“Ensamkommande ‘barn’ behöver kläder och skor. Stora skor. Jättestora skor.” : En kritisk diskursanalys av hur begreppet “ensamkommande” konstruerades på Twitter under 2015.

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this study has been to analyze - by the use of critical discourse analysis - how constructions of ensamkommande (unaccompanied minors) were expressed on Twitter in 2015. The purpose of this analysis has been to investigate what consequences these constructions might have for how people interpret and understand unaccompanied minors and what kind of impact that could have on the social work carried out for the target group. The material was comprised by every tweet written in Swedish and containing the word ensamkommande on Twitter during 2015. The study has been made from a social constructionist  perspective and the method for analysis has been Fairclough’s three dimensional model. The result showed that eight discourses could be identified. The majority of these could be said to have a negative attitude towards unaccompanied minors and portrayed them in a very negative way. The few discourses that could be said to have a positive attitude towards the target group also contributed to the very negative construction of them. The result also showed that the main producers of the material, and thereby the negative construction of unaccompanied minors, were private individuals, politicians, journalists and media. The conclusion is that the construction of unaccompanied minors could have a negative impact on social work since it can affect how people in general perceive the target group. This could lead to both structural and individual impact regarding the social work with unaccompanied minors. How people interpret and understand the concept of unaccompanied minors could affect how people vote in general elections which could lead to changes in legislation and policies to better answer towards the very negative construction of unaccompanied minors. Such changes of legislation and policies could have a negative impact on the social workers ability to maneuver in their work with the target group. There is also a risk that social workers incorporate the construction of unaccompanied minors so that the work with the target group may be based on prejudiced and general assumptions about them.