Not just a kvinnofråga A content analysis of Swedish press portrayals of men & #MeToo

Abstract

With its sudden outbreak in October 2017, the anti-harassment movement #MeToo quickly created a vast, worldwide impact on social media, in the traditional press as well as in everyday lives. In Sweden especially, a country with a long history in fighting for gender equality, women in their thousands shared their stories of sexual harassment and came together both as individuals and as occupational groups to raise a collective voice. Slowly the focus also turned to the role of men in relation to the movement, the problems raised and the solutions posed. Based on a framework of media framing analysis and various studies on masculinity, this paper examines the ways the male gender has been portrayed in opinionated Swedish press coverage during the first three and a half months of #MeToo. The methodology centres around a quantitative cluster analysis strategy that aids in identifying distinct media frames. The findings demonstrate how the three frames that emerge from the sample data all characterise the surfacing topics and male identity roles in thematically different ways (Power, Education and Risk Frames). Furthermore, the study discusses how female journalists take a critical stance towards the problematic structures of society more often than men, who on the contrary focus more on the educational importance of changing male norms.