”Det talades om ’flyktingbarn’ trots att frågan varken rör barn eller flyktingar” : en analys av hur ensamkommande ungdomar gestaltas på fyra svenska ledarsidor

Sammanfattning: This paper studies how unaccompanied children and minors are framed on editorial pages in four national Swedish newspapers. The purpose is to analyze how the editorial pages are forming and contributing to a frame of unaccompanied children and minors in the wake of the so-called ’refugee crisis’ in Europe during the fall of 2015. This paper finds that unaccompanied children and minors are, during the studied period, either portrayed as child victims in need of international protection, as grown up ’strategic’ asylum seekers who lie about their age, or as a strain on the welfare system already affected by a societal crisis. There is an overall trend to frame unaccompanied children and minors as a negative phenomenon and a culturally different ’other’ in need of surveillance or education. ’They’ are often framed together with expressions connected to climate catastrophes or security issues, and are therefore securitized, framed as an insecure phenomenon threatening Sweden rather than acknowledging their grounds for asylum. By framing unaccompanied children and minors in this way, the editorial pages of Sweden’s most-read paper journals can contribute to stereotypes, and affect public opinion and political acts concerning them.