This study examines the user comments left on Twitter posts surrounding the murder of George Floyd, by the two biggest evening papers in Sweden. George Floyd was killed on the 25th of May 2020 during an arrest by Minneapolis police, which sparked outrage across the globe. People took to the streets to protest against police brutality and racial injustice, but thorough discussion also took place on social media and most notably, Twitter. Former research expresses a big interest in studying the public discourse tied to these topics, as it reflects public opinion. This study uses a mixed methods analysis, which includes a quantitative content analysis and a qualitative text analysis. The material studied are comments left on Aftonbladet- and Expressen’s Twitter posts from the day George Floyd was killed until a week after the police officer who was responsible was found guilty, almost a full year later. The purpose with this study was to deduce how the comments represented George Floyd, and how “Us” and “Them” were constructed. The study also aimed to find out which deliberative or non-deliberative qualities appear in the comments, and which of them generated the most attention. This was achieved with the theoretical basis of Critical Race Theory, Deliberative Democracy and Othering.The results show that George Floyd is mainly represented as a criminal, and that the comments constructed a strict “Us” and an even stricter “The Others”. The comments contained many non-deliberative qualities, and these were the ones who gained the most traction.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:lnu-104248 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Creators | Salomonsson, Herman, Harrysson, Linnéa |
| Publisher | Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för medier och journalistik (MJ), 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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