The Peacekeepers' Publicity - A quantitative content analysis of Swedish newspapers' coverage of the Swedish Armed Forces in Mali

Abstract: The aim of this study was to get a deeper understanding of the Swedish newspapers’ coverage of the armed forces’ participation in the missions EUTM and MINUSMA in Mali during the years of 2013-2019. To concretize the aim, I formulated five research questions regarding the context, focus, sources, origin and scope of the articles. The method chosen for the study was a quantitative content analysis, which was supported by the theoretical concepts of agenda setting and framing. The data included 117 articles from four of the largest Swedish newspapers; Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter, Expressen and Svenska Dagbladet. The result of the analysis stated that most of the articles were published in the event of an attack and focused on injuries or casualties. These articles were often written by journalists based in Sweden, or by a news agency. Very few articles were written by a correspondent on site in Mali, but the ones that did were descriptive of the mission and included the voices of several military personnel and given a lot of space in the newspapers.