The transatlantic slave trade started in the 17th century and lasted for more than two hundred years, and many nations across the world abolished the slave trade during the 19th century. As slavery became a rather controversial topic, it led to hectic debates about the moral aspects of buying and selling human beings. During the 19th century in North America, newspapers were used to influence people and make them aware of the contemporary slave trade. Ideas and thoughts about the slave trade were conveyed to the public through newspapers, which became important and widely used media phenomena. Newspapers have always been used to convey different kinds of information, and as slavery was a much-disputed topic, the newspapers frequently wrote about it. This study aims to give an analysis of how three 18th century Swedish newspapers – Folkets röst, Jönköpingsbladet and Post- och inrikes tidningar – depicted the slave trade and slavery in general, between 1840 and 1860. In each newspaper, 15 news articles were analysed. The results show that the number of news articles where slavery was depicted in a negative context in Folkets röst and Post- och inrikestidningar, the results were approximately the same. As for Jönköpingsbladet, slavery was depicted in primarily neutral contexts. Neither of the newspapers depicted slavery positively.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:lnu-35232 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Cook, William |
| Publisher | Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för kulturvetenskaper (KV) |
| 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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