Är all publicitet bra publicitet? : Hur SD framställdes i Dalarnas Tidningar och Dala-Demokraten i valet 2014

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this study is to examine how the Swedish newspapers Dalarnas Tidningar and Dala-Demokraten reported and framed the populist party Sweden Democrats during the 2014 election. The reason why I have chosen to examine this is because the Sweden Democrats is on the march and has now after the election 2014 established itself as the third largest party in Sweden, and at the same time the media has a difficult time to respond to the party because they have policy issues that are undemocratic. There is already innumerable research in the subject of the nationwide media but not so much research of the regional and local media, so therefore I have chosen to locate this research to two local newspapers which has coverage in a county where the Sweden Democrats more than doubled its electoral results for 2014 election. The idea of this study is to provide a greater understanding of how journalists should respond to populist parties that have established themselves. Using a quantitative content analysis, I have examined how much publicity the Sweden Democrats received in relation to the other parties in the 2014 election in Dalarnas Tidningar and Dala-Demokraten, and also how the reporting and framing was at overall in the newspapers during the 2014 election. The theoretical framework this study has used to get results is theories about the media’s role in a democracy, agenda setting and framing. What the results of the study show is that the Sweden Democrats was the party that got most publicity in relation to the other parties during the 2014 election. The reporting on the party was in overall neutral and objective with both of the publications, but it was not in all of the articles the Sweden Democrats party was heard, either alone or as a part of a debate. The framing of the party was sometimes alarming when journalists interviewed or quoted someone else who had an opinion about the party. What all of the collected data shows is that a party can have more publicity than other parties and to a certain extent also be alarming, and actually urge voters not to vote for them. However, this appears not to matter because the Sweden Democrats got votes anyway. When it comes to the Sweden Democrats an alarming framing seems to produce positive effects on the formation of opinions. When other parties have received a negative framing in the media, it led to a failure of their leaders, for example, Håkan Juholt and Mona Sahlin, so the Sweden Democrats seems to be an exception. When it comes to populist parties framing does not matter for the formation of opinion at all. It is not how the party is framed, it is because they got publicity overall that they become elected. Can it be so that the old cliché “all publicity is good publicity” corresponds with reality? It seems to do that when it comes to populist parties. Keywords: Framing, agenda setting, democracy, objectivity, Sweden Democrats.