Bound to Gendered Norms? : A critical discourse analysis of the portrayal of former Swedish Prime Ministers in news media

Sammanfattning: Sweden is considered prominent in gender equality issues. Despite that, Sweden was the last of the Nordic countries to have a female prime minister, and previous studies demonstrate that gender stereotypes remain. The aim of this thesis is to critically analyze how the former Prime Ministers – Magdalena Andersson, Stefan Löfven and Fredrik Reinfeldt – have been portrayed in Swedish newspapers from a gendered perspective. For the aim of the thesis were a gendered theoretical framework developed. A critical discourse analysis was conducted through a methodological framework developed based on Fairclough's three-dimensional model. The results demonstrate how all three of the former Prime Ministers are related to male norms in the portrayal of them in the newspaper articles. However, it differs between the former Prime Ministers in how the male attributes are ascribed to them and if the attributes are considered positive or negative. Through these findings, it is concluded that the portrayal of Andersson does not follow the pattern shown by previous research of negatively portraying the politician from a stereotypical female perspective.