Samen = Vår tids miljöhjälte? : En kritisk diskursanalys av hur samer framställs i Dagens Nyheters granskning av klimatförändringarna och skogsindustrin.

• Main Author: Thomé, Greta
• Format: Bachelor Thesis
• Language: Swedish
• Published: Umeå universitet, Institutionen för kultur- och medievetenskaper 2021
• Subjects: Sámi people; climate change; Sveaskog; power structures; discourse; Humanities and the Arts; Humaniora och konst; Media and Communications; Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap; Sámi
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-184319

The purpose of this thesis is to study how the Sámi people are portrayed in the swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter’s two publications of climate change and the forest industry. The aim of this study is to identify whether power structures are reproduced or challenged. To do so, I applied critical discourse analysis as a method. The theoretical framework is composed of media theories, theories of institution and hegemony, and also by theories of stereotypingand “the other”. The results showed that one could crystallize a Sámi identity discourse order and a Sámi journalistic discourse order in the empirical material. On the one hand, the hegemony was reproduced by the way the Sámi people were described as a people with a lot of stereotypical perceptions, like being primitive, a victim and living close to nature. But on the other hand the power structures were challenged by the way the Sámi people were portrayed as active and fighting for their rights. The Sámi people were also given a position of power in comparison to the industry and the state, where the Sámi people are assigned a new epithet as a goodhearted climate hero. That identity description is constructed in relation to the industry and the state who are assigned the role of the oppressor. The conclusion that can be made out of this essay is that regardless of being described with positive stereotypical perceptions, the Sámi people’s subordinate position will always be reproduced. Furthermore, it will give birth to new stereotypes, like: The Sámi people = The climate hero of our time.