Imperialister, angripare eller beskyddare? : En omvärldsanalys av tre tidningars rapportering om Vietnamkriget 1964-1975 och Afghanistankriget 1979-1989.

Sammanfattning:

From the end of the Second World War until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 the world was divided. An iron curtain separated the world into two parts, east and west. These were dominated by the two great powers, the Soviet Union and the USA. The contradictions between the great powers should characterize the whole period that was named the Cold War. USA and the Soviet Union never met in open confrontation during this time, but it happened indirectly in the many conflicts that occurred during the Cold War. The Vietnam War (1964-1975) and the Afghanistan War (1979-1989) were two conflicts in which the great powers brought war against smaller states and the non-fighting part supported the resistance against the great power.

The purpose of this study is to examine the three Swedish newspapers, Svenska Dagbladet, Dagens nyheter och Norrskensflamman, and thereby discover how they reported during the Vietnam War and the Afghanistan War.  We seek the answer on following questions: What did the reporting looked like during the Vietnam War and the Afghanistan War and how did it change over time? How does the newspapers political point of view appear on the editorial pages? Which international outlook can be seen in the news report and which are the similarities and differences?

In order to do this we’ve used a qualitative method. The result shows that three different international outlooks are described in the newspapers. We can also confirm that the political point of view for each newspaper is confirmed by the standard reporting and primarily by the content of the editorial pages.