Race to the White House : En diskursanalytisk studie om hur nyhetsmedia i USA förstår landets demokratiska val

Sammanfattning: This study seeks to illuminate which understanding of democracy the written U.S. digital news media propagates to its readers, through the lens of the 2016 presidential election. This is done through discourse theory and analysis inspired by Laclau & Mouffes work on nodal points and discursive webs. Other theories involve polyarchy as a definition of democracy as well as rational models for voter participation. Written digital articles related to the 2016 election, chosen through entering keywords related to democracy and voting, from a broad range of larger media houses are used as material for the study. The study found that the discourse created and mediated by the news articles, when taken as a whole, understands democracy as a contest between different demographical groups. Race or ethnicity are the most commonly referenced groups. The election is a battle between the candidates’ personalities to entice “their” specific groups to get out and vote. Policy or political issues are rarely mentioned in the articles. Voter participation is low according to the discourse, but that might not be such a big problem according to the discourse. A larger problem for democracy is corruption, political elitism and a poorly designed electoral system.