Mediebilden av cancersjuka ur ett genusperspektiv

Abstract Title: Cancer in media from a gender perspective Number of pages: 33 (49 including enclosures) Author: Emma Kreü Tutor: Amelie Hössjer Course: Media- and Communication science D Period: Spring 2007 University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala University Purpose/Aim: The aim of this thesis is to investigate if there are differences between the picture given in media of women with cancer and of men with cancer. The result is aimed to give a deeper picture of how gender is represented in media. Material/Method: The method used in this thesis is discourse analysis, applied on twenty articles which contained personal interviews with women and men who have or have had breast or prostate cancer. Ten of the articles contain interviews with women and ten interviews with men. The articles were selected from criteria based on where and when they were published. They were picked from the two largest papers in Sweden, Dagens Nyheter (DN) and Aftonbladet (AF), ten from each paper, of which five were interviews with women and five with men. The articles were found through two search engines, Presstext (where DN is filed) and Mediearkivet (where AF is filed) and the articles which were published most recently were picked. Main results: The main result is that there is a difference between the representation of men and the representation of women in media, to a certain point. The image of women and men who have survived the cancer is different from each other. In the representation of women there is focus on parenthood and the women’s relations to her surroundings and how the disease has effected that. In the representation of men there is more focus on sexuality and impotence and how that has effected their self-confidence. The images of women and men who still are critically ill or even dying are more similar to each other, the focus here is on the fear of dying and the wish to stay alive. Keywords: media, gender, discourse analysi