"Sorry about the mess" : Discourse Analysis of news articles written about a commercial campaign made by the Sweden Democrat party

This Bachelor thesis studies the news discourse of news- articles written about a commercial campaign “Sorry about the mess” made by the Sweden Democrat (SD) party. The commercial campaign took place in a subway station located in Östermalm in the beginning of August 2015. The campaign was targeting tourists exploring Stockholm and the poster apologized for people begging on the streets. Even though the campaign did not indicate it directly, it was clear that the campaign was alluding to the EU- migrants begging on the streets. The campaign was criticized for being xenophobic and racist by press. The analysis in this study is based on eight articles chosen from the two Swedish newspapers, with the highest subscription volumes, Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter. The articles are chosen from the very beginning of the campaign and the aim of this study is to see if two Swedish daily publications with the highest rank of readers, that on surface where critical towards the campaign, are actually reproducing “new racist” discourse in a local micro-level (van Dijk 1991). The thesis is based on the hypothesis that the news discourse in the chosen material is maintaining, and even strengthening, the hegemony of white press and modifying people´s knowledge, attitudes and ideologies about a specific ethnic minority. The news discourse will be analysed by breaking the chosen articles in categories/schemas to separate the micro structure from the macro structure. The categories/schematas analysed in this thesis are: headlines and leads, style, perspective, voices, main texts and images. The results can be summarised in conclusion which is proving the hypothesis to be true. The Romanian beggars are barely represented or given a voice in the articles. Even though the direct message in the articles is not racist and the chosen material shows strong criticism towards the campaign, the articles leave out the representation of the ethnic group that is at the focus of the campaign. The incident is informed from a white majority´s point of view. This strengthens the already existing hegemony of white press and gives an impression that the event is only concerning the white majority