Media portrayal of Syrian and Ukrainian refugees

Abstract: Newspapers and media have always played a critical role in society and have come to shape the way we reflect and perceive news and societal issues. Journalists are conveyer of a message and act as a moderator to shape and set the agenda for the public opinion and the public discourse. This research paper examines the media portrayal of refugees from Ukraine and Syria through pictures. These conflicts have received a great deal of attention in Swedish newspapers and have therefore become a highly relevant topic to research. Ethical journalism is a crucial part of the journalistic field and has been a recurring theme in this thesis. By examining the data collected through a visual rhetorical analysis this paper has obtained knowledge on how news values can determine what news are worthy of publishing and how they are portrayed. This paper has discovered critical differences in media portrayal dependent on news values. The findings of this paper shows how the media creates a shock value when portraying Syrian refugees in comparison to how they portray Ukrainian refugees. These findings can be attributed to the news value criterias of geographical proximity and cultural backgrounds.