Mid Sweden University

Problem definition and purpose: A debated question in journalism today is if the mass media have the power to affect norms and values in the society. There are therefore many who believe that the media must works for democratic and equitable news coverage. Studies have shown that there are still many differences in how women and men are being portrayed in the Swedish media, even if Sweden is one of the most equal countries in the world. This inequality may affect the democracy and equality in the society negative.

Previous studies have mainly been using gender as the only explanatory factor to explain the difference of coverage between men and women in the news content. The purpose of this study will therefore not only be to compare the coverage of the Green Partys two spokespersons, Åsa Romson and Gustav Fridolin, from a gender perspective but also to take in count other factors that could contribute to differences in the news coverage.

Method and material: To find an answer to the purpose of this thesis a quantitative content analysis have been done on a total of 238 news articles in which Åsa Romson and/or Gustav Fridolin occur.

Main results: The results of the content analysis show that Gustav Fridolin occurs more frequently in the news than Romson does, and that the articles he appears in is lager than the articles in which Romson appears. The results also show that the tone towards Fridolin in the articles about him is more positive and less negative than the tone towards Romson in the articles about her. Our results also show that Fridolin mainly occur in content related to school and education while Romson occurs more frequently in content dealing with environmental questions.