Hur porträtteras kvinnliga mördare i tidningar? : En kvalitativ innehållsanalys om kvinnor dömda för mord i Sverige under 2000-talet

The way the news media portray their subject can easily alter a person´s perception. They can for example affect whether criminals will be hated or be seen as a victim by society. The purpose of the study was to examine how women who were convicted of murder in Sweden during the 2000 century, are portrayed in Swedish newspapers. The sample consisted of 11 identified women and each of them had 15 written articles about them that were randomly selected. The themes of the articles were examined with a qualitative content analysis, that in turn were based on the chivalry thesis and the ideal victim/perpetrator. The result of the analysis showed that the majority of the articles had a harsher portrayal, and the women were more likely to be seen as 'bad' or 'mad'. While a smaller portion of the articles had a more gentle portrayal, and the women were in turn more likely to be seen as a good person or as being less responsible for their crimes. Althrough we did not find any support that the women were sexualised by the newspapers, as some of the previous studies have snown.