Porträttet av invandrare i svensk media

Sammanfattning: Today’s media form an essential part of how we understand the world around us. The purpose of the study is to investigate in which negative ways immigrants are presented in news articles Aftonbladet, Expressen and Dagens Nyheter during the period 2016-2023. This survey is based on a qualitative content analysis of twenty articles from Sweden’s most famous mass media. The results indicate that Swedish newspapers tend to paint a more negative image of immigrants compared to positive representations. Stereotypes are consistently used to describe immigrants and create an image of them as deviant and foreign. At the same time, a clear contrast emerges between immigrants and Swedes, where immigrants are positioned as the opposite of the so-called “Swedishness”. The study’s theoretical basis is based on Norbert Elias concepts of established and outsiders and Georg Simmel’s theory of the stranger and intersectionality as an investigative aspect. The conclusions from the study indicate that the media use different characteristics and perspectives to differentiate between immigrants and ethnic Swedes. A clear distinction is thus created between the two groups, where immigrants are portrayed through a prism of negative attributes and perspectives.