| Summary: | As the police authority moves to exploit its power, by using its advantage through individual police officers' initiatives, it will lead to serious societal consequences based on unequal power relations. Situations characterized by discrimination and oppression occur and are reproduced through intersections of power relations, based on ethnic affiliation, social standing, gender and sexual orientation. The purpose of this study is to analyse how this relationship between the police and the public are represented, reflected by the TV series Tunna blå linjen (The thin blue line), produced by Sveriges Television AB, SVT. Futhermore, the purpose of this study is also to analyse how the TV series relate to the criticized police practices, called into question during recent years. To attain these objetives, the TV series will be analysed based on the following question formulations: - How are power relations between the police and the public represented in the TV series Tunna blå linjen? - In what way does the TV series Tunna blå linjen relate to the various kinds of occuring criticized police practices, called into question during recent years? The material consists of seven selected image sequences, from which several aspects can be deducted. To evaluate and examine this material, a visual text analysis is performed, which includes text as well as imagery. The seven selected image sequences, retrieved from the TV series Tunna blå linjen, and the identified representations, illustrate the results of this study, that various kinds of situations characterized by discrimination and oppression occur. These situations are reproduced through intersections of power relations between the police and the public, based on ethnic affiliation, social standing, gender and sexual orientation. The results of this study also show that these power relations generate stigmatisation of individuals, a consequence which has affected each one of those being the subject of the actions initiated by the police, as the seven selected image sequences illustrate. The prasieworthy approach to problematize the police actions based on ethnic markers, which each of the seven selected image sequences represent, is not suffciently far-reaching, which is an additional result of this study.
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