Mediekonstruktionen av King & Floyd : Diskurser då och nu i svensk rapportering om polisbrutalitet mot afroamerikaner

Sammanfattning: The studied phenomenon is that of police brutality against African Americans, along with the adjacent demonstrations and civil mobilizations that were born out of said phenomenon. This study set out to unveil the way in which Swedish print journalism has constructed the brutal beating of Rodney King and the death of George Floyd, along with the social response following those events. Other central questions have been: What discourses are present in the material, and how does the reporting relate to the protest paradigm? A critical perspective in accordance with Critical Discourse Analysis’ and Postcolonialism’s theoretical foundations has guided this study all the way from its developmental stages to its finalization. Carvalho’s (2008) analytical model, developed for critical discourse studies of journalistic texts, constitutes the methodological frame of the study.The results of the study can be summarized as follows:Heavy stereotyping is present in the material revolving around the LA riots, and an apparent fact is that the African American actors have had minimal input on the way they are constructed in the texts. Mainly political or other authoritative actors are present and heard in the material. The construction of the events has thereby been the product of the other, predominantly white, side of the social conflict, that reasonably wants to put itself in a good light while doing the opposite with their African American opposition. Considerable improvements are apparent since the King era but the flaws in the reporting are still obvious. A discourse of protesters as violent, unlawful individuals is still largely present in the material, although their social struggle is legitimized to a larger margin than in the past. In both King’s and Floyd’s case, opinionated journalism shows a tendency to break free from the dehumanizing patterns of reporting. The discourses present there are significantly more pro-protester and pro-social justice. iiThese results show the urgent need for future journalists to challenge the protest paradigm in their reporting, along with a need to consider and adapt to the underlying repressive effect that our journalistic traditions have on the medial representations of status-quo defying activism. Taking these findings into account is a necessary means to pave the way for a continually positive evolution of journalistic discourse.