Föreställningar om våld − En kvalitativ multimodal analys av Saabs marknadsföring av krigsmateriel

Abstract

Violence and conflicts continue ravaging the world all the while the arms industry is providing the means for this to go on. The aim of this thesis is to analyse how the Swedish arms company Saab in its marketing of three weapon systems portrays the weapons and their relation to violence, and thereby what notions of violence that are (re)produced. The study is based on a poststructuralist perspective on language and draws on theories from different sources, such as intertextuality, binary oppositions, clean war, technofetishism and neutralization theory. The methods for the study are multimodal analysis combined with critical textual analysis and thematic analysis. The study shows that the marketing in general is characterized by abstract wordings with the effect that violence is distanced from the weapons, which is in line with previous research. The weapons are portrayed as, inter alia, good, flexible, precise, technical, technological, innovative, evolutionary, intelligent, violent and as solutions. The notion of violence that emerges through these representations is that violence is not real, violence is civilized, and violence is natural. The analysis of the marketing of Saab shows how the company is managing a balance, portraying the weapons as violent but in a played down manner.