The Visual Depiction of Ukrainian Refugees

Abstract: With a focus on Swedish national newspapers, the purpose of this thesis is to research and analyse the depiction of Ukrainian refugees. The reason behind the study is the hypothesis that Ukrainian refugees have been depicted in the media in a more positive light compared to other refugees from previous refugee crises. With the use of visual content analysis, front-page images from the newspapers Svenska Dagbladet and Dagens Nyheter have been coded for the amount of people, visible facial features, facial expressions, age group, and gender of the adults in the images. The theoretical framework consists of studies from different research fields that all confirm how different aspects of images can affect the emotional responses of the ones who view the images. The results point towards that Ukrainian refugees are depicted in a positive and humanising way but it was not as clear and apparent as was first expected. Men and neutral facial expressions were more frequent in the images than anticipated. Other than that, results that were more expected were that a lot of the so-called ideal victims were depicted and that usually, the images picture smaller groups which are connected to giving higher emotional responses in the audience.