Is There an Alternative? Muslim Representation in Alternative Media : A Comparative Discourse Analysis of Swedish Right-wing and Left-wingAlternative Media

Sammanfattning: Over the last few years, there has been a rise in alternative media in Sweden as well as in otherEuropean countries. Although alternative media has proven to have more impact on attitudesthan traditional media, the field has been given limited attention. Left-wing media, in particular,has been given little thought by scholars and comparative discourse studies of alternative mediaacross the left-right spectrum has up till now not been achieved. . In this study, alternative mediais explored with a migration approach to understand how Muslims are discursively depicted inalternative right-wing and left-wing media. Through a media-political populism approach, thisstudy indicates that right-wing alternative media depict Muslims as ‘the elite’, whereasalternative left-wing media depict Muslims as ‘the people. Furthermore, the analysis finds thatalternative media make use of populist strategies to further their political stance. Finally, findingssuggests that further research expand on the definition of alterative media