| Summary: | Gang crime has been one of the most debated topics in the political debate in 2019-2020, where different descriptions, opinions and expressions have taken place in Swedish politics and news journalism. In the political debate, "immigrants", segregation and migration are often used together with gang crime. Through the language, “the gang criminal” is placed as an opposite to “the Swedish society” and is further understood as “the Others”. The purpose of this study is to draw attention of a possible order and regularity that is present in the political language that represents and presents gang crime, and thus study how gang crime as a social category is created and attributed to “truths” in the political debate. The issues that the study relates to are: Which objects, phenomena and concepts are linked to the phenomenon “gang criminals” in Swedish politics?, What meanings are ascribed to "the gang criminal" based on the different political perspectives that are articulated? and What are the implicit perspectives of the party leaders about the "gang criminal" and in what ways can it be interpreted as power? The starting points of the essay lean towards three critical theoretical perspectives that divide an applicant into analyzing unconscious and underlying discourses in systems and structures: poststructuralism, discourse theory and interactionism. The material basis consists of a party leader debate from Svt plays Agenda and five articles from Dagens Nyheter, one of Sweden's leading news magazines. The theories have both helped to structure and organize the empirical material, at the same time as they have helped to complicate and problematize it. I have used a qualitative approach that primarily values the meaning of what is produced, which has been central to the analysis itself. The conclusion shows how the language used in the party debate, despite the political differences, normalizes a discourse that maintains a "we" and/against "them" spirit and further legitimizes the news media's portrayal of "the immigrant" as a stranger in "the Swedish society".
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