This Bachelor of Arts paper in Media and Communication Studies from Stockholm University examines the image of Russia in Sweden in 1986 and 1993. I studied the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 in Pripyat, Ukraine in the former Soviet Union and the crisis in the White house in Moscow in today’s Russia in 1993. The aim of this paper is to examine how the view on former Soviet Union and today’s Russia was portrayed in Sweden after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. I have analysed 20 articles from Dagens Nyheter (DN) and Svenska Dagbladet (SvD). I have used “framing” as a method for analysing the articles in relation to Swedish foreign politics and foreign journalism. My research questions are following: what kind of problems, identifying causes, moral judgements and improvements to solutions were found in the investigated articles? What differences, if any, were discovered between DN and SvD’s journalism?   The results of my study showed that DN focused on general news reporting regarding the Chernobyl disaster and Sweden’s critique to the Soviet Union and the poor maintenance of the nuclear power station in a larger extent than SvD. Sweden was the first country to reveal abroad that they had discovered nuclear radiation on Swedish soil. DN framed, among others, how the Soviet Union was incapable of solving the Chernobyl crises on their own. SvD focused on how Sweden was affected by the Chernobyl disaster and the nuclear radiation. SvD framed how the Soviet Union kept quiet during the aftermath and how the Soviets tried to “conceal” information. Both DN and SvD framed the Soviet Union as “unpredictable”. After the crisis in the White house in Moscow DN and SvD were milder in their criticism towards Russia since there was a political and journalistic hope in Sweden that Russia would become a democratic country. Swedish foreign correspondents could therefore in 1993 create their own image of Russia since the Swedish foreign policy was not as clear after the events in Moscow in 1993 as they were after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. Both newspapers focused on how Boris Yeltsin struggled to solve the crisis and Russia was now torn between the nostalgic Soviet communism and a new democratic Russia. DN and SvD received continually information about the events taking place in Moscow and reported how Russia was torn between a new tsar Russia/a new Soviet Union and a democratic Russia.

This M.A studied how Russia was represented in selected media in Sweden and Germany, focusing on the annexation of Crimea in 2014. The purpose was to study how and which factors that influenced the view of Russia in selected media. The study was accomplished through a qualitative framing analysis of 32 news articles in Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Die Welt and by interviewing six Swedish and German journalists, applying a thematic analysis. Theoretical perspectives from framing, agenda setting and foreign policy theory were drawn upon to view how it influenced the media reporting. The results show that the representation of Russia was negative and President Putin was seen as the most dominant actor in all four newspapers. The Swedish newspapers DN and SvD took a larger international approach compared to the two German newspapers and focused less on national actors, while German Süddeutsche Zeitung and Die Welt focused and set the agenda for German actors in the conflict. Results from the interviews showed a low influence of foreign policy in the media reporting, that the views of Russia in Sweden and Germany are influenced by each country’s historical, cultural, political and economic factors and respective relations between Sweden and Germany’s relations to Russia.