Muslimer och islam i svensk press : - en studie om i vilka sammanhang muslimer och islam framställs i Aftonbladet och Dagens Nyheter under åren 2011-2013

Sammanfattning: The aim of this paper is to study in which contexts Muslims and Islam are represented in newspaper- articles in the Swedish press. The research questions are formulated as follow: In what contexts are Muslims and Islam represented in Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter during the years 2011-2013 ?Does the newspaper-articles in Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter reflect open or closed attitudes about Islam?   My material compromises twenty-five newspaper- articles from the newspapers Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter during the years 2011-2013. The material became a subject for qualitative content analysis. This resulted in four categories, the categories were formed from the content of the newspaper-articles.  The categories are: (1) Violence / Terrorism, (2) Extremist / Fundamentalist, (3) Islamic god´s state / government / Islamism and (4) Others. Those categories are produced by a number of different phenomena where Muslims and Islam are called. The analysis was based on two theories: The Runnymede Trust model and stereotyping theory. The Runnymede Trust model explains if it exists open and closed attitudes about Islam in the newspaper-articles. The aim of the stereotyping theory was to see the specific role of the media as a mediator of stereotypes, particular in the descriptions of Muslims and Islam.  The examination shows that that there is no closed attitudes about Islam, but there are open attitudes about Islam in the newspaper- articles that was published during the years 2011-2013, in Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter. This study shows that the media has a less prominent role as a mediator of stereotypical traits of Muslims and Islam in the newspaper- articles. The conclusion of this study can be summarized as follow: Muslims and Islam are represented in the context Violence/Terrorism, Extremists/Fundamentalist and Islamic god´s state/government/Islamism when Islamist political parties/organizations or Muslims as supporters of extremist terrorist groups have acted violently during the Arab Spring.