ABSTRACT

Segregation is more and more common in the Swedish society, especially in those suburbs called “miljonprogramsförorter” which are characterized as grey and boring districts with low status. These suburbs are often mentioned in the media and the public associate them with immigrants, problems and crimes. Kungsmarken in Karlskrona is one of these suburbs and the purpose of this essay was to compare the media image with the images local participants had of Kungsmarken. The questions I brought up were how media was describing Kungsmarken, how this image has contributed to the low status of Kungsmarken, and if this image was reflecting the local participants’ images. To examine this I have done a study of the two local newspapers Sydöstran and BLT during 2005 to see how they represented Kungsmarken. I have done three interviews, with the administration of social services, the local housing authority, the police and the tenants’ association to see if they shared the same opinion as the media.  The theoretical approaches in the study were segregation and media in relation to the suburbs of “miljonprogrammet”. The conclusions were that media mostly represented Kungsmarken in a negative way and that the media images of Kungsmarken didn´t agree with the images the local participants had. Media represented Kungsmarken as a troubled district with a high criminality. They wrote a lot about the bad things that happened in the district but seldom about the good things that happened there. This study has shown that although there were some problems in Kungsmarken they were not as bad as the media described them. The conclusion of this was that media through its’ exaggerated representation of Kungsmarken did influence the image the public had of Kungsmarken, and by that they have contributed to the district’s low status.