The Swedish debate surrounding the Swedish and European welcoming of refugees has during the last couple of years engaged actors from all spheres of society. One of the prominent actors in this debate has been archbishop Antje Jackelén who has contributed with articles on the issue together with members of the church board as well as the other bishops in the Church of Sweden. These articles have been published on the debate pages of four major newspapers; Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, Expressen and Aftonbladet. The aim of this research is to study the way leaders in the Church of Sweden frame the welcoming of refugees and asylum seekers in these newspapers between 2014-2016. By using a qualitative frame analysis inspired by a theory of framing used in social movement research (Benford & Snow, 2000) the study will focus primarily on motivational framing, i.e. the way in which authors set out to inspire their audience to take action in a certain issue. In three of the articles collective action frames are identified, in which collective identities are constructed and where the writers stress the importance for people to come together and act towards a more humane way of handling the refugee situation. Another aim of the essay is to study the way in which the Church of Sweden is presented as an actor within the frames used in the articles. The analysis shows how the church is presented as an experienced organisation, driven by the Christian faith to take action in the face of suffering. Finally, the result is analysed through the mediatisation of religion theory, using the concept of three media functions; conduit, environment and language (Hjarvard, 2016). The analysis shows how the newspapers, by publishing the articles, can be interpreted to function as both conduits and environments for the religious information and messages present in the texts. Concerning the third function, media as language, the debate articles are interpreted as living up to the criteria of news value despite the use of religious imagery and language. However, the method and empirical material of this study did not allow for any conclusions regarding how the logic of debate articles have been affecting the way in which leaders in the Church of Sweden debate the welcoming of refugees.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-339306 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Elin, Franzén |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Religionssociologi |
| 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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