Body Activism in Swedish News Media : A study of discourses and framing of body activism

From 2015 to 2018 many Swedish news media were publishing articles about the same topic; body activism. The purpose of this study is to examine how Swedish news media linguistically uses the term body activism, how they define the term and if discursive themes and patterns can be identified when it comes to how the news media report about body activism. The study relies on a theoretical framework with ideas about media logic, news values and framing; theories about social movements and the media; theories about beauty standards, norms and the consumer society; and also studies about body activism, fat activism and body positivity. The method used is a connected content analysis of a material consisting of 676 texts published in Swedish news media. The connected content analysis was achieved by the use of Textometrica which is a tool for examining frequency and correlation of words used in texts. To further analyse the results a discourse analysis has been used. The study shows that body activism in Swedish news media gets framed and defined as something that is about opposition and wanting change, something that is about size and weight, something that often gets told through individual stories and experiences, something that takes place on social media, and as an activism that is performed by women for the sake of women. Furthermore, the results of the study show interesting thematic patterns not only in how body activism gets defined but also in how the news media report about body activism. When it comes to the question of how the texts about body activism get told there is a pattern in that a few female activists become main profiles in the texts, which raises questions about representation and power structures. About the framing of the message of the activism, there is a discussion of beauty and looks, self-acceptance and liberation of ideals and norms of beauty. About the framing of the response to the activism there is a discussion about meeting symbolic violence and the risk of facing hate as a body activist. When it comes to the framing of the tool for spreading the activism, I discuss consumerism on social media and the interesting divergence between wanting to oppose how consumerism works to reproduce ideals and norms of beauty with activism on platforms closely linked to commercials and consumerism.