Ett arbete eller ett modernt slaveri? En kvalitativ innehållsanalys av hur prostitution och människohandel för sexuella ändamål konstrueras i spansk dagspress

Sammanfattning: This study aimed to investigate how two Spanish newspapers, El País, and El Español, portrayed human trafficking for sexual purposes, prostitution, and the central actors. To gain insight and a better understanding of this, eleven news articles from each daily press that were published between the years 2021 and 2023, have been analyzed. The focus has been on both the manifest and latent messages that journalists emphasized. The method used for this study is a qualitative content analysis where coding was used to establish recurring themes within the chosen articles. To examine the data material the theories used were Edelman’s theory on constructions in media, Doing Gender, Discipline Process, and ‘Us and the Others’. The results of the study concluded that there were two main perspectives on how the Spanish daily press viewed human trafficking and prostitution. The first perspective viewed it as today’s slavery whereas the second viewed it as an occupation. These two differences affected how central actors, solutions, and causes were constructed. Furthermore, this contributed to a varied narrative, yet a polarization, where the central actors were referred to in a similar manner. This led to normative beliefs and thoughts being reinforced when not questioned in the news reporting.