In the beginning of 2021 the documentary “The selected children” was aired in one of the public Swedish television channels. In the film we follow the filmmaker as he returns to his elementary school that he left almost three decades ago. His memories where positive but the film depicts abuse with a focus on the leadership and a rope swing . The ensuing media debate was influenced by the fact that the school was, and still are, a waldorf school (Steiner school) and the cult concept was frequently used. This bachelor thesis aimed to find the underlying reasons for the media usage of the cult concept in this context and further how and why a description of a school in the past became a novelty in the present. The perspective is religion sociology and medialization. The purpose is to understand how and why the cult concept is used in nationwide written news media, narrowed down to 11 articles published in Aftonbladet, Dagens ETC, DN, Expressen, GP, SvD och SVT nyheter during May and June 2021. I used a qualitative content analysis method combined with an abductive reasoning. The theory used was in the field of cults, NRM and medialization with an emphasis on media logic also described as media modus operandi. The result shows that the cult concept is used to describe and frame the extreme characteristics of the school. There is a connection between the school and other waldorf schools both in the description of the schools as cults related to abuse and abnormality but the main reason is the foundation in relation to the waldorf pedagogy and anthroposophy. The media uses a very narrow number of sources describing the school, waldorf schools and the anthroposophic movement. The descriptions are made in the present as if the film was depicting the present school as well. As such the sources alongside the framing language constructs the news value in line with the media logic. In conclusion I argue that the findings show that media uses the cult as a description aswell as a news story in line with the theory, describing how the news are storytellers as they have developed into the entertainment industry.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-477310 |
| Date | January 2022 |
| Creators | Helmersson, Camilla |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Teologiska institutionen, ch@visionempower.se |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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