Charlie Kirk sköts ihjäl och fick liv i svensk media. En kvalitativ gestaltningsanalys av svenska opinionstexter

Abstract

This study seeks to explore the framing of the political activist Charlie Kirk and his death, as well as compare our findings based on the different political leanings of three Swedish newspapers – Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet. A total of 21 editorial articles are studied, covering a two week period after his death. Previous research is mainly about framing studies on Swedish editorials, although some are combined with news articles. A majority of the previous research analyzes American politics. The theoretical framework is complemented with framing studies of other subjects to compensate for the limited amount of research directly relevant to this study. Additionally Entman’s (1993) conceptualization of framing was used to define a frame by problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation. Van Gorp (2010), among others, has described how an analysis scheme can be made to conduct a qualitative framing analysis, which was applied. This paper is set out to answer two research questions: How editorials of Swedish newspapers framed Charlie Kirk as a person alongside his death? Which differences and similarities can be observed in newspapers with different political orientations? The results illustrate that Kirk, and his death, is used to discuss other topics on a societal and structural level. Furthermore, three general frames could be identified: polarization, free speech and politics.