“Why did you not go at the first stroke?” : A qualitative content analysis about medias reporting about men’s violence against women.

The study “Why did you not go at the first stroke?” aims to examine how the media today illustrate men’s violence against women in modern day Sweden. The study is limited to two established Swedish news media and newspapers; Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter. Six articles were chosen based on a qualitative content analysis and analyzed using two different schedules in order to reach a result. The two schedules were produced with the theoretical framework in mind, framing theory, media logic and gender representation. The articles are chosen from 2020 to 2021, to reach up to present time and the fact that men’s violence against women as an issue has been more noticed during the corona pandemic that started in the spring of 2020. The articles are presented separately in the analysis and each connects to media logic storytelling techniques that are used; stereotyping, personation, intensification and polarization. The illustrations of men’s violence against women show that women often get portrayed as victims in this type of crime journalism. These victims always occur with name and age whereas the perpetrators who almost always stay anonymous. In the articles in this study the violence is rarely blamed on external factors. However, several articles involve people who had a previous relationship. Due to the limited material of the study, the discussion and result shows that no difference between the newspapers can be established. Some minor differences are found but not in the amount for any conclusions to be drawn