Gaza in the Swedish Instagram feed : A qualitative analysis of Swedish news media’s portrayal of the Israel–Palestine conflict on Instagram

News media play a significant role in how information about conflicts and wars is conveyed to the public and shapes people's interpretation and perception of it, especially in today's society where social platforms have become an important channel for news dissemination. For over two years, the conflict in Gaza has dominated the news flow, especially on social platforms. This thesis examines how three Swedish news media outlets portray the conflict in Gaza on Instagram by mapping typical frames and themes. The thesis analyzes Instagram posts published during the period October 2023 to October 2025, focusing on seven selected key events that have received global media attention. Rather than examining the caption text under the posts, this study concentrates on the multimodal elements, including images, videos, and their components. The analysis concerns the portrayal of the Gaza conflict by Swedish news media, not the reactions or effects on Instagram users. The focus of this study is how victims and perpetrators in the conflict are portrayed and what kind of journalistic logic dominates conflict reporting. The thesis therefore applies a theoretical framework consisting of war and peace journalism and victim/defensive mode. Previous research shows that Israelis are portrayed as victims in the conflict and described in a more humane way with personal information, such as name and age. Likewise, Israel’s right to self-defense is highlighted. Research has also shown that war journalism dominates reporting by focusing on attacks and acts of violence, victims are presented primarily in the form of statistics and elite individuals are primarily given a voice. This thesis identified four themes in the reporting: (1) Humanitarian and civilian consequences, (2) War Focus and Victims of Military Actions, (3) Facts and deeper explanation and (4) Political actions and peace initiatives. This thesis shows that the coverage of the conflict in Gaza is characterized by a strong focus on victimhood and is dominated by empathy for Palestinian victims. In contrast to what previous research has shown, Swedish news media portrays the conflict in a more nuanced and neutral way. The responsibility within the conflict, however, is not clearly attributed. The coverage opens up for peace journalism through the visibility of civilian suffering; however, it also entails a risk of simplifying a complex conflict and may hinder news consumers from forming a clear understanding of who bears responsibility for the conflict.