"14.53 Sweden under attack" : a study about the morning newspapers and tabloids front pages images after the terror attack in Stockholm 2017.

The aim of this bachelor thesis was to analyse and examine which images the morning newspaper Dagens Nyheter and the tabloid paper Aftonbladet choosed to use on their front pages when reporting about the terrorist attack in Stockholm 2017. We also wanted to examine if there were any differences or similarities between morning newspapers and tabloids images on their front pages. Before our study we did a mapping where we examined how many images, between April 8 and April 30, the two newspapers used when portraying the incident on their front page. The mapping helped structuring our process by creating categories before deciding which images we wanted to examine more closely. We conducted a qualitative study and used semiotic image analysis, visual rhetoric analysis, metonymy, metaphor and index. We analysed twelve pictures; seven from Aftonbladet and five from Dagens Nyheter. By examining this we established that there were both differences and similarities between the newspapers. The biggest difference was that Aftonbladet used more dynamic images while Dagens Nyheter used more approximations. Aftonbladet´s images portrayed the attack with dramatic, close-ups images where the images felt more realistic and Dagens Nyheter portrayed the attack with more objective images. A similarity that we found was that both newspapers used images of authoritarian people and implied that the society stands united against the terror. We also found that the suspected terrorist, Rakhmat Akilov, was presented as a threat from the outside that destroyed “our” western world