This thesis examines how the Swedish newspapers Aftonbladet and Expressen portrays heroes in the aftermath of the sinking of the M/S Estonia in September of 1994. Our research questions are 1) How is heroism portrayed in the news reports about the Estonia disaster in the newspapers Expressen and Aftonbladet? 2) Are there similarities and distinctions between female and male heroes? We have approached our material from a qualitative perspective analyzing 12 articles using critical discourse analysis. Upon completion of our research we found that both men and women can be heroes, but regardless of gender heroes are all portrayed with traditionally male attributes, such as being aggressive, rational and courageous. To find and understand the hero in news context, the victim plays a periphery but important role. Our result also shows that the victim is needed in order for the hero to perform his or her actions. The victim can be both male or female, but are all described with female attributes as being weak, dependent and fragile. The results of our study may be of use to understand how the journalistic practice actively uses stories about heroes to 1. personify a disaster, 2. summarize a fragmented chain of events and 3. project a distinction between the contemporary aspect of male and female.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:lnu-70117 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Granberg, Hannes, Johansson, Linn |
| 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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