"Om moder natur tillåter" : En kritisk diskursanalys av lokala mediers rapportering om översvämningar sommaren 2025

Sammanfattning

This study examines how the floods in Sweden are portrayed in the Swedish local press, during the months of May to August 2025. The purpose was to examine which common themes, actors and perspectives are highlighted, which characteristics and metaphors are attributed to floods as a phenomenon and which ideological effects and power relations the discourses can reproduce. The study is based on a qualitative critical discourse analysis that contains 50 randomly selected articles published by Swedish local press, that reported about flooding, between the period May 1st to August 31st. The theoretical framework is composed of news values theory, political economy theory, journalistic roles theory, discourse theory, discourse psychology and critical discourse analysis to understand why an event becomes news, which actors determine the type of articles that are published and how linguistic features can make meaning. The result shows that floods are largely constructed as natural and exceptional events, where nature is presented as an active and sometimes personified actor. Through nominalizations and a dramatic use of language, human, political and structural causes of flood risks, such as community planning, land use and climate policy decisions, are often made invisible.The analysis further shows that municipal actors and authorities are given a clear interpretative priority in the reporting and are positioned as rational experts and problem solvers. The reporting is characterized by a reactive and action-oriented discourse with a focus on technical solutions and individual responsibility, while long-term climate perspectives and political distribution of responsibility are largely missing.