Från det glamorösa glittret till den kalla verkligheten : En multimodal kritisk diskursanalys om alkohol och droger i den svenska ungdomsserien Young Royals

Sammanfattning: Adolescents use of alcohol and drugs in Sweden today is problematic. The alcohol consumption has decreased amongst adolescents, but it is still an issue. What the younger generation sees in the media has an effect on their view on alcohol and adolescents may assume it is a natural part of life. Drug abuse is not as widespread, but it is still a problem amongst adolescents and the consumption has a negative effect. The purpose of the study is to analyze how the Swedish youth series Young Royals are framing alcohol and drugs amongst adolescents. The study will use a multimodal critical discourse analysis to see what discourses there are about alcohol and drugs. Previous research has discovered that teenage characters in film usually consume alcohol together with others. Consumption of drugs in film usually does not lead to any consequences for the characters. Adolescents are influenced by what media present to the public, especially what they see on film and tv. This study has analyzed the first season of the series Young Royals on Netflix. The purpose of this study was to analyze the scenes containing alcohol or drugs. Scenes where alcohol or drugs were represented, portrayed, mentioned or the characters talked about the subject without expressing it, were analyzed. By applying multimodal critical discourse analysis, this study has been able to see that results from previous studies are similar. The discourses we found in the study are for instance that alcohol is a norm and a natural part of the adolescents social life. The second discourse we found is class-distinction where different classes use alcohol and drugs in different ways. One discourse showed consequences of consuming alcohol and drugs and the most dominant discourse showed positive consequences. Young Royals also had two discourses about drug consumption, one when it was framed as a natural way of partying and one where the consumption was framed as an addiction. At last there were a few discourses of motives for consuming alcohol and drugs in the series. The motives are feeling bad, social, accomplishment and addiction. Some discourses are dominating but Young Royals presents a contrast between positive and negative aspects of alcohol and drugs.