Malmö University Publications
Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
The Present Absence - the representation of immigrant women in the Swedish television news
Malmö högskola, Faculty of Culture and Society (KS).
2012 (English)Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (One Year)), 10 credits / 15 HE creditsStudent thesis
Abstract [en]

This study on the representation of immigrant women in the news investigates three questions: How often do immigrant women appear in the news? In what roles are the immigrant women presented and what issues do they speak about? What are the relationships between those involved in the news features? The research has been conducted through the use of content analysis in combination with the qualitative approaches of semiotics and discourse within a framework of the theoretical perspective of intersectionality. Additional theories in the study are considering the global tendencies and the media, the social construction of news, us & them and stereotypes, as well as feminist media studies. A sample of 15 programmes each of the public service prime-time television news programmes Rapport and Aktuellt, a total of 30 hours, provides the material for this study. The findings of the content analysis indicate that immigrant women are underrepresented in numbers in the Swedish public service television news, and that when immigrant women are speaking in the news, they are more likely to speak about international issues than about Swedish domestic issues. Further, the study finds that most immigrant women are presented in the roles of “immigrant” and mother, while very few immigrant women are speaking in the role of expert/professional. In the qualitative part of the research, it is argued that the report on “Rosengårdsskolan” is consequently building on stereotypically constructed media discourses around the victimized immigrant women, the “ethnification of poverty” and the “racification of the city”. As a contrast, the report on “Adel och hans familj” is displaying a different viewpoint in its aim to depict a well-integrated family in exile in Sweden, but, nevertheless, the immigrant women are informationally backgrounded in contrast to the men in the report. One of the main conclusions of this study is that the immigrant women, and especially the non-European women, appearing in the Swedish television news, are so scarce that their mere appearance becomes loaded with stereotypes, myths, symbolism and prejudices. The findings of the study suggest that the possibilities for immigrant women to get their voices heard and take part in the setting of agendas in the mediated public sphere in Sweden, seem very small.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Malmö högskola/Kultur och samhälle , 2012. , p. 126
Keywords [en]
representation, women, immigrant women, news, social construction of the news, discourse, feminist media studies, intersectionality, semiotics, globalization, stereotypes, us & them, content analysis, constructionist approach, roles
National Category
Social Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-21648Local ID: 15467OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mau-21648DiVA, id: diva2:1481555
Educational program
KS K3 Communication for development
Available from: 2020-10-27 Created: 2020-10-27 Last updated: 2022-06-27Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

fulltext(2627 kB)154 downloads
File information
File name FULLTEXT01.pdfFile size 2627 kBChecksum SHA-512
aa24bafd29f54b8f56822bbc45e881eba2a66b745b263ec28261535edf53d06d7618ceb92d3c23c444787731c0d5bb53ef1ca9734eea954efdfdd8a0f203977b
Type fulltextMimetype application/pdf

By organisation
Faculty of Culture and Society (KS)
Social Sciences

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar
Total: 155 downloads
The number of downloads is the sum of all downloads of full texts. It may include eg previous versions that are now no longer available

urn-nbn

Altmetric score

urn-nbn
Total: 181 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf