Dehumanization of refugee children in Swedish media : A content analysis of Swedish newspaper articles from year 2015-2022

Wars, conflicts, natural disasters, and poverty are several reasons why millions of children worldwide are fleeing their homes and seeking refuge in other countries. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) emphasizes the obligation of the recipient countries to promote the physical and mental recovery and integration of refugee children into society. Refugee children can in turn be perceived by the host country as long-term investments or financial burdens. The objectification of perceiving human beings as assets or burdens, rather than human, is an indication of dehumanization. Dehumanizing perceptions and views are formed by people or societies and can be spread with the help of various media platforms. This study examines 24 Swedish newspaper articles, published between the years 2015-2022, with the aim to analyze whether and how the articles use dehumanizing words, expressions, and assumptions in their representation of refugee children. To identify dehumanizing words, expressions and assumptions from the selected newspaper articles, Nick Haslam's theory of dehumanization is applied. This is a qualitative content analysis, with quantitative elements. Carol Lee Bacchi’s qualitative analysis tool, what's the problem represented to be? (WPR), is used to analyze how refugee children are represented and perceived in the newspaper articles. Upon reviewing the newspaper articles, the results were decided into four overall dehumanizing categories: 1) asset, 2) burden, 3) criminality and 4) grouping. Furthermore, the results show that the dehumanizing representations of refugee children within the newspaper articles indicates mechanistic dehumanization as well as animalistic dehumanization.