AbstractTitle: “Heat without passion and caution without fear”: celebrity journalism and press ethics in Aftonbladet – a text analysisNumber of pages: 48Author: Moa ThorssellTutor: Martin FredrikssonCourse: Media and Communication Studies CPeriod: Fall 2009University: Department of Informatics and Media, Uppsala UniversityPurppose/Aim: Analyzing how the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet writes about celebrities on a daily basis; the quality of the journalism and how they follow the press etics.Material/Method: Qualitative textual analysis of seven newsarticles about celebrities published in Aftonbladet, November 9th to November 15th 2009.Main results: Of the seven analyzed articles six could be considered as less good journalism. In the other cases, considering the journalistic ideal to have several sources, were rarely the case. Most of the articles were poorly based on facts and quotations. Sometimes the reporter had not even spoken to the person in question. The lack of information in the articles was compensated with dramatic titles and preambles. Even in the rest of the text the journalists used dramatical words to make the story bigger than it was.The articles also revealed the personal life. Around fifty percent of the articles were based on people who were difficult to define as public or private figures. Though they had participated in a reality show on tv, Aftonbladet decided to define them as celebrities. With defining them as celebrities the paper had less restrictions press ethically for what it could write. However, in reality the articles involved people who were not used to the media’s attention, but who most likely would do a lot to stay in the spotlight. Something that the media, with not following the press ethics, could easily take advantage of. But also with the person who were more easily defined as celebrities, the articles went far into the personal life.My analysis states that when it comes to news about celebrities the press ethics is less important, even though it concerns the private life of others. One also felt like it was less requirements for journalistic quality in these cases. Moreover all the articles could be classified as articles with a high news value. In conclusion a high news value did not automatically mean high quality journalism. Rather the high news value had to do with that it was articles about celebrities opening up their private life.Keywords: Celebrity journalism, public/private figure, press ethics, tabloid.