Saudiarabien – Sveriges problematiska partner : En studie om hur Saudiarabien gestaltas i svensk press

Sammanfattning: The aim of this bachelor thesis was to examine how Saudi Arabia is portrayed in Swedish press. This includes the largest newspapers from the major cities of Sweden as well as the larger newspapers from the less populated areas. Since a significant amount of news in these newspapers, especially those from the less populated areas, are provided from news agencies these were included in the study as well.  The questions examined were: which portrayals of Saudi Arabia is used in the Swedish press and how frequently are they recurring? Does the historic relationship between Europe and Islam effect contemporary portrayals of Saudi Arabia in Swedish press and, in that case, how? Do differences in portrayals occur depending on the relationship between Sweden and Saudi Arabia in the news context? To approach this we conducted a quantitative framing analysis. Three frames were first identified in a qualitative study. How frequently these frames were used was then analyzed with a quantitative approach. The news articles examined were published during two news events. In 2012 information regarding the military cooperation between Sweden and Saudi Arabia surfaced causing criticism towards the Swedish regime. In 2015 the Swedish regime decided to cancel said military cooperation. The study showed that the historic relationship between Europe and Islam does indeed effect the portrayal of Saudi Arabia in Swedish press today. Attributes commonly associated with post colonialism and orientalism such as Muslims as barbaric and highly conservative was found. The study also found portrayals of Saudi Arabia as increasingly powerful and that this, due to the aforementioned attributes, was highly problematic. The “power frame”, as we chose to call it, was the most commonly used frame in both news events. The “barbaric frame” and the “conservative frame” was more commonly used in a news context were Sweden and Saudi Arabia stood in a diplomatic conflict.