Since Greta Thunberg started her environmental school strike in August 2018 she has become a world famous activist and has been portrayed in news media everywhere. The aim of this bachelor study has been to examine how Greta Thunberg has been portrayed in the Swedish news media through examining two daily press newspapers and two evening press newspapers. This resulted in analyzing articles in Aftonbladet, Expressen, Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet. By using a qualitative and a quantitative content analysis we investigated three different events connected to Greta Thunberg through published articles. During 2018 the event that started her journey, which is the school strike, was selected as one of these happenings. During 2019 we chose her UN- speech in New York, and for the last event her speech at the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting in Davos was chosen. By choosing these specific events we could build a perception of what the media's portrayal of Greta Thunberg has been like during these three years. Therefore this study also aimed to answer the following research questions: - How has Greta Thunberg been portrayed in the daily press and the evening press? - Has the portrayal of Greta Thunberg changed over time? In this study we used the Framing Theory and also the protest paradigms as guidelines and we also applied von Zabern & Tulloch (2020) and Bergmann & Ossewaardes (2020) different frames. This study then led to an identification of a new framing of Greta Thunberg which we named “Speaking without speaking”, mostly consisting of what politicians and celebrities are saying about Greta Thunberg in the press. We also found that by examining these specific events that Greta Thunberg has been portrayed in different ways. Therefore we could also conclude that the framings and portrayals of Greta Thunberg changed throughout time. This means that she went from being portrayed as a young girl skipping school for the climate, to a world famous environmental activist and finally becoming a trustworthy leader. Therefore our study shows that Greta Thunberg was being undermined due to her young age in the ibeginning, but as her status grew the media changed their portrayal of her into the role model that she has become today.

This diploma thesis examines the image of Hong Kong's pro-democracy protests in 2019 in the Czech and Chinese media. The framing of these protests in selected media is compared using the method of quantitative content analysis, with the aim of revealing similarities and differences both between the individual Czech media in the context of the Czech public debate on China and between the Czech and Chinese media. The theoretical part of this thesis presents the concepts of media theory such as framing, agenda setting and social construction of reality and characterizes the specifics of given media systems. Furthermore, the work describes the previous findings of the protest paradigm, which are then employed in analytical part of this study. At the same time, the concept of soft power with Chinese characteristics and its specific manifestations in the efforts of the People's Republic of China to influence the Czech public debate on China is introduced. The methodological part then presents the research goal, research questions and hypotheses, defines the research sample and the research method used, including the characteristics of individual variables. The analytical part of the work presents the results of the research, which are then discussed in the framework of previous findings of the protest...

The phenomenon surrounding news media’s power to alter group identity and group cohesion is something that rarely a point of focus in communication studies. In this study I worked with a local social movement group called Stockton Stands with Minneapolis. This group illustrated the importance of maintaining shared values. Utilizing relational Interviewing, SSWM members provided evidence showing the connection between news media and group success. News media has had a role in shaping group members’ understanding of SSWM and activism. SSWM has faced internal conflict as a result of negative news representation. SSWM is a relatively small and young (2 ½ years) group when compared to more established groups and movements (such as black lives matter and #MeToo), the impact of losing any amount of membership to news representation is important and deserves attention. Therefore, in this paper I argue researchers must go beyond the conventional protest paradigm and media effects research that has commonly only examined the impact of the outgroup. There is a need for a new area of focus within media effects and activist representation, one that examines the impact of news media through multiple lenses of analysis. I argue this area would benefit from incorporating theories and concepts across the communications studies discipline. Utilizing research from the fields of media effects, interpersonal communication, and organizational communication can bring new insights to already existing understandings of activism and activist success. To help lead the charge into this new area of focus; I introduce a new paradigm and research approach called social movement splintering.