Nyhetsmediernas rapportering om mördare

: En kvalitativ innehållsanalys av svenska tidningsmedier

Abstract

The aim of this study is to create a deeper understanding about how male- and female murderers are depicted in the news and to see if there is any difference in the depiction. The focus is to see if there is a pattern between four murderers, two female and two males, and how they are depicted in the media. We also want to see if there is a difference between male and female murderers who committed similar crimes. Previous research shows that there is a difference in how the depiction of male and female murderers. Female offenders are more often befouled then their male counterpart. To examine how the media depict the murderers this study originates from a qualitative content analysis. The material that we base our study on is 40 Swedish articles from different media, ten articles on each murderer from different newspapers. The results we found were that the female murderers are portrayed by media by their crime and norm-breaking behavior. The male murderers are portrayed only after their crime. The conclusion is that we can see a pattern in how media depict male and female murderers and that there is a differs in-between male and female murderers. Swedish newspapers tend to describe female murderers in a more complex way by depicting their crimes and norm braking behavior which leads to a bigger focus and more articles revolving female murderers in the news then male murderers.