Gang crime is a growing social problem that involves both women and men. The purpose of the study is to contribute knowledge about how female involvement in gang crime is portrayed in the Swedish media and what similarities and differences exist in the media's portrayal of women's and men's involvement in gang crime. The study is a qualitative document study of mass media documents. Newspaper articles from Aftonbladet and Expressen have been collected based on a targeted selection. In the study, a total of 79 articles have been included in the thematic analysis, where Nikolajeva's (2017) contradiction scheme formed the basis for finding codes, categories, and themes. Hirdman's (1988) gender system theory was then implemented in the discussion of results. The results show that media depictions of women's and men's involvement in gang crime mainly reproduce gender norms and the gender dichotomy. The reason for this is that the stereotypically female characteristics of obedience and self-sacrifice are most used to describe women's involvement in gang crime in the Swedish media. Thus, the results also show that the stereotypically male characteristic active occurs when women's participation in the media is portrayed and thus the gender contract is also challenged. Furthermore, there are both similarities and differences in the comparison of women's and men's participation in media portrayals. Similarities are seen, for example, based on the female characteristic of obedience, while differences are seen in male characteristics such as violence and independence. In conclusion, mass media depictions of women's involvement in gang crime can both uphold and challenge the gender contract, but depictions that uphold the gender contract are the most common.

Reports of gang violence have become a prominent focus in the media. The rhetoric used in reporting gang related crime will have an impact on the reader's perception of the seriousness of gang crime. The media coverage can result in outbreaks of ‘moral panic’, where by aspecific group is demonized and held responsible for societal problems. The aim of this thesis is to study representations of gang related crime, and specifically two rival gangs from Rinkeby, Stockholm, “Shottaz” and “Dödspatrullen”, in the two Swedish newspapers Aftonbladet and Svenska Dagbladet, between the years 2019 and 2022. This is done using critical discourse analysis as method and theory, complemented by the concept of moral panic. The analysis is based on Fairclough’s three-dimensional methodological framework; a sample of newspaper articles dealing with gang crime are analyzed with a focus on the degree of modality, intertextuality and interdiscoursivity. The resultant findings indicate the nature of a dominant discourse and another, less prominent counter discourse. The dominant discourse can be assumed to play a role in triggering moral panic; the findings indicate a link between the story society tells itself about gang crime and a concomitant societal moral panic relating to gang crime. Only one of the newspaper articles analyzed for this study interviews peopleactually affected by gang conflict. This identified counter discourse offers a more nuanced representation of the conflict between “Shottaz” and “Dödspatrullen”, and of the Stockholm suburb of Rinkeby. Music also contributes to the alternative counter narrative, telling a story at odds with that which this study indicates to be the dominant societal discourse.

’Inspection-zones’ are political proposals that the Sweden democrats, Christian democrats and the Moderate parties have put on their agendas for the purpose of combating the gang-related crime in Sweden’s so called ‘vulnerable areas’ since 2017. The proposals entail that the police receive extended powers to, within a geographically defined area, stop and frisk people without being required to provide a reasonable suspicion of individuals committing any crimes, which is something that today works as a protection-mechanism against arbitrary interventions. The purpose of this essay is to analyze, using a critical discourse analysis as a method, how the discourse of ‘inspection-zones’ is constructed by the political parties behind the proposals and which discourses are applied to legitimize the proposals. Furthermore, the purpose is to analyze how racist power-relations are implied within the proposals. The essay is delimited to the aforementioned parties’ latest motions in the Swedish parliament and a party leader debate where the proposals were discussed. The theoretical framework consists of a perspective on how racist discourses can change and still be considered a uniform discourse, and a perspective on how white racism can be reproduced through new discursive means. Conclusions observe that the construction of ‘inspection-zones’ as a discourse is primarily articulated by the parties around gang-related crime. The discourse around gang-related crime is articulated through shootings and organized crime, which legitimizes the proposals, since these are problems that reasonable people would like to prevent. However, the conclusions also shows that a racist ‘Swedishness’-discourse by the parties is implied within the discourse of gang-related crime, making the collective basic characteristics for ‘Swedishness’ an assessment-basis by which gang-related criminality can be expected from people. To direct the focus of ‘inspection-zones’ towards ‘vulnerable areas’ that are already rich in immigrant density, combined with the construction of this racist discourse, also seems to raise the risks of racial profiling and discriminatory practices against non-white ethnic minorities – a result that the Danish people have experienced after a similar legislation was introduced in Denmark.