Pandemin som hotar Sverige : En undersökning av hur risken för svininfluensan framställs i kvart-i-fem-ekot.

Sammanfattning: The aim of this thesis has been to examine how the risk for the swine flu was represented in the Swedish Radio news broadcast Ekot 16.45 during different phases of the pandemic in 2009. We wanted to study how the risk was described in different discourses and periods? Were the participants in the reporting calming or warning the listeners in relations to different aspects of the swine flu? What consequences for the community were reported in the broadcasting? To find the answers to our questions, we analysed 13 features about the swine flu broadcasted in Ekot’s main news broadcast Ekot 16.45. We used critical discourse analysis inspired by Norman Fairclough. We identified four types of discourses in our text, a journalistic discourse, a medical discourse, a nationalistic discourse and an authority discourse. The main discourse was the medical one. We also discovered power relations in each discourse but also between them. We noticed that the media transmitted the information from the authorities like a megaphone, rather than handling it in their traditionally critical way. In addition most people interviewed were representatives from the authorities and not ordinary people, manifesting the above mentioned authoritative perspective/discourse and leading to an absence of descriptions on effects at an everyday level. We also observed that the risk was talked about in various ways depending on if the feature belonged to the warning or acute phase of the pandemic. In the way the features were presented, it was clear that the presentations of the swine flu also had effects on the community, the healthcare and the whole nation as if preparing for an outbreak.