"Att hon varit svartsjuk betyder inte att hon är en mördare" : En textanalys om hur kvinnliga och manliga förövare framställs i nyhetsmedier

Sammanfattning: The majority of the predators in Sweden are men. More specifically, 90 percent of all homicides are committed by men. This means that there are not many female murderers in Sweden. This awoke the question how the news media portrays the female predator compared to the male predator. The purpose of this study is therefore to analyze the differences in how news media portrays the female predator compared to the male predator. This study also aims to understand why there are differences in how female predators are portrayed by the news media compared to male predators. This study has used a qualitative text analysis to answer these questions. The study has analyzed six crime cases where articles have been selected for the analysis. The results show that the news media portrays the female predator from motives such as jealousy, motherhood and backgroundswhich includes family, education and interests. The news media doesn’t focus onmotives or backgrounds when the predator is a male. The background news media is writing about when it is a male predator is the criminal background. The newsmedia also focus on the victim when it’s a male predator. The differences betweenthe sexes may be due to the social construction of gender. The social construction of gender creates norms for the different genders in society such as normative femininity and masculinity. This creates notions of what is seen as feminine and masculine. When a woman is aggressive and violent, she goes against the normative femininity. She is seen as a deviant woman. A male who is aggressive and violent does not go against the notions of masculinity. This means he is not seen as a deviant man. This could be the reason why the news media portrays female predators different compared to male predators.