<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>This article addresses how class as a category of conflict and struggle is understood and shaped discursively in mainstream media today. We utilise a case study of how Swedish news media represents the long-lasting conflict in the Swedish labour market between the Swedish Dockworkers’ Union and the employer organisation, Sweden's Ports. Using critical discourse analysis, we show two ways in which class relations are recontextualised in three Swedish newspapers. One is through obscuring class and centring the conflict around business and nationalist discourses, which in the end legitimise a corporate perspective. The other, more marginalised, way is through the critique of class relations that appears in subjective discourse types. This handling of class, we argue, serves the reproduction of a post-political condition.</p>
</abstract>

This article addresses how class as a category of conflict and struggle is understood and shaped discursively in mainstream media today. We utilise a case study of how Swedish news media represents the long-lasting conflict in the Swedish labour market between the Swedish Dockworkers’ Union and the employer organisation, Sweden's Ports. Using critical discourse analysis, we show two ways in which class relations are recontextualised in three Swedish newspapers. One is through obscuring class and centring the conflict around business and nationalist discourses, which in the end legitimise a corporate perspective. The other, more marginalised, way is through the critique of class relations that appears in subjective discourse types. This handling of class, we argue, serves the reproduction of a post-political condition.

Class struggle in the era of post-politics: Representing the Swedish port conflict in the news media

Department of Languages and Communication

Nordicom Review

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

This article addresses how class as a category of conflict and struggle is understood and shaped discursively in mainstream media today. We utilise a case...

Material type	AB	DN	SvD	Total
News, general	2	1	2	5
Economy news	0	31	23	54
Editorials	4	1	3	9
Debate	3	3	8	14
Cultural columns	5	1	0	6
Blurbs	0	0	4	4

Total	14	37	40	91

Class struggle in the era of post-politics: Representing the Swedish port conflict in the news media

Published Online: Apr 07, 2021

Page range: 20 - 34

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2021-0024

Keywords
class, critical discourse analysis, hegemony, media, strike

© 2021 Ernesto Abalo et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Overview of the material

Class struggle in the era of post-politics: Representing the Swedish port conflict in the news media

Published Online: Apr 07, 2021

Page range: 20 - 34

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2021-0024

Keywordsclass, critical discourse analysis, hegemony, media, strike

© 2021 Ernesto Abalo et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Overview of the material

Keywords
class, critical discourse analysis, hegemony, media, strike