Framing Disruption : A Multi-Method Analysis of Finnish and Swedish News Framing of Underwater Infrastructure Disruptions

This study investigates the underlying ideologies of Finnish and Swedish news media by analyzing news texts about underwater infrastructure disruptions in the Baltic Sea between 2023–2024. Using an inductive, multi-method design—first conducting thematic analysis on news headlines and leads, then applying news frame analysis to a purposive sub-sample across four outlet types (public service TV, commercial TV, broadsheets, tabloids)—five dominant frames emerged: intention, threat, support, negotiation, and economic. The study revealed that both countries foreground intention and threat frames, but Swedish outlets mirror official narratives more strongly and portray events as distant with limited economic fallout, whereas Finnish outlets convey heightened vulnerability and financial concern. In Finland, broadsheets emphasize culprit and conflict narratives and tabloids highlight economic impacts; in Sweden, framing is broadly consistent, though tabloids occasionally invoke a threat frame via Finnish-Russian tensions. These findings reveal how national context and media format shape crisis narratives, underscoring the need for further cross-national, longitudinal, and computational framing research.