In this paper I theorize about how a company’s corporate reputation and visibility can be affected by a scandal. Scandals are associated with negative outcomes such as bad reputation but this thesis investigates if there are some positive side-effects of a scandal in terms of increased visibility. The idea of it being better for companies to be infamous than unknown is studied using the empirical example of the payment service company Klarna AB, their scandal in April of 2014 is the focus of the thesis. The results show that the company’s visibility was affected in a positive way following the scandal since the number of articles about Klarna did increase after the scandal compared to before the scandal. Klarna’s visibility was also shown to increase through the higher number of customer reviews after the scandal. The measurements for corporate reputation of Klarna rose significantly after the scandal in comparison to before the scandal indicating that also Klarna’s reputation was positively affected by the scandal. The conclusion is that it is better to be infamous than unknown since there was something to gain from the scandal in terms of visibility and corporate reputation.

Since the earliest days of the American republic, political sex scandals have been a part of the political discourse. Despite the passing of several hundred years, much discussion is still given to political sex scandals by the popular media. Little attention, however, is paid to research into the relationship among political sex scandals, the media reporting of sex scandals, and the ways in which politicians are able to use the media during admissions of sex scandals. This project analyzes the most common characteristics within three major newspapers reporting on five cases of gubernatorial admissions of extramarital affairs. The multiple case studies analysis observes 89 newspaper articles to secure data from the initial speculation of a gubernatorial extramarital affair to the admission of an extramarital affair and the period of time (up to one month) following the admission of an extramarital affair. / Master of Arts

This study, which seeks to contribute to the shared-body of knowledge on media and war crimes jurisprudence, gauges the impact of the media’s coverage of the Civil Defence Forces (CDF) and Charles Taylor trials conducted by the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) on the functionality of civil society organizations (CSOs) in promoting transitional (post-conflict) justice and democratic legitimacy in Sierra Leone. The media’s impact is gauged by contextualizing the stimulus-response paradigm in the behavioral sciences. Thus, media contents are rationalized as stimuli and the perceptions of CSOs’ representatives on the media’s coverage of the trials are deemed to be their responses. The study adopts contents (framing) and discourse analyses and semi-structured interviews to analyse the publications of the selected media (For Di People, Standard Times and Awoko) in Sierra Leone. The responses to such contents are theoretically explained with the aid of the structured interpretative and post-modernistic response approaches to media contents. And, methodologically, CSOs’ representatives’ responses to the media’s contents are elicited by ethnographic surveys (group discussions) conducted across the country. The findings from the contents and discourse analyses, semi-structured interviews and ethnographic surveys are triangulated to establish how the media’s coverage of the two trials impacted CSOs’ representatives’ perceptions on post-conflict justice and democratic legitimacy in Sierra Leone. To test the validity and reliability of the findings from the ethnographic surveys, four hundred (400) questionnaires, one hundred (100) for each of the four regions (East, South, North and Western Area) of Sierra Leone, were administered to barristers, civil/public servants, civil society activists, media practitioners, students etc. The findings, which reflected the perceptions of people from large swathe of opinions in Sierra Leone, appeared to have dovetailed with those of the CSOs’ representatives across the country. The study established that the media’s coverage of the CDF trial appeared to have been tainted with ethno-regional prejudices, and seemed to be ‘a continuation of war by other means’. However, the focus groups perceived the media reporting as having a positive effect on the pursuit of post-conflict justice, good governance and democratic accountability in Sierra Leone. The coverage of the Charles Taylor trial appeared to have been devoid of ethno-regional prejudices, but, in the view of the CSOs, seemed to have been coloured by lenses of patriotism and nationalism.

Aim  With this study we want to highlight and analyze the media spin of the PR campaign Miss Skinny by clarifying; a diffusion pattern which covers posts published by bloggers and journalists; a framing pattern from the first audited post to the last; how journalists are influenced by user generated content, and what consequences this may have for the news coverage. Method  We have conducted a studied of news posts and blog posts about the Swedish PR campaign Miss Skinny through content analysis, diffusion analysis and mapped direct links between blog posts and news posts. Main result  We found that a surprisingly large amount of news postings contained direct links to previous blog posts and that the former media serial no longer can be applied on today's modern media where journalists and other players come together on the converged media arena.

At the end of 2017 the hashtag #metoo swept through swedish media and engaged both private households, rulers and professions in the process. This study examines two different generations to look at their similarities and differences when it comes to how they’ve reacted to the news reporting on #metoo. By using semi-structured focus groups this study has analysed these generations opinions on media reporting, generation issues and gender. The results show that there´s differences in some ways, but there’s also similarities. Both groups agree to the facts that their generation is a cause to their thoughts and beliefs in this subject, and the knowledge when it comes to social media has a huge impact in how they respond to  media reporting. The fact that the groups has grown up during different eras results in a disparity in in their values which is a factor to why they interpret the reporting differently. The older group were more critical to the reporting while the younger group meant that the ones who were portrayed in media deserved it. A similarity for both groups was the belief of that the reporting, despite how they felt about it, has affected people's way of thinking and will hopefully, according to the focus groups, lead to something good.

Death in custody elicits accusations and emotional outbursts by the victims' families, community, activists and the general pubic. These controversial cases have become a regular feature in the news. Using thematic analysis, I examine news reporting on the deaths of two racialized individuals with mental illness at the hands of law enforcement officers in Ontario in 2016. This study draws on the concepts of framing and narratives to examine how news media reporting of law enforcement deaths involving racialized men suffering from mental illnesses may produce conflicting narratives and frames. The news media's coverage of such incidents presents various narratives and frames in an attempt to assist the general public in making sense of the incident. Journalists' quoted sources and their messages resulted in the frames that were found in this study. These frames included opposing views on the use force, the influence of race and mental illness, injustice, and uniqueness of the event. Similarly, the narratives included comments and discourses on the event, how people make sense of what happened and why it happened the way it did, and what can be done to prevent these issues from recurring. Narratives about the identities of both victims and law enforcement agents, the nature of law enforcement work, and system change were also included. The different narratives and frames that appear in news reports of law enforcement brutality cases may create a polarized community with a section of the citizenry agreeing with and supporting these frames while the other section opposes them. The use of force, a contentious issue, is visible to the public and frequently elicits competing claims that serve to frame it as a necessary part of law enforcement work or as brutality that primarily targets the vulnerable in society. This study is significant because it investigates narratives and frames in order to fully comprehend and appreciate the contrasting discourses surrounding the use of deadly force by law enforcement against racialized men with mental health issues in Ontario.

Title: From fish flu to corona crisis – a quantitative content analysis of front pages from Dagens Nyheter and Aftonbladet during the coronavirus outbreak. The aim of this essay was to examine the reporting and framing of the coronavirus on DN.se and Aftonbladet.se's front pages, between January 7, 2020 and April 30, 2020. In order to do so, we chose to examine front page teasers on both newspapers front pages online. We define front page teasers as the package of text and pictures on the front page, which then takes the reader to the actual article. We formulated three questions to concretize the aim: ​How much space is given to the front page teasers about the coronavirus on Dagens Nyheter and Aftonbladet's front pages, in terms of number, size and location? ​How do the front page teasers frame the coronavirus on Dagens Nyheter and Aftonbladet's front pages, regarding to framing and perspectives as well as calming or alarming signals? And, ​what differences and similarities can be found between Dagens Nyheter and Aftonbladet’s front page teasers about the coronavirus, regarding to space and shape? ​The method chosen for this study was a quantitative content analysis, which was supported by theories about news values, media logic and narration, as well as the agenda setting theory and the framing theory. The results of the analysis stated that front page teasers about the coronavirus was given more space on both newspapers’ front pages during the majority of the selected time period, than front page teasers about other events. This could be explained by multiple theories about how threats, risks and crises, as well as sensational news, stand a better chance of making it to the front page, than other news. The analysis also showed that Dagens Nyheter chose to frame the coronavirus based on themes such as healthcare and economical consequences, while Aftonbladet chose a more human perspective. We speculated on how these results could affect the readers and their picture of reality – in this case the coronavirus – and came to the conclusion that Aftonbladet’s readers might feel more of a closeness to the coronavirus, than the readers of Dagens Nyheter. So, regarding to space – both in number and size – as well as theme, actor and signal, but also the newspapers’ own choice of words, our study made it possible for us to see how the “fish flu” gradually turned into a corona crisis.

The purpose of this study is to explore the media reporting of the Ukrainian refugees in Denmark, in order to analyse what hegemonic underpinnings are present. The thesis employs a constructivist approach and analyses the material by using critical discourse analysis (CDA) as a method. The empirical material is limited to 20 articles from the Danish newspaper Politiken. The analysis of the material discusses that the Ukrainian refugees are described as being part of the in-group. By using the theories of orientalism and eurocentrism, and the concept of sameness as theoretical framework, the study is able to explore what role skin colour and religion play in media representations of refugees. Moreover, also how the wish for sameness plays a role in the inclusion and exclusion of human beings. The thesis contributes to the academic field of racialization and media representations, as it enables an exploration of a timely and new refugee group.

Carema Care (numera Vardaga) är ett privat ägt vårdföretag med verksamhet inom äldreomsorgen. Under hösten och vintern 2011 utsattes företaget för en intensiv mediebevakning där de anklagades för besparingar och vanvård. I denna uppsats undersöks Carema Cares externa kriskommunikation under mediedrevet. Kriskommunikationen analyseras utifrån situational crisis communication theory. Teorin beskriver vilka försvarsstrategier som ett företag kan och bör använda för att rädda sitt anseende. Teorin gör gällande att den viktigaste faktorn vid val av försvarsstrategi bör vara typ av kris som uppstått. Studien har utgått ifrån en kvalitativ textanalys med systematiserande frågeställningar och klassificering som tillvägagångssätt. Först analyserades nio nyhetsartiklar för att försöka fastställa vilken typ av kris som ägt rum. Därefter studerades Carema Cares pressmeddelanden för att identifiera vilka försvarsstrategier som Carema Care använt sig av och om dessa överensstämmer med vad som föreskrivs inom situational crisis communication theory. Resultatet visar på att Carema Care inte i något pressmeddelande använt sig av de försvarsstrategier som föreskrivs i situational crisis communication theory. / Carema Care (now by the name Vardaga) is a privately owned company within the field of elder care. During the autumn and winter of 2011, the company was the focal point of an intense media reporting. The company was accused of budget cuts and neglected care. This thesis investigates the external crisis communication from Carema Care during the intense media reporting. The crisis communication is analyzed using situational crisis communication theory. The theory describes which crisis response strategies that a company can and shall use when faced with a crisis in order to restore its image. The theory claims that the most important factor when choosing crisis response strategy is what type of crisis that has occurred. The investigation was carried out using qualitative text analysis, more specifically the method systematic questions and classification was used. In the first step, nine news articles were analyzed in order to determine what type of crisis that had occurred. In the second step, the press releases following each news article were analyzed in order to determine what response strategy that had been used and how it compared to what the theory recommended. The study shows that Carema Care did not use the response strategy recommended from situational crisis communication theory in any of its press releases.

Journalism is a part of the foundation of a democracy and is responsible for giving a wide view of the society, examining the authorities and making sure to give a nuanced picture of reality. With the rapid flow of information given to us by the digital media, journalism has gained tremendous competition from third parties and private individuals. At the same time, surveys have been carried out where politicians and press secretaries find that journalists today are unable to cover reality to the extent that would be desired. The economic situation has meant that many local offices have had to be closed down, which has contributed to white spots that are no longer covered in Sweden. In this survey, semi-structured interviews were conducted with parliamentary politicians, journalists and press secretaries in the political arena to get answers on how they view the journalism's democratic role, the future of journalism and how digitalization has affected journalism. The answers were thematised and analyzed against theories of media convergence, journalism's democratic role and political communication. In several themes that were found among the answers, there is consensus in the interviewees' answers and opinions questions. For example, journalism faces major challenges in the future in a society with easy ways of disseminating disinformation, and that journalists themselves need to find the solution to preserve their relevance and credibility. / Journalistik är en del av grundstommen i en demokrati och ansvarar för att bevaka samhället, granska makteliten och se till att ge en nyanserad bild av verkligheten. I och med det snabba informationsflödet som de digitala medierna gett oss idag har journalistiken fått enorm konkurrens från utomstående aktörer och privatpersoner. Samtidigt har undersökningar gjorts där politiker och pressekreterare tycker att journalister idag inte klarar att bevaka i den mån som skulle önskas. Den ekonomiska situationen har gjort att många lokalredaktioner har fått läggas ner vilket har bidragit till vita fläckar som inte längre bevakas i Sverige. I den här undersökningen genomfördes semistrukturerade intervjuer med riksdagspolitiker, journalister och pressekreterare inom den politiska arenan för att få svar på hur de ser på journalistikens demokratiska roll, journalistikens framtid och hur digitaliseringen har påverkat journalistiken. Svaren tematiserades och analyserades mot teorier om mediekonvergens, journalistikens demokratiska roll och politisk kommunikation. I flera teman som hittades bland svaren råder det konsensus i intervjupersonernas svar och åsikter frågeställningarna. Exempelvis att journalistiken står inför stora utmaningar i framtiden i ett samhälle med lätta sätt att sprida desinformation, och att journalisterna själva behöver hitta lösningen för att bevara sin relevans och trovärdighet.