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The Peacekeepers' Publicity

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The Peacekeepers' Publicity The Peacekeepers’ Publicity A quantitative content analysis of Swedish newspapers’ coverage of the Swedish Armed Forces in Mali. Natalie Jansson Peace and Conflict Studies Bachelor thesis 15 credits Spring 2020 Supervisor: Kristian Steiner Word count: 12 517 Abstract The aim of this study was to get a deeper understanding of the Swedish newspapers’ coverage of the armed forces’ participation in the missions EUTM and MINUSMA in Mali during the years of 2013-2019. To concretize the aim, I formulated five research questions regarding the context, focus, sources, origin and scope of the articles. The method chosen for the study was a quantitative content analysis, which was supported by the theoretical concepts of agenda setting and framing. The data included 117 articles from four of the largest Swedish newspapers; Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter, Expressen and Svenska Dagbladet. The result of the analysis stated that most of the articles were published in the event of an attack and focused on injuries or casualties. These articles were often written by journalists based in Sweden, or by a news agency. Very few articles were written by a correspondent on site in Mali, but the ones that did were descriptive of the mission and included the voices of several military personnel and given a lot of space in the newspapers. Keywords: Försvarsmakten, MINUSMA, EUTM, peacekeeping, war and media, war correspondence 2 Table of contents 1. Introduction 5 1.1 Research problem 5 1.2 Aim and research questions 5 1.3 Disposition 6 2. Background 7 2.1 The conflicted Mali 7 2.2 Establishing the EUTM 7 2.3 The Swedish contribution to MINUSMA 8 3. Previous research 9 3.1 Public perception of the military 9 3.2 Access to site 10 3.3 Challenges of MINUSMA 12 4. Theory 14 4.1 Agenda setting 14 4.2 Framing 15 5. Method 18 5.1 Selection of data 18 5.1.1 Units of sampling 18 5.1.2 Units of data collection 19 5.2 Analysis of data 20 5.2.1 Method description 20 5.2.2 Variables 21 5.3 Method discussion 23 6. Analysis 25 6.1 General 25 6.2 Context 26 6.3 Focus 29 6.4 Voices 35 6.5 Byline 37 6.6 Scope 42 7. Conclusions 46 8. References 48 8.1 Literature 48 8.2 Other 49 Appendix 51 I. Article ID-list 51 II. Coder ID-list 52 3 III. Code scheme 53 IV. Code book 54 V. Coding form 1 56 VI. Coding form 2 58 VII. Coding form 3 59 4 1. Introduction As of 2013, the Swedish Armed Forces (SAF) are deployed within the mandates of two separate missions in Mali, given the conflicts that ravages in the desert state. This is a quantitative content analysis on the Swedish newspapers’ reporting of these missions and the SAF’s participation in them. This first introductory chapter will present the research problem initiating this study, as well as its aim and research questions. It also contains a presentation of the disposition for the rest of this text. 1.1 Research problem When the decision was made that the Swedish Armed Forces would descend its long term commitment to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan during 2014, Hans Rosén (2013) wrote an article in which politicians as well as military representatives expressed concern that the lack of a large international mission would reflect negatively on the recruiting of new soldiers to the organization, but also on the public perception of its work. According to the SAF (Försvarsmakten, 2020a) over 7000 Swedish soldiers were deployed in Afghanistan during the 13 years of the military commitment to ISAF, and at the time of the decision to dismantle ISAF the Swedish contribution to Mali were not expected to be as extensive as it later turned out to be. As will be described further in the chapter presenting previous research (chapter 3), there are several studies reflecting on the public perception and trust in institutions like the armed forces, and also on the media as a messenger and a middle hand between the public, the politicians and the institutions. Therefore, I am interested in analyzing how the international work of the SAF is portrayed and presented to the public in the Swedish newspapers. 1.2 Aim and research questions The aim of this study is to get a deeper understanding of the Swedish newspapers’ coverage of the Swedish Armed Forces’ missions in Mali, by conducting a quantitative content analysis of news articles in Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter, Expressen and Svenska Dagbladet during the years of 2013-2019. To help achieve this aim I have constructed five research questions: 5 - In what contexts are the SAF’s missions in Mali mentioned in the Swedish newspapers? - What is the main focus of the articles? - Who is represented in the articles? - What origin do the articles have? - How much space is given to the articles? The foundations of these question will be discussed and motivated in the theoretical chapter (chapter 4). 1.3 Disposition Following this introductory chapter will be a presentation of the background to the conflict in Mali and the two missions that the SAF are committed to (chapter 2), followed by a brief recognition of previous research (chapter 3) that is relevant to the subject of this study. It focuses on the view of public perception, journalists’ access to sites in war, and challenges the military faces while working in Mali. The theoretical chapter (chapter 4) centralizes around the concepts of framing and agenda setting in the media, to further understand the surroundings of the news articles and their content. The methodological chapter (chapter 5) gives a thorough introduction to the selected data and a description of the quantitative content analysis as a tool, followed by a discussion of its strengths and weaknesses. The result of the analysis will be presented in chapter 6, followed by a conclusive discussion in chapter 7. 6 2. Background This chapter contains a brief presentation of the conflict in Mali and the establishment of the two missions which the SAF participates in, EUTM and MINUSMA. 2.1 The conflicted Mali Mali is the seventh largest country in Africa, home to the Sahara Desert in the north and approximately 19 million people spread across the country. According to Lotta Themnér (2016) Mali, with its past as a French colony, gained its independence in 1960 leading up to the governing as a one-party state 1960-68 and a military dictatorship 1968-91. There are several separate ethnic groups living in different parts of Mali with a long complex history of neglection and dissatisfaction, all of which cannot be presented here. However, today’s conflict evolved as a cry for independence for Azawad, which is the local name for the northern parts of Mali. Northern Mali has historically been financially and politically neglected, partly because of its non-fruitful land and partly because of the habitation of the Tuaregs, an ethnic group that constitutes about 10% of the population (Ibid.). Many Tuaregs emigrated to Libya during the leadership of Muammar Gaddafi and were trained militarily there until his fall in 2011. They returned home, formed the group MNLA and gave the Malian government an ultimatum – recognize the independence of Azawad or the group would commence a military offensive, which they did early in 2012 (Ibid.). MNLA was, however, not the only party to the conflict. They had a brief alliance with a group called Ansar Dine and managed to gain control of almost two thirds of the country. Ansar Dine eventually allied with two other Muslim groups, AQIM and MUJAO, to establish an Islamic state ruled by sharia laws which opposed an independent Azawad governed by Tuaregs. When the Islamic groups initiated an offensive towards strategic cities in southern Mali the government cried for help from France, who agreed and commenced its Operation Serval in January 2013 (Ibid.). 2.2 Establishing the EUTM According to the SAF’s own description of the mission (Försvarsmakten, 2020b), the European Union established the EUTM (European Union Training Mission) in Mali by a 7 request from the Malian government in the first quarter of 2013. It is a long-term educational mission, where about 75 instructors from 24 states guide and support Mali’s military leadership and train Mali’s armed forces in weapons, combat techniques, medical care and human rights (Ibid.). No deployed personnel engaged in this assignment participates in any operational missions. The Swedish contribution is limited to 15 people who are engaged in the Infantry Training Team and the CSS Training Team, based 60 km northeast of Bamako – in Koulikoro (Ibid). 2.3 The Swedish contribution to MINUSMA As described by the SAF (Försvarsmakten, 2020c), the UN Security Council adopted resolution 2100 under chapter VII of the UN Charter in April 2013, to establish a stabilizing mission in Mali authorized to take all necessary measures to prevent threats and the return of armed groups to northern Mali. The West African support mission AFISMA was integrated into the UN Mission in July the same year (Ibid.). The UN Mission, called MINUSMA (United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali), is supposed to encourage dialogue and release tension between groups, protect civilians and stabilize communities, prevent asymmetrical attacks against civilians and UN-personnel, as well as promote and protect human rights (Ibid). The mission has remained the same over the years, but as of 2016 part of the mission is also to promote and support the peace agreement that was signed during that time. Swedish staff officers have been present in Mali since the spring of 2013, but a larger unit of Swedish soldiers arrived at Camp Nobel outside of Timbuktu in December 2014.
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