Mass media is of great importance for the public conversation as it makes it possible to spread information to the citizens of the nation. In order to influence citizens perceptions of the world, it is of great value for journalists to discuss particular subjects in newspapers. Analyses of daily newspapers therefore proves they are of relevance as they provide us with knowledge about how opinions are created as well as how the politics shapes the public conversation. In order to increase our knowledge of how the debate regarding European membership appeared in Swedish newspapers, this essay has studied Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet and Aftonbladet. Three newspapers with different political orientation. The essay describes how the different newspapers, with different opinions appeared as well as how the newspapers articles were written by reason of their political views. The essay shows that the bourgeois newspapers, Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet, wrote positive articles regarding the membership and negative regarding the government whereas the social democratic newspaper Aftonbladet was skeptical about the membership as well as the opposition. This essay further explains how a newspaper study can be used in educating high school students in history where they increase their knowledge of source criticism and examine and interpret newspapers in order to understand how coverage of politically charged subjects can differentiate, depending on which newspaper they read.

This thesis is based on the historical base, a deep look at the Norwegian referendum results and public opinion development. We concentrated on three research questions and on three related hypotheses studying Norway history, Norwegian politics and the possibilities of Norwegian integration to the European Union. We studied intrastate and also international aspects of this integration process. The Nordic cooperation is very important for this research. This Nordic cooperation provided a platform for alternative economic cooperation and this cooperation is also a special first stage on the way to the EU. We fulfilled the thesis goals, we answered the research questions and we verified all three hypotheses. In conclusion, we think that Norwegian admission to the EU is unreal nowadays because there are non-sufficient economic and non- economic reasons and stimuli for that. Norwegian political parties are not interested in this topic because this topic is very risky. Moreover, Norwegian public opinion is against the full membership in the EU.