The aim of this study is to unravel the power dynamics in news media's positioning of men in relation to the concept ‘masculinity in crisis’. To accomplish this, 52 Swedish news articles are subjects to analysis, using a critical discursive approach with a theoretical framework emphasising power structures and gender dynamics, alongside considerations of subject positions and the notion of antagonism. In order to guide the thesis further, two research questions are created: how are men positioned in relation to previously attributed male ideals and characteristics and how are men contrasted to women? The main findings were that the positioning of men is ambiguous, and the ideal man is not a distinct traditional man nor a “soft boy”. The positioning of men is inferior in contrast to women, and when describing the inferior man, traditional feminine attributes are used. The same is true for describing women superiority with traditional manly attributes and virtues. These findings suggest that Swedish news media in their positioning of men contribute to on one side, a strive to change gender roles according to changes towards a more equal society, and on the other side to question the progress made by women as gone too far leaving men behind as victims.

This thesis investigates the nature and impact of Russian influence on Russian-language print and broadcast news in Ukraine and Belarus. TV channels and publications with shareholders or partners in Russia are widely available in both the countries studied; existing literature suggests that such ‘Russian’ media are a source of regional power for the Kremlin. To shed light on how Russian partners and shareholders affect editorial treatment of Russia, the thesis compares content samples from 27 TV news bulletins and newspapers available in Ukraine or Belarus, some of which have Russian partners or shareholders while others do not. It also draws on in-depth interviews with 46 journalists and other media professionals. The thesis then compares the cases of Ukraine and Belarus to explain how political and economic conditions in a ‘target’ state affect the Russian authorities’ scope for communicating messages to mass audiences abroad via pro-Kremlin broadcasters. The findings of the thesis serve as a basis for assessing whether Russian news exports might contribute to Russian foreign policy success in the way envisaged by the literature on soft power. This research reveals complexities which have previously been overlooked in discussions about Russia’s media influence in the post-Soviet region. The news providers in Ukraine and Belarus which have Russian partners or shareholders are diverse and often vulnerable to constraints within their operating environment. Their utility as a source of soft power for the Kremlin is questionable, because the association between media and soft power is premised on public sentiments swaying foreign policy decisions. This premise is problematic, particularly in authoritarian Belarus. Pro-Kremlin Russian news exporters undoubtedly play a role in Moscow’s relations with Minsk and Kiev. However, their significance may lie at least as much in their capacity to provoke as their capacity to ‘softly’ attract and persuade a mass audience.

本研究以政治人物馬英九為例，探討台灣主要報紙是否出現「名人政治」現象，並探討「名人政治」的新聞框架為何？有何主要特質？呈現的方式是否和傳統政治新聞報導不同？研究對象為自由時報、聯合報及中國時報三家報紙從馬英九從擔任台北市長起至卸任國民黨主席止的新聞報導。以等距抽樣法抽取864則新聞進行分析。研究發現三家主要報紙報導馬英九新聞時都出現「名人政治」的新聞框架，其中以「政治風格」的框架最為顯著，報紙重視政治姿態、品行道德的領導能力描述，另外，報紙也常用「背景故事」把名人私領域的生活面向帶入公領域。「馬英九現象」和「個人特質」、「背景故事」和「社會互動」等框架的論述密切相關，因此確實減少了公共政策或政治議題的報導數量，不過不同報紙的框架仍有差異，隨著馬英九政治位置的重要性，名人政治的新聞框架也有所變化。但就馬英九這位政治人物來說，台灣主要報紙確實出現個人特質和政治風格鮮明的「名人化」現象。 / In a time when it is commonplace for political celebrities to garner media attention as much media attention for their political performance as for their particular personal life. The author wanted to analyze a famous political figure Ma Ying-jeou to learn the process of celebrification coupled with Gans description of the norms of news reporting, the following indicators would suggest celebrification of political content. The author used the news stories from three major newspapers in Taiwan as sample to find out elements of a celebrity that would attract the journalists as well as media organizations. The result showed that the strategies were utilized to sell the political celebrity was similar to those of the Western media.

This dissertation examines the process of limited political liberalisation in China by analysing the coexistence between critical journalists and the party-state under the Hu-Wen leadership. In contrast to the scholarship on authoritarianism and Chinese politics, which tends to analyse the perspectives of societal actors and the state separately from one another, this study brings the two together, unveiling the intricacies of their interactions. In the past decade, critical journalists and the party-state maintained a partnership which can be best described by a jazz ensemble metaphor. The players—critical journalists and the party-state—share a common purpose: improving their performance or governance within the existing political system. They overcome the limitations on their collaboration with ad hoc creative adjustments made in response to one another. The party-state acts as a band leader, setting the key by establishing a framework within which creative manoeuvring can take place. The study is based on unique access to politically sensitive material, including 120 in-depth interviews with critical journalists, media and crisis management experts, and government officials. It also includes multilayered textual analysis of the Chinese Communist Party journal, Qiushi, and investigative reports in two outspoken media outlets, Caijing and Nanfang Zhoumo. The data is employed to analyse the boundaries for limited political liberalisation of the media as well as how it manifests itself during major crisis events. More broadly, the dissertation draws the attention of both China and authoritarianism scholars to the significant yet neglected feature of interactive improvisation as a force that can sustain coexistence between critical actors and authoritarian states. It shows that by engaging in actor-driven analysis and illuminating the process of their interactions, we can better grasp the dynamics of authoritarianism in China and beyond. A step is made towards applying the analytical framework distilled in the China case on other authoritarian regimes by including a limited comparison to media–state relations under Gorbachev and under Putin. It shows that the variables of collaboration and improvisation are useful in explaining the different outcomes of political liberalisation reform.

There has been significant academic criticism of the international news coverage of Africa, but little or no first-hand research on the forces that create this news. This thesis draws on 51 semi-structured interviews and ethnographic work with practicing foreign correspondents in Sudan, Kenya and Uganda to explore the question: how can we explain and theorise the production of international news on East Africa? The thesis argues that Pierre Bourdieu’s Field Theory, and its analytical toolbox of ‘field’, ‘capital’ and ‘habitus’, can be meaningfully used to examine international journalistic practice. Field theory has been widely and productively used to understand domestic news production, but it has not yet been employed to empirically investigate journalistic production in the global sphere. The analysis is presented in three sections, each of which focuses on a different ‘layer’ of the international news system: the global field, where newswires compete for clients and capital; the national field ‘back home’ where traditional, nation based news outlets are based; and, finally, the local and immediate site where foreign correspondents work. Each of these layers is explored through an in depth case study of a major news producer/group of producers working in East Africa. The first and most substantial section examines the global journalistic field, and the position and practices of the Reuters newswire within this field. The second examines the foreign correspondents who report on Africa for print outlets in the UK. The final section presents two case studies of correspondents at work, negotiating a local news ecology: the election violence in Kenyan (2007-8), and the international coverage of the Darfur crisis. The discussion explores the fluidity between these three layers. Each analysis section stands alone as an investigations of major news producers in Africa today, and the forces that influence their work. Together, they build the argument that field theory is a useful approach to conceptualising the contemporary global news system, and examining journalistic practices within this. The main strengths of the theory lie in its notion of habitus; the extent to which it can incorporate and explain change; and its ability to link macro level phenomenon with micro level practice. The theory is ideally suited to capture and study the way in which foreign correspondents negotiate a complex and fluid global news system.

Immigration policies and border control in the US were hardened significantly more ever since the new government’s immigration executive order in 2017. A series of massive raids and immigrant detentions were carried out which got the attention of both human rights activists and the news media. How these immigration detention events are portrayed in the news media reflect, moreover, a series of discourses which seem to attract audiences from either left-wing or right-wing political ideologies, specifically to read CNN and Fox news respectively, according to previous survey-based research. This paper aims to identify through Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) how those in detention are represented in the news headlines of Fox News and CNN, and secondly, identify what possible left-wing and right-wing political ideologies about immigration are expressed in the news outlets. Reference strategies and transitivity will encompass the micro-level analysis, which focuses on language construction. For the macro-level analysis, on the one hand, discourse practices like process of production and consumption will be considered, and on the other hand, American foreign policy viewed from the left-wing and right-wing perspectives will be discussed to consider differences in style, tone, and perspective in CNN and Fox News’ headlines in relation to immigration detention events. Results show that CNN, tied to left-wing audiences, portray the immigration detention events from the perspective of immigrants who are in a vulnerable position since they are detained with their families. Moreover, Fox News, tied to right-wing audiences, show the events more from the viewpoint of the government and the public entities in charge of the immigration policies, who are in need to restrain, detain, and deport immigrants for the sake of the country’s security. This paper aims to contribute further to the research on political ideologies as a relevant factor to understand differences in discourse in the news media for future research.

Föreliggande studie undersökte skillnader mellan män och kvinnor i rädsla att utsättas för våldsbrott utifrån nyhetsmedias rapportering om våldsbrott, samt skillnader mellan män och kvinnor gällande vilken form av nyhetsmedia som bidrog till högst rädsla att utsättas för våldsbrott. De olika formerna av nyhetsmedia som undersöktes var TV-nyheter, tidningsnyheter, radionyheter och internet-nyheter. En enkät besvarades av totalt 178 personer bestående av manliga (n=84) och kvinnliga (n=94) studenter vid Örebro universitet. Resultatet påvisade att kvinnor hade en signifikant högre rädsla än män att utsättas för våldsbrott utifrån nyhetsmedias rapportering om våldsbrott. Internet-nyheter var den form av nyhetsmedia som både män och kvinnor i störst utsträckning konsumerade samt den form som respondenterna enligt känslouttryck bidrog till högst rädsla att utsättas för våldsbrott. TV-nyheter var den form av nyhetsmedia som i störst utsträckning ledde till att respondenterna omsatte sin rädsla att utsättas för våldsbrott i praktiken genom beteendeförändring. Slutligen kunde det konstateras att kön var den starkaste prediktorn för rädsla att utsättas för våldsbrott. Studien belyste problematiken med kvinnors högre rädsla att utsättas för våldsbrott, och genom kunskap om nyhetsmedia som en bidragande orsak kan det trygghetsfrämjande arbetet utvecklas. / The present study examined gender differences in fear of violent crime based on news media reporting about violent crime, and also differences between men and women in what forms of news media that created the most fear of violent crimes. The various forms of news media that were examined included TV, newspaper, radio and internet. A questionnaire was answered by a total of 178 people, consisting of students of Örebro University which consisted men (n=84) and women (n=94). The result showed that women had a significantly higher fear than men of violent crime based on news media reporting about violent crime. Internet was the forms of news media that both men and women consumed the most, and created the most fear of crime according to the respondent’s emotional expressions. TV was the form of news media that to a large extent led to the respondents turning their fear of violent crime in practice through behavioural change. Finally, it was concluded that gender was the strongest predictor for fear of violent crime. The study highlights the problem of women’s higher fear of violent crime, and through the knowledge of news media as a contributing cause, safety-promoting work can be developed.

From 2015 to 2018 many Swedish news media were publishing articles about the same topic; body activism. The purpose of this study is to examine how Swedish news media linguistically uses the term body activism, how they define the term and if discursive themes and patterns can be identified when it comes to how the news media report about body activism. The study relies on a theoretical framework with ideas about media logic, news values and framing; theories about social movements and the media; theories about beauty standards, norms and the consumer society; and also studies about body activism, fat activism and body positivity. The method used is a connected content analysis of a material consisting of 676 texts published in Swedish news media. The connected content analysis was achieved by the use of Textometrica which is a tool for examining frequency and correlation of words used in texts. To further analyse the results a discourse analysis has been used. The study shows that body activism in Swedish news media gets framed and defined as something that is about opposition and wanting change, something that is about size and weight, something that often gets told through individual stories and experiences, something that takes place on social media, and as an activism that is performed by women for the sake of women. Furthermore, the results of the study show interesting thematic patterns not only in how body activism gets defined but also in how the news media report about body activism. When it comes to the question of how the texts about body activism get told there is a pattern in that a few female activists become main profiles in the texts, which raises questions about representation and power structures. About the framing of the message of the activism, there is a discussion of beauty and looks, self-acceptance and liberation of ideals and norms of beauty. About the framing of the response to the activism there is a discussion about meeting symbolic violence and the risk of facing hate as a body activist. When it comes to the framing of the tool for spreading the activism, I discuss consumerism on social media and the interesting divergence between wanting to oppose how consumerism works to reproduce ideals and norms of beauty with activism on platforms closely linked to commercials and consumerism.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has over the past years become a hot topic for discussion in Sweden, as the technology presents exciting unique possibilities and challenges for the country and its citizens. Coverage of AI in Swedish news media presents imagined scenarios with both current and future AI that contribute to myths about how the technology is able to radically transform life, that spring out of a central digital sublime. Through a mixed-method study of 55 newspaper items about AI from Svenska Dagbladet from 2017 to 2018, the thesis studies what evident AI myths occur in coverage and how such discourses spring out digital sublime regarding AI. A total of four AI myths are found in news media coverage that revolve around existing and future intelligent computers, robots, machines and perceptions with them. Myths and hopes and concerns with them point to digital sublime regarding AI as a force of intelligent digitization that promises to empower a sublime citizen, economy, and welfare state. Emotional values with sublime AI are understood to reflect a general Swedish techno-optimism as digital artefacts have allowed Sweden to become prosperous.

This thesis provides a biographical case study of the crisis faced by News of the World, after revelations of unethical journalistic practices within the newspaper. A scandal that rapidly moved up the organizational hierarchy and spread globally, affecting stakeholders amongst all its networks from local British communities to its parent company News Corporation and its main owners, the Murdoch family. Corporate social responsibility and stakeholder management is presented as a key factor in order to uphold and obtain the society’s permission to operate. The study shows the importance of being a good corporate citizen, not solely as goodwill but in order to gain a parachute that can moderate the fall when facing a crisis.