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Framing Mali : Swedish media portrayal of an armed conflict

Research has shown that news media reporting on foreign affairs tend to rely heavily on official sources (e.g. Schwalbe, 2013; Entman, 2004; Lawrence, 2009). This thesis analyse whether this is the case in Swedish news media reporting on the armed conflict in Mali, where Sweden has troops sanctioned by the UN. A more broader perspective is also analysed: How does the news media portray the armed conflict, and are there any differences between national daily newspapers (considered more “sober”) and national evening newspapers (considered more sensational)? An inductive framing analysis is used to identify frames not available in previous research. These frames, together with frames identified in other studies, are then used in a quantitative content analysis to measure to what extent the frames occur in the texts. Among the most important findings were that Swedish news media did in fact rely on Swedish official reporting to a large extent. The two evening newspapers, Aftonbladet and Expressen, used Swedish official sources in approximately 60% of their articles. The daily newspapers, Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet, used Swedish official sources in about 35% of their articles. The main source used was also analyzed: This showed that Swedish official sources were the most common, in between 23% to 62% of the articles. The second most used source differed, but were in the range 9% to 18%. Other important results of the main themes of the articles showed that direct actions of war and other types of violence were the most commonly used. Peace efforts/negotiations and life of Mali civilians were the least common. The thesis also concludes that while there are variables where the evening newspapers and the daily newspapers can be grouped in those categories, that is often not the case.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:su-157058
Date January 2018
CreatorsNorberg, Niklas
PublisherStockholms universitet, Institutionen för mediestudier
Source SetsDiVA Archive at Upsalla University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeStudent thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text
Formatapplication/pdf
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

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