Vem är den moderna pappan? : En multimodal kritisk diskursanalys av faderskapets representation i SVT:s dokumentärserie ”Tre pappor”

Sammanfattning: Since the middle of the 20th century, the political aims for parental equality have been the center of attention in Sweden. Women have been helped to join the workforce, and men have been encouraged to take parental leave and be involved and emotionally present as fatherly figures. These changes have contributed to new ideals surrounding fatherhood, which call on men to enact with what can be considered non-normative values, in order to achieve Sweden's state ideological ideals around equal and involved parenthood. This study aimed to investigate how the discourse on modern fatherhood is expressed through SVT's documentary Tre pappor. By examining fatherhood within a contemporary context, this study has contributed to a relatively unexplored field of research. It is essential to examine not merely the way documentaries portray fathers, as well as the divergence in their representation. By exclusively having investigated this subject within the production of a Swedish documentary, the study has contributed with deeper insight into how representational imagery becomes tangible in the confines of one medium. Through a multimodal critical discourse analysis and a framework composed of theoretical explanations of representation, gender, masculinity, and fatherhood, we have been able to study how the documentary's linguistic and visual elements shape the representation of fatherhood, and its contribution to the discourse on modern fatherhood. The results revealed that fathers are depicted through non-normative representations, with a physical and emotional presence. At the same time, an ambivalence about fatherhood is expressed, which is represented by the fathers' attitude towards both non-normative and traditional ideals about masculinity and fatherhood. The documentary also demonstrates how the fathers negotiate their identities, but in various ways. Their identities are based on modern approaches to fatherhood, as well as through more traditional systems. Overall, the study shows that the Swedish ideological ideas concerning the modern and involved father, remain on a discursive level to the greatest extent, and less expressed in practical action. Therefore, the discourse on modern fatherhood is still fragmented, however only to a certain extent, which could consequently indicate that fatherhood still is in continuous change and transformation.