The purpose of this thesis is to examine whether or not there has been a change in the way DN Debatt has been depicting muslims. This study process the time between 11 September 2000 and 11 September 2002. To reach my result I am using a content analysis, this because I found it the most useful to my material. The result I got with this thesis was that it wasn’t that big of a difference in the picture that the writers wanted to show. The biggest difference was the linguistic, the words used in the articles changed from quite positive to become rather negative. For example before 11 September 2001 the word terrorism was not to be seen in a article about Muslims, but after the same date every article used in this study has the word terrorist in some way. In my thesis I used a hypothesis, the hypothesis was that the reporting about Muslims was going to be radically changed and become hostile towards Muslims. This was not the case and my hypothesis was in one way contradicted.

The aim of this thesis is to identify and illuminate Anyurus fictional portrayal of Islam and Muslims role in the future Swedish society. Furthermore, this thesis intends to shed light on the novels attitudes towards Islam and Muslims. This thesis hopes to add knowledge about how Islam and Muslims can be portrayed in popular cultural. The research questions are framed as follow: How can portrayal of Islam and Muslims in Anyurus novel be understood in relation to José Casanovas theory of the changing role of religions in the public and private spheres? Does Anyurus novel reflect open or closed attitudes about Islam and Muslims? The theoretical starting points that were used to answer the study’s purpose and research questions were José Casanovas secularization theory and The Runnymede Trust model of open and closed attitudes towards Islam and Muslims. The methodological approach was a qualitative content analysis with a focus on a thematic analysis. The material that was being analyzed is a novel called They will drown in their mother’s tears, written by Johannes Anyuru. The results showed that José Casanovas secularization theory could be used to understand Islam and Muslims role in the society. Results showed that their role did not disappear from the public to the private sphere, it was a choice that Muslims in the novel decided by themselves. The result also showed that it can be argued that the majority of Anyurus representation reflect closed attitudes towards Islam and Muslims. The open attitudes could not be identified and reflected in Anyurus novel. It is important to keep in mind that this is a study that is based on a fictional representation of the future of Sweden, which therefore means that it is not possible to draw a parallel to reality.

For centuries Islam and Muslims have been subject to islamophobic attitudes in the west. The purpose with this study was to see into the making of open and closed attitudes against Islam and Muslims from a conflict in southern Thailand, and also to so see if Muslims are portrayed as more violent than the Buddhist groups in the conflict. The aim of the study is also to see if Muslims fall into a violent stereotype. This was studied by looking at five Swedish newspapers coverage of the conflict, during a given time. To be able to look into this, two theories will be used, the first one is the Runnymede Trust theory, which is about open and closed attitudes against Islam and Muslims. The second one is Duncan’s violent stereotype theory, which will be used to see differences between the Muslims and the Buddhists when it comes to the use of violence, and also to see if Muslims are portrayed as a violent stereotyped group. The method was a psychology discourse method with a theory driven analysis with Template Analyze Style. The conclusion of the study was that there was a mix of open and closed attitudes against Islam and Muslims, where the closed attitudes follow a pattern of earlier studies. Another conclusion from the study was that there are only small differences in the portraying of the different groups as more and less violent, where the Muslims tend to be portrayed as a bit more violent but the differences are small. And from that conclusion it is not possible from the material to say that there are any clear stereotypes of Muslims as a violent group.