Media, Men and Sex Workers : A critical discourse analysis of Swedish media’s portrayal of sex workers and sex buyers in Sweden

Abstract: The premise of this thesis was to investigate how one national news outlet (Dagens Nyheter) in Sweden portrayed sex workers and sex buyers in their article series Skuggsidan. The series, published in effect of a famous TV-persona’s sex buying scandal in May of 2020, included interviews with former female sex workers, two case worker from a help organization and one former male sex buyer. By adopting Fairclough’s three- dimensional model as method, the series was analysed and compared against the concept of folkhemmet as well as an intersectional and poststructuralist feminist theoretical framework. The analyses distinguished two main themes, indicating the series follows a traditional Swedish radical feminist view of sex buyers as deviant individuals with obscured ideas and sexual habits; and sex sellers as victims in need of rehabilitation and intervention. The analysis also pointed out a binary discourse of the sex worker and the sex buyer, where the man is the assumed buyers and the woman the assumed sellers, effectively excluding other gender identities from the narrative. Lastly, the series lacked intersectional sensitivity to multi-layered identities, specifically when it comes to migrant sex workers in Sweden. This thesis argues there is an urgent need for further empirical research to get a comprehensive and fair view of sex industry to address future challenges in the field.