The four largest newspapers in Sweden, Aftonbladet, Expressen, Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet, all have different political stands, but does it affect their reporting on different parties and their leaders? In 2013 and 2014 two of the nine party leaders in the Swedish parliament, Riksdag, were female, Annie Lööf (Centre Party) and Åsa Romson (the Green Party). This study examines the differences between the reporting on these two politicians in four newspapers and how they are portrayed using quantitative content analysis and framing analysis. Earlier studies by Kent Asp have shown that the Green Party (Miljöpartiet) is the most popular party among Swedish journalists, which could mean that the party is overrepresented and gets a special treatment in the media. In contrast, the Centre Party (Centerpartiet) is among the least popular among Swedish journalists and could therefore risk to be underrepresented. This study also researches if the portrayal of these two party leaders is in any way connected to their gender, as previous research shows that women politicians are treated differently to their male colleagues. Topics like family, private life and their appearance are often discussed instead of their work. Lastly this study investigates if there are differences in reporting between an election year, 2014, and a regular year, 2013. Our study shows that the political stands of the newspapers have an effect, even if only slight, on the reporting. Furthermore, Miljöpartiet does not get a special treatment as one might think, it’s rather the other way round. We found that the reporting on Annie Lööf and Centerpartiet was far more positive than the reporting on Åsa Romson and Miljöpartiet. We could not see that the reporters treated these politicians specially based on their gender, contrary to earlier studies. Finally, we found out that the newspapers focus on the party leaders rather than the parties themselves, which corresponds to the tendency of personification discussed in previous research. / De fyra största nyhetstidningarna i Sverige, Aftonbladet, Expressen, Dagens Nyheter och Svenska Dagbladet, har olika politiska ståndpunkter, men påverkar det deras rapportering av olika partier och deras partiledare? 2013 och 2014 var två av de nio partiledarna i Sveriges riksdag kvinnor, Annie Lööf (Centerpartiet) och Åsa Romson (Miljöpartiet). Den här uppsatsen undersöker skillnaderna mellan rapporteringen av dessa två politiker i fyra nyhetstidningar och hur de porträtteras, genom kvantitativ innehållsanalys och framing analysis. Tidigare studier av Kent Asp har visat att Miljöpartiet är det mest populära partiet bland svenska journalister, vilket kan betyda att partiet är överrepresenterat och får specialbehandling av medier. Tvärtemot är Centerpartiet bland de minst populära partierna bland svenska journalister och har därför en risk att bli underrepresenterade. Den här studien undersöker också om porträtteringen av dessa två partiledare på något sätt är kopplad till deras kön, då tidigare forskning visat att kvinnliga politiker behandlas annorlunda än deras manliga kollegor. Ämnen som familj, privatliv och deras utseende diskuteras ofta istället för deras jobb. Slutligen så undersöker denna studie om det finns några skillnader i rapporteringen mellan ett valår, 2014, och ett vanligt år, 2013. Vår studie visar att den politiska ståndpunkten hos tidningarna har en effekt, om än bara liten, på rapporteringen. Dessutom får Miljöpartiet ingen specialbehandling som man kunnat förvänta sig, utan det är snarare tvärt om. Vi såg att rapporteringen om Annie Lööf och Centerpartiet var långt mer positiv än rapporteringen om Åsa Romson och Miljöpartiet. Vi kunde inte se att reportrarna behandlade dessa politiker annorlunda baserat på deras kön, till skillnad mot tidigare studier. Slutligen såg vi att nyhetstidningarna fokuserar på partiledarna istället för själva partierna, vilken stämmer överens med tendenserna för personifiering som diskuterats i tidigare forskning.

Problem definition and purpose: A debated question in journalism today is if the mass media have the power to affect norms and values in the society. There are therefore many who believe that the media must works for democratic and equitable news coverage. Studies have shown that there are still many differences in how women and men are being portrayed in the Swedish media, even if Sweden is one of the most equal countries in the world. This inequality may affect the democracy and equality in the society negative. Previous studies have mainly been using gender as the only explanatory factor to explain the difference of coverage between men and women in the news content. The purpose of this study will therefore not only be to compare the coverage of the Green Partys two spokespersons, Åsa Romson and Gustav Fridolin, from a gender perspective but also to take in count other factors that could contribute to differences in the news coverage. Method and material: To find an answer to the purpose of this thesis a quantitative content analysis have been done on a total of 238 news articles in which Åsa Romson and/or Gustav Fridolin occur. Main results: The results of the content analysis show that Gustav Fridolin occurs more frequently in the news than Romson does, and that the articles he appears in is lager than the articles in which Romson appears. The results also show that the tone towards Fridolin in the articles about him is more positive and less negative than the tone towards Romson in the articles about her. Our results also show that Fridolin mainly occur in content related to school and education while Romson occurs more frequently in content dealing with environmental questions.

No description available.

The empirical material of this study consisted of tweets by four leading politicians in Sweden: Carl Bildt of Nya Moderaterna, Annie Lööf of Centerpartiet, Åsa Romson of Miljöpartiet and Jonas Sjöstedt of Vänsterpartiet. The aim of the study was to examine how they use Twitter as a political tool and what that says of the mediatization of politics. What content did they publish, how did the content differentiate between them and what political messages and other subjects occurred in their tweets? Does the political debate become fragmented because they’re only allowed to use 140 characters on Twitter? The theoretical framework and method applied for the research was based upon critical discourse analysis (CDA), with special interest in ideology and mediatized discourse. The result of the study showed that the content they published consisted mostly of criticism towards political opponents, rather than of independent political opinions. It also showed that the focus among the politicians was mostly on factual issues rather than on ideology. Furthermore, it showed that they use Twitter as a way of spreading information more than anything else. I argue that the political discourse that was present on Twitter among the politicians can be seen as somewhat populistic, due to the fact that they focused more on criticism towards political opponents than on independent political opinions and ideology. I argue that there are certain risks with their way of using Twitter as a political tool when political issues are brought out of their ideological context.