Från misstanke till dom : En analys av Aftonbladets och Expressens skildringar av Anna Lindhs mördare

Sammanfattning: The Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh was murdered on September 10 2003. The police pursuit for the man that murdered her was initiated immediately. Two weeks later, the police arrested the 24-year-old man that six month later would be sentenced to imprisonment for life for the murder of Anna Lindh. The main purpose of this essay is to examine how the man that murdered Anna Lindh was described in Aftonbladet and Expressen from the time of his arrest to the sentence of guilty. One part of the purpose of this essay is also to inquire how the Swedish evening press paid regard to the ethical publicity rules in their descriptions. Five articles from every newspaper based on five important dates during this period were chosen. These ten articles were then analyzed by a qualitative dialogical text analysis with the purpose to study how the texts are intertextual related to each other. The analysis showed that the journalists had difficulties in paying consideration to the ethical publicity rules in their descriptions of the murderer of Anna Lindh. Aftonbladet’s and Expressen’s portrayals of the 24-year-old man didn’t change much over time. He was described as a mental instable and violent man in every article. It didn’t occur any obvious distinctions between Aftonbladet’s and Expressen’s descriptions which indicate that the newspapers within the genre evening press constitute a fairly homogeneous news institution. The texts related to each other by confirming and strengthening previous statements. The journalists were able to, by recontextualising a prior assertion, use the earlier articles as a basis and broaden the context within the discourse.