Är skiljaktigheter i social identitet lika med skiljaktigheter i gestaltningar?

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this study was to examine how individuals with different social identities, guilty of committing terrorist attacks, are framed in the Swedish news media. With regards to the increase in right-wing terrorist attacks, I found that a research aimed at investigating differences in how right-wing terrorists and Islamic-terrorists are represented would be important and interesting. I have analysed framing in the Swedish news media by looking at four different individuals, where two are considered right-wing terrorists, and the other two are Islamic- terrorists. The method used has been a qualitative content analysis, aimed at identifying and analysing underlying and latent messages in one hundred sixty news articles. The analytical framework used has been based on the social identity theory, combined with representation and framing theory. The findings showed that there are in fact differences in how the individuals are framed in media, and that the difference can to a certain extent be explained with reference to the individual’s social identity. The analysis further illustrated that the Swedish news media tends to uphold a discourse that continuously favours the ingroup, and with reference to previous research, the findings demonstrates how media's representations influences how the public perceives and understands certain news, and the potential consequences such framing might have.