| Summary: | The paper aims to examine the relationship between the media's portrayal of the refugee situation in Sweden to investigate whether this could be a contributing factor to a widespread threat society, characterized by fear. Primary theories used is Simmel’s Stranger, Said’s Orientalism, Nohrstedt’s Threat society, framing theory and the media logic in news. Four morning newspapers, with geographic coverage in Sweden, have been used for the quantitative methods to collect empirical data. During the past year, we have analyzed a total of four weeks evenly distributed over the year, starting in May 2015 and end in February 2016. A total of 424 articles are coded on the basis of 21 variables. The result shows that the refugee's descent rarely appears in the articles. The geographical space also reveals that exile nationality rarely occur if the refugee is in Sweden. Furthermore, the result indicates a framing of the refugee as a burden/threat, in more cases than as victim/necessitous. When the refugee is portrayed as a burden the temporal charge is many times urgent. Many article types allows the writer to express their own opinion, as with the rhetorical tools can affect the receiver. Articles says, both implicitly and explicitly, that the Government of Sweden and all municipalities in the country are responsible regarding to the refugee issue. The topics that are high on the news agenda is the reception of refugees and asylum accommodation. These results are in line with the theory of a threat society as the refugee becomes anonymous, described as a stranger and perceived as a burden on society.
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