The woman and the “Aftonbladet coworker” : A critical discourse analysis of how Cissi Wallin and Fredrik Virtanen were framed during #metoo.

This study examines how the Swedish journalists Cissi Wallin and Fredrik Virtanen were framed and reported in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet during their conflict during the #metoo movement. The actor Alyssa Milano used the words me too in a hashtag to put a light on her sexual assaulter, Harvey Weinstein, and encouraged other women on social media to do the same. In Sweden Cissi Wallin was one of the first women to use the hashtag and tell her own story of how she was drugged and raped by Fredrik Virtanen in the year of 2006, who at the time was an employee at Aftonbladet. It was the start of a media scandal that would be continued for years after #metoo had its beginning. The ways that the media has been reporting about women in the manner of being a victim, has been shown in earlier studies being very gender stereotypical. The purpose of the study was to use Judith Butler's theory of gender and examine how Cissi Wallin and Fredrik Virtanen are framed based upon gender. By using Jesper Strömbäcks theory of news evaluation the study will look at how Aftonbladet has used both Wallin and Virtanen as opponent themes in their articles and in which ways they are framed. With the use of Adam Shehatas framing theory the study will also take a closer look at how Cissi Wallin and Fredrik Virtanen were framed in these articles. Both each individual and their relationship. The method used to examine the topic of the study was by a critical discourse theory which led to numerous themes showing that Aftonbladet used the power of being a big news source and also the employer of Virtanen to make Wallin the guilty one by the ways she was framed. Among other things the result showed how Aftonbladet used their position to neglect Wallins story by taking sides with Virtanen during the period of the conflict.