Charlie Kirk sköts ihjäl och fick liv i svensk media. En kvalitativ gestaltningsanalys av svenska opinionstexter

Sammanfattning

This study seeks to explore the framing of the political activist Charlie Kirk and his death, aswell as compare our findings based on the different political leanings of three Swedishnewspapers – Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet. A total of 21 editorialarticles are studied, covering a two week period after his death. Previous research is mainlyabout framing studies on Swedish editorials, although some are combined with news articles.A majority of the previous research analyzes American politics. The theoretical framework iscomplemented with framing studies of other subjects to compensate for the limited amount ofresearch directly relevant to this study. Additionally Entman’s (1993) conceptualization offraming was used to define a frame by problem definition, causal interpretation, moralevaluation, and/or treatment recommendation. Van Gorp (2010), among others, has describedhow an analysis scheme can be made to conduct a qualitative framing analysis, which wasapplied. This paper is set out to answer two research questions: How editorials of Swedishnewspapers framed Charlie Kirk as a person alongside his death? Which differences andsimilarities can be observed in newspapers with different political orientations? The resultsillustrate that Kirk, and his death, is used to discuss other topics on a societal and structurallevel. Furthermore, three general frames could be identified: polarization, free speech andpolitics.