The aim of this study is to examine the framing of the issue of climate change in two swedish daily newspapers . 55 texts, 36 of which are from the morning newspaper Dagens Nyheter and 19 from the tabloid Aftonbladet go through a critical discourse analysis in terms of how they portray climate change itself, the actors involved, blame and responsibility for causing and alleviating the problem, possible solutions, system criticism as well as which ideologies and power relationships are supported by existing narratives. Louw's understanding of mass media as hype, Fairclough's perspectives on discourse, Strömbäck's perspectives on agenda setting and Palm's study of the factors behind news production have been central to the theoretical approach of the study, as have Machin and Mayr's work on critical discourse analysis. The results show that there are two main recurring discourses in the analysed material. One describes climate change as a threat. This narrative describes a struggle between civilisation and nature and places blame on all humans in a manner that closely relates to the christian concept of original sin. It is a discourse that emphasizes the following of rules and strict moral codes, naming those who do not follow the Swedish example as cheaters or villains while excluding non-civilized humans. The other, economic, discourse frames the problem of climate change as one of costs and incentives. The climate is given a monetary value, suggesting everything involved is as exchangeable as money. No alternative discourse challenges the two discourses, which interact and reinforce eachother, both legitimizing human domination of nature as well as current power relations in society.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:lnu-45933 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Bylund, Martin |
| Publisher | Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för medier och journalistik (MJ) |
| 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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