Göteborgsbranden 1998 - Myndigheten för samhällsskydd och ...

• Several photographers and journalists experienced a threatening atmosphere at the scene
of the accident due to young people’s aggression and anger concerning the media presence
– most interviewees see it as a natural reaction to a traumatic event.
• Ethical discussions had been ongoing at all of the editorial desks, often with the central
message “don't get too close”. During the most acute phases of the catastrophe, making
this judgement was more difficult due to the press for time, media representatives' emotional
reactions and the incomprehensibility of what had happened.
• During the catastrophe’s earliest phase, the affected young people's nationalities seemed
to be irrelevant to most reporters – their origins were noted but not stressed in portrayals
of the event.
• The multicultural nature of the event appeared most clearly through photographs as well
as speculations, supplied by several media, that this was a racist crime. This multi-ethnicity
became clear when the fire victims’ funerals were covered. In connection with the
funerals, all of the editorial desks experienced their own lack of competence concerning
the significance of the various nationalities and religions.
• The interviewed journalists and photographers described many normal stress and crisis
reactions: anxiety, dejection, sleeping problems, importunate memories, self-examination,
self-reproach and feelings of guilt. These delayed reactions in the wake of the catastrophe
are remarkably similar to those affecting those who helped, i.e., rescue workers,
medical personnel and police. Seen as individuals who have been indirectly affected,
media representatives also have a need for professional debriefing.
Confidence in social instiutions among Swedes and immigrants
The study looking at confidence among the citizens has a twofold purpose: 1) to study simi-
larities and differences among Swedes’ and immigrants’ confidence in central social institutions
and their personnel, and 2) to try to elucidate whether and how this confidence –
among both groups – might have been affected by the fire disaster in Gothenburg.
The main result is that there are certain differences between how immigrants and
Swedes evaluate Swedish social institutions. Over the past three years, we see that the
evaluation levels in many cases are indeed different, such as immigrants generally have
somewhat lower confidence in social institutions than do Swedes. However the patterns of
opinion shifts over time are about the same in the two analysed groups. One important
explanation for the relatively small differences between Swedes and immigrants in this
context is the broad definition of “immigrant”.
In both of the analysed surveys, there are clear tendencies towards changes in the
answers as a function of whether people gave them before or after the fire. With respect to
evaluations made by immigrants, social institutions within the political sphere as well as
journalists from the daily press were judged more positively after than before the fire. Both
Swedes and immigrants expressed more confidence in the schools and school personnel
after, as compared to before the fire, whereas confidence in medical service decreased
among immigrants. This pattern of change is particularly clear at the local level – in the
greater Gothenburg area.
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