Ett fett problem
en diskursanalys kring medias rapportering kring övervikt
Discourse analysisOverweightMediaGovernmentalityIntersectionalitySocial sciencesSamhällsvetenskaperSocial Sciences
Our essay focuses on media's coverage on the topic of overweight. We investigated how media portrays the picture of the ideal body and person and how the overweight person deviate from those pictures. We also tried to uncover how the media addresses specific types of subjects which we interpret to represent the normative way of being. From the way media presents their message we distinguished which subjects are being excluded. For this work we studied articles from the daily newspaper called Aftonbladet and a lifestyle magazine for women called Må Bra. As our theoretical and methodological basis we used discourse theory. To improve our understanding of the discourse we also applied governmentality theory and intersectional theory. We found that overweight people tend to be excluded from being featured in the articles we analyzed. We also encountered that there are strong, normative ideas concerning what kinds of subjects who are portrayed as being beautiful and healthy and were attributed to being in control, decisive and self regulative.