Ensamstående mammor i nyhetsmedierna – spelar konjunkturen någon roll? : En textanalys om mediernas konstruktion av ensamstående mammor i relation till ekonomiska konjunkturer

Sammanfattning: Economics is the hub of today's modern societies. The economic development has extensive consequences in society and affects the individual's everyday life in many ways. Of several actors in society, the media is one of the actors that influences, constructs and reproduces norms in society. Therefore, they also control what and how social groups, like single mothers, are constructed. The aim of this study was to understand if the construction of single mothers was related to macroeconomic changes such as Swedish recessions and economic upturns. The study was based on a qualitative textanalysis of 102 articles from the Swedish daily newspapers Dagens Nyheter, Expressen and Aftonbladet. The selection to examine the phenomenon between years of the recession 2008-2011 and the economic upturn 2016-2019 made it possible to examine the supposing change or continuity of the time periods.   The study uses three different theories: Agenda Setting Theory, Framing Theory and the Claims-making-theory.  The main conclusion of our analysis was that a prominent pattern in the newspapers was that single mothers often were constructed as victims in an economic context, which also was a continuous construction between the two timeperiods. The other category of the construction that were identified was a political context which consisted of two subthemes: the construction of single mothers as an political symbol in welfare and society´s dissatisfaction with the government and reforms.