En samvetslös diktator eller ett hjälplöst offer? : En kvalitativ studie av nyhetsrapporteringen kring Benny Fredriksson under metoo-rörelsen

Sammanfattning: The aim of the study was to examine the news coverage surrounding Stockholm City Theatre’s former CEO Benny Fredriksson during the metoo-movement, from the time of the accusations against him until a time after his death. The questions examined were: How is Benny Fredriksson represented at the time of the publishing of the accusations and at the time of his death? How are the anonymous witnesses and the journalism represented? How does the representation of victims and perpetrators change after the death of Benny Fredriksson? What are the differences and similarities in the reporting of Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter? To analyze this, we made a discourse analysis of 12 articles from Aftonbladet and 13 articles from Dagens Nyheter. The results showed that the roles of all the characters change during the coverage. At the time of the publishing of the accusations, Benny Fredriksson is represented as an evil dictator that harasses his employees at Stockholm City Theatre. After his death, Benny Fredriksson is represented as a victim of circumstances, helpless and full of anxiety. At first, the witnesses are represented as scared, helpless victims. At the end of the coverage the representation has changed, and the victims are instead represented as perpetrators that are accused of lying. The journalism goes from being represented as investigative journalism to being represented as a media hunt that killed Benny Fredriksson. Overall, Aftonbladet is more defending of the witnesses and the journalism while Dagens Nyheter is more defending of Benny Fredriksson. The study shows that a death can affect the news coverage and consequently how the characters are represented.