Från norr till söder och tillbaka? : En studie av politikers retorik om Norrland i tre rikstäckande tidningar

Sammanfattning: The aim of this thesis is to analyse how politicians produce, reproduce and challenge notions of Norrland through newspaper media. The study is based on 60 different articles collected from three national newspaper agencies, Dagens Nyheter, Aftonbladet and Svenska Dagbladet. Adopting the discourseanalytical method called the logics approach, this paper explores which discourses dominate the politicians rhetoric about Norrland as well as how the discourses challenge and constitute conceptions about the northern region. The study shows that politicians often discuss Norrland in terms of economics, environmental issues or demographical conditions. Even though the politicians tend to reproduce notions of Norrland as a remote and rural region, thus enhancing conceptions of the place as a dying and problematic area, the study reveals attempts to redefine Norrlands' problems as a national matter and concern. By appealing to different subjects the politicians try to create feelings of recognition within the public to prevent the place from becoming the rural area they already represent it as.