"Den svenske talibanen" - En analys av svenska nyhetsberättelser

Sammanfattning: On December 20, 2001, the Swedish citizen Mehdi Ghezali was captured on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Ghezali spent the following 930 days in U.S. captivity, without being charged with any crime. My aim in this essay is to analyze how Ghezali was portrayed in three Swedish newspapers under and after his captivity, two nationwide and one local newspaper based in Ghezali's hometown. My purpose is to see whether Ghezali's identity is constructed differently in the three newspapers, as regards The Other, Stereotypization, etc. I have found that Ghezali has been included into the We-group to a greater extent in the local media than into the national identity portrayed by the nationwide press. The result suggests that the differences between the two national papers in political views and format do not have any effect on the portrayal of Ghezali. This implies that in this case the national and local identity structures do not reinforce and legitimize each other, like some researchers have claimed. In contrast I have found a strong divergence between these identity constructing levels.