Editorial Framing. Critical Discourse Analysis of Swedish Editorials

Sammanfattning: In this thesis I have conducted a critical discourse analysis of foureditorial texts, published in the newspapers Aftonbladet, DagensNyheter, Expressen and Svenska Dagbladet. Drawing on theoriesabout media discourses (Fairclough 1995), agenda-setting(McCombs & Shaw 1972) and framing (Goffman 1974), I haveexamined how the findings of Bolin et al (2016) correlate with discursivelyframed representations in these texts, in regards to negative,positive or neutral framing of border controls, immigrationand the connection made to political parties during the first weekof January 2016, when the Swedish temporary border controlswere introduced.The results showed both consistencies and inconsistencies in regardsto framing, where the liberal newspapers Dagens Nyheterand Expressen’s editorials were less negative towards the bordercontrols and expressed more negative and stereotypical framingson refugees and migration than expected, whereas the independentsocial democratic Aftonbladet expressed the assumed negativeframing on border controls and the Social Democrates, and positiveframing on migration. The most unexpected findings wasSvenska Dagbladet that contrary to the previous findings in Bolinet al’s study framed migration positively and took the most explicitstand against the border controls. The findings may indicate a politicaland cultural change due to the change in directions in theSocial Democrats migration politics.