Go Sweden! Go girls! : A quantative content analysis of Sportbladet´s portrayal of the Swedish women´s national football team over time.

This study analyses how the Swedish newspaper Sportbladet portrays the Swedish women’s national football team over time. The aim is to analyse how the framing of the team has changed and which symbolic values are present in the coverage. The study also investigates to what extent gender-stereotypical descriptions are used and whether these differ depending on the gender of the journalist. The material consists of all articles published by Sportbladet about the national team during the Women’s World Cups in 2003, 2011 and 2023. Here the term article includes all journalistic texts, such as news articles, feature articles, columns and news briefs. The three tournaments were selected because they represent separate points in time, enough to indicate Sportbladet’s potential development in their reporting of the national team. They were also chosen because Sweden was successful in all three of the tournaments, which would give us an approximately similar amount of coverage. A quantitative analysis was used, and the articles were coded according to a codebook developed from previous research and theoretical frameworks. The main theoretical framework for the study is the framing theory combined with Pierre Bourdieu’s perspective on gender and field logic. The results of the study show a clear development in Sportbladet’s reporting. Earlier coverage, mostly from 2003, contained more framing with gender-marked expressions, comparisons with men’s football, and occasional uses of gender stereotypes. Over time, however, these tendencies decreased, and the framing became more neutral. In both latter tournaments, the team is less described through feminine labels and is not as frequently compared to men’s football. However, the primary focus is still mostly placed on the team as a collective rather than on individual players. Gender stereotypes have become significantly rarer but have not disappeared completely. Conclusively, Sportbladet’s reporting has moved toward a more neutral framing of the women’s national team. This shift can be understood as a part of a change in field logic within Sportbladet, where women’s elite football is increasingly normalised. At the same time, the continued major focus on the team rather than individual players suggests that symbolic value is still connected mainly on the team as a collective.