Massmedias framställning av socialbidragstagare : - en diskursanalys av språkliga konstruktioner i svensk dagspress

Sammanfattning:           Massmedias framställning av socialbidragstagare   -     en diskursanalys av språkliga konstruktioner i svensk dagspress       Författare: Jennifer Engström           Institutionen för socialt arbete Examensarbete 15 hp Socialt arbete Socionomprogrammet             Höstterminen/Autumn term 2017 Handledare/Supervisor: Lennart Räterlinck English title: Mass media's representation of social welfare receivers – a discourse analysis of linguistic constructions in Swedish daily press Abstract  English title: Mass media's representation of social welfare receivers - a discourse analysis of linguistic constructions in Swedish daily press Svensk titel: Massmediers framställning av socialbidragstagare - en diskursanalys av språkliga konstruktioner i svensk dagspress Author/författare: Jennifer Engström   The purpose of this study was to examine how social welfare receivers is portrayed and constructed in Swedish daily press. The empirical data have consisted of twenty-one articles from the main national newspapers Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet. The study had a qualitative disposition and the selection was made strategically to make sure the empirical data would be relevant to the study’s issues. The theoretical starting point was extracted from social constructivism and from Foucault’s theory about power and his discourse concept. The analysis was done with help of Foucault’s discursive analytic methods with focus on power, entities positioning, what was implicit in the articles and whom was given the space to be heard.   It was found that the descriptions of social welfare receivers were often negative and contained assumptions that were seldom expressly explained. The rhetoric constructions may contribute to the legitimation of the marginalisation of social welfare receivers in Sweden through the focus on political, financial and work-related aspects. The result showed that social welfare receivers were considered to be uneducated and incapable in most of the articles. The result also showed that the main point of view was from the author to the article or political.