"Ovanliga människor som går på Allsvenskan" : En kritisk diskursanalys av svensk medias representation av supporterkultur och fotbollsrelaterat våld

Sammanfattning: The highest Swedish football division, Allsvenskan, is not known for playing the best football or having the best players in the world on the pitch. However, Allsvenskan has one of the worlds’ best average audience rates and is well known globally for their large supporter culture. Thus, the topic of supporter culture and supporter related violence are a frequently discussed matter in Swedish media and has inspired the research topic for this study. The aim has been to study Swedish medias’ representation of football supporters and supporter related violence and if it perhaps has occurred a discursive change between the years 2014-2022. Traditional news articles published online within the chosen years, from several different newspapers, have been analyzed through a critical discourse analysis. Accompanied by critical discourse analysis, the study has used a theoretical framework consisting of media power, media hegemony and moral panic to analyze and conclude the results. The results provided three distinct discourses existing in Swedish media about football supporters being; supporters are a threat against the nuclear family, the supporter culture is a threat against society and lastly, medias’ large representation of moral panic as a response to supporters and supporter related violence. In addition, the study shows how there has been a discursive change in medias’ representation of supporters over time which confirms how media truly has the power to control society and its attitudes as well as determining and maintaining its ‘status quo’.