Heroes, Villains & Victims : A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Swedish News Media’s Representation of Frontex

Sammanfattning: This thesis explores in which ways the EUs border management agency Frontex was represented as a ‘humanitarian’ actor in the Swedish news media during Operation Triton 2014-2017 in the Central Mediterranean. It conducts a critical discourse analysis of Sweden’s largest newspaper Aftonbladet, using traditional and contemporary understandings of humanitarianism paired with saviour, villain, and victim narratives as a theoretical framework. The thesis concludes that such narratives were reproduced in the Swedish news media’s representation of the agency and when combined with the notion of ‘Swedish exceptionalism’, Frontex was especially portrayed as a humanitarian actor. Furthermore, the thesis argues that Frontex was considered a ‘discourse technologist’ within certain areas of the EUs border regime, and that Sweden’s humanitarian position in the EU was compromised during the 2015 refugee ‘crisis’. The research contributes to the field by concentrating explicitly on Frontex in the Swedish news media, which existing research is lacking.