The legitimization of the use of sweat shops by H&M in the Swedish press

• Vladimir Cotal San Martin ^[1] ; David Machin ^[2]
  1. [1] Örebro University

     Örebro University

     Suecia

     
  2. [2] Zhejiang University

     Zhejiang University

     China

     
• Localización: Journal of language and politics, ISSN 1569-2159, Vol. 20, Nº. 2, 2021, págs. 254-276
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • In the Swedish news-media we find sporadic critical, or reflective, reporting on the production conditions of Swedish ‘sweat-shop’ factories in the Global South, used to supply Transnational Corporations (TNCs). In this paper we carry out a critical discourse analysis, in particular using Van Leeuwen’s social actor and social action analysis, to look at examples from a larger corpus of 88 news reports and editorials from the Swedish press, between 2012–2017, which report and comment on activities of the Swedish company H&M in relation to its production chains. Analysis reveals how these recontextualize events, processes and motives, to represent Sweden and Swedish TNCs as characterized by a benevolent, democratic, humane, form of capitalism, drawing on discourses of a former social democratic Sweden of the 1960s before it became highly neo-liberalized. This nationalism converges with other discourses promoting the exploitation of the Global South.