When the virus reached the local village : A quantitative content analysis about how Nerikes Allehanda, Nya Wermlands-tiden och Helsingborgs Dagblad framed the corona pandemic.

This study examines how the three most influential local newspapers in Sweden, Helsingborgs Dagblad, Nerikes Allehanda and Nya Wermlands-tidningen, framed the corona pandemic in terms of tone and main angle in their news reports. The corona pandemic was classified as a pandemic in march 2020 by the World Health Organisation, WHO. International, national and local news media have all reported about the effects and consequences of the virus. The corona pandemic is however not only taking place on national level, but also on local grade. The people who need information about the crisis are people who are closest affected. There is a substantial amount of previous research about journalism in crisis, but it is more common to examine national media rather than on a local level. The method used in this study is a quantitative content analysis and the material contains news articles published in the local newspapers. The purpose of the study is based on Ervin Goffman's framing theory, amongst Ulrich Beck's Risk society and Marina Ghersetti & Tomas Odéns crisis journalism. The result of the study shows that the most common tone was neutral, which implies that all three newspapers are delivering objective and fact-based information in their reporting. It also shows that a part of the news is of the more alarmistic kind. These results are presented in previous research about journalism and crisis, which alludes how alarmist tone is mainly presented but it generally depends on where the crisis takes place. If the question of fact is taking place close to the media in question, the reports tend to be more neutral. The study also shows that the frame called risk magnitude figures by far the most in our study, followed by responsibility of the society and social limits. The results show that the focus slightly shifts from the responsibility of the society and social limits to the question about vaccines and more opening up the society between the two periods. Although there is a difference in what frame that is raised between the periods, the used tone is slightly the same