påverkan över nyhetsrapporteringen då den blev mindre objektiv samt tydde på politiskt ställningstagande i många av artiklarna. I Svenska Dagbladet fanns inte samma språkliga systematik innehållande värdeord eller tendensiösa formuleringar. Språket hade en stor påverkan över helhetsintrycket av artiklarna och med tanke på att sammanhanget är nyhetsrapportering krävdes det få ord eller formuleringar för att urskilja värderingar och urskilja ställningstaganden.

In the years since the advent of the Black Lives Matter movement, American art museums have increased attempts to address the racial inequities that persist in the field. These inequities impact all aspects of museum work, not least of which education. Because museum educators are often seen as the conduit between museum collections and audiences, the work of implementing anti-racist programming often falls to them. However, the museum education field is majority White, and while there is a rich body of literature treating the adverse impacts of Whiteness on classroom teaching practices, very little exists on how Whiteness might manifest in gallery teaching practices specifically for White museum educators. Utilizing participatory action research, practitioner inquiry, and a White affinity group model, this qualitative study explores aspects of Whiteness that impact the gallery teaching practices of four White museum educators. Our research questions seek to understand better how Whiteness manifests in our teaching specifically in the context of single visit field trips, how those impacts might shift depending on the racial demographics of the groups we are teaching, what questions come for us as a White practitioner-researcher group dedicated to undermining Whiteness in our teaching, and how, if at all, does participation in such a study impact how we think about and implement anti-racist teaching in our practice. As per the research traditions guiding this study, I treated myself as a participant alongside three other White museum educators, and together as a practitioner inquiry group we co-generated our research questions and agreed to our research methods. These included the formation of a digital space in which we could communicate with each other, observations of our teaching, reflective writing responding to the observations, and conversations in the digital space based on these writings. This period of data generation was followed by interviews between myself and each participant as well as a focus group with all of us. Findings surfaced various avoidance techniques we each employed in our teaching to avoid race talk or push our anti-racist teaching more deeply. Our avoidance pointed to perceived tensions we felt between our trainings and the demands of anti-racist teaching, as well as the limitations of the single visit field trip model. Findings also surfaced anxiety when discussing Blackness in particular, as well as problematic assumptions about both White students and students of color we work with. Analysis of these findings provide insights into the ways art museum pedagogies in addition to critical emotional pedagogies might be deployed towards anti-racist teaching, as well as the emotional qualities of naming and dismantling Whiteness as White practitioners. While the findings are limited to the four museum educator participants and the specific contexts in which we work, this study points to ways we might begin to develop deeper understandings of how Whiteness might impact gallery teaching practices. More importantly, in the tradition of practitioner inquiry, this study raises important questions around how visitors of color experience Whiteness in museum education programs, how professional development might be reimagined for museum educators, as well as ways to rethink the traditional single visit field trip model to better accommodate anti-racist learning goals.

This dissertation examines the forms of media that are most productive for the formation of social and political movements at their earliest stages. The problem it confronts is a contemporary one: the dominant forms of social media on the internet do not allow for the slow and focused deliberation this is demanded for radical ideas that are attempting to undermine a status quo to begin to take root. Movements rise and fall very quickly, following the metabolism of sites like Facebook and Twitter, without having the long-term impact they seek. By first looking historically at a series of pre-digital case studies – starting with letters before the scientific revolution and moving through petitions, small newspapers, samizdat and all the way to zines in the 1990s – aspects of more effective incubatory media will present themselves. Each chapter in this first half of the book zeroes in on the affordances of these particular forms of communication that made them so useful. After having looked at pre-digital communication, the dissertation will then turn to contemporary case studies and the challenges posed by social media for activists of all stripes looking to incubate their ideas on these platforms. Starting with the Arab Spring in Egypt, which offers a cautionary tale of a movement overtaken by the social media metabolism and moving through the 2010s toward Black Lives Matter, there is a progression of awareness about what tools the internet can provide for communication and which prove most productive for offering sustainability to a movement. The conclusion is one gained from the juxtaposition of the historical and the contemporary, which builds to an awareness of what affordances are required for a radical idea to avoid burning out.

Denna studies syfte är att undersöka hur demonstrationerna som genomfördes av rörelsen Black Lives Matter i Sverige framställs i svensk media och vad denna framställning leder till för effekter. Denna studie antar en kvalitativ ansats där det analytiska tillvägagångsättet utgår från Carol Bacchis diskursanalys ”What’s the problem represented to be?”. Studien belyser hur språket i tidningar skapar olika opinionsbildningar i samhället beroende på tidningens ställningstagande i det politiska spektrumet. Det följs upp av vad tidigare forskning har beskrivit som protestparadigmet, där medier följer specifika ramverk när de rapporterar om demonstrationer. I analysen ingår 27 nyhetsartiklar från tidningar som representerar den mediala vänstern, mediala högern samt den traditionella median. Det finns en forskningslucka angående hur svenska medier har rapporterat om Black Lives Matter demonstrationerna som denna studie har försökt minska. De slutsatser som kan dras av denna studie är att det finns en stor skillnad i hur man framställer demonstrationerna beroende på vart i det politiska spektrumet tidningen anser sig vara och att dessa problemframställningar kan leda till effekter som minskat förtroende för myndigheter och ett mer proletariserat samhälle. Studiens slutsatser kan bidra till hur media påverkar individens uppfattning i viktiga frågor.

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