Abstract?Political participation by the citizen?- Citizen proposals in Karlstad municipalityEssay in Political Science, C-levelAuthor: Tobias GustafssonTutor: Michele MichelettiIn Sweden the political parties are losing more and more of their members. That in combination with a tendency that the participation in the elections is getting lower is a problem for the representative and parliamentary political system in Sweden.In order to strengthen the democracy in Sweden and to make the gap between the citizens and the elected smaller there has been some democracy-projects. The purpose of these democracy-projects is to make the political participation by the citizens, between the elections, higher. One of them is ?citizen proposals to the municipality?.The purpose of this essay is to examine this democracy-project in order to see what influences it might have on the local democracy.

Abstract?Political participation by the citizen?- Citizen proposals in Karlstad municipalityEssay in Political Science, C-levelAuthor: Tobias GustafssonTutor: Michele MichelettiIn Sweden the political parties are losing more and more of their members. That in combination with a tendency that the participation in the elections is getting lower is a problem for the representative and parliamentary political system in Sweden.In order to strengthen the democracy in Sweden and to make the gap between the citizens and the elected smaller there has been some democracy-projects. The purpose of these democracy-projects is to make the political participation by the citizens, between the elections, higher. One of them is ?citizen proposals to the municipality?.The purpose of this essay is to examine this democracy-project in order to see what influences it might have on the local democracy.

In recent years, the right-wing extremist site Avpixlat (?Unveiled?) and the anti-racist blog Inte rasist, men... (?Not a racist, but??, IRM) have established themselves as political actors and platforms for political discussion in Sweden. However, we know very little about them and their impact on democracy.

Citizenship information is defined as the information the citizen needs to be able to take part in and influence the society. Since it is a democratic issue that information concerning the citizens role in society really reaches the citizens, it is of importance to study how the citizens proceed when they have a need for this information. The aim of this Masters thesis is to investigate how our eight informers proceed when they experience this need in a non-work situation. We performed qualitative interviews. The most important part of our interviews was the introduction of some fictitious problems to the informants.

Den miljökommunikation som sker internt i ett företag grundar sig i organisationens val och genomförande av miljöstrategi. Kommunikation kan beskrivas som processen för människors kontaktmed varandra och i denna process kan olika typer av hinder uppstå. I denna studie är mitt syfte att undersöka hur den interna miljökommunikationen ser ut och fungerar uppåtriktat, nedåtriktat och horisontellt inom Coop Forum i förhållande till vald miljöstrategi, samt att föreslå hur kommunikationen skulle kunna förbättras om behov av detta ses. Projektet har utförts som en kvalitativ fallstudie och i huvudsak genom metoden kvalitativ, semistandardiserad intervju. För att Coop Forum helt skall kunna förverkliga sin allomfattande hållbarhetsstrategi krävs vidare implementering i all verksamhet.

The European Union is struggling to maintain democracy and tries to increase the participation among the citizens in Europe. The European Citizens? Initiative, ECI, is a platform established by the European Commission to allow citizens to propose new legislation. ?Water and sanitation are a human right! Water is a public good, not a commodity!? is the first ECI that has met the requirements.

The aim of this essay is to examine the attitudes towards publication of short stories, carried by the employees of Bokförlaget Forum, a randomly chosen Swedish publishing house. The study seeks to investigate the causes behind and consequences of the attitudes, as well as their generality. Through qualitative interviews, carried out with five of the company?s employees, the short story is defined as a problematic genre, mainly due to its low commercial success. The conclusions drawn from the interviews are put into a historical perspective, where the developments of the short story-genre, as well as that of the modern Swedish book market, are discussed.

The Swedish rules for marrying in Sweden are different for swedish citizens and foreigners. A swedish citizen has to have permission from"Länsstyrelsen"to marry before the age of 18 but a foreigner may marry without permission at an age of 15, unless a higher age is required by the foreign law. The main question in this essay is if the swedish international law concerning the age of marriage is compatible with the Convention on the Rights of the Child and/or the Swedish Constitution. The comparison is based on mainly two questions: Primarily the Swedish international law is discussed concerning which marrying age is good for the child. Thereafter it is discussed whether it is discriminating to have different marrying ages for swedish and foreign citizens.

The aim of this study was to investigate how selected municipalities? use social media, with a focus on how they are working to increase the dialogue between municipalities? and residents. To answer the purpose of the study three questions has been formulated: how do the communicators use social media in their daily work? What opportunities and challenges are the municipalities? experiencing with Facebook? How do they work with Facebook to increase dialogue with citizens?The theories that has been used in this study is Cutlip?s and Grunig?s public relations theories, Shannon and weavers communication model, Cutlip?s and Heath?s theory of issue management and Jenkins theory of convergence culture. The method that has been used in this study is qualitative semi-structured interviews and the analysis is done with a thematic text analysis.

I den här undersökningen har vi tagit del av diskussioner på två nätforum. Det ena är Flashback, ett privat, kommersiellt och mer eller mindre icke-kontrollerat forum. Det andra är Soctanterna på nätet, som drivs av Malmö stad och inom vilket professionella socialsekreterare verkar. Vårt material består av trådar där unga beskriver och diskuterar problem med den egna psykiska hälsan och som därför har sökt hjälp på dessa forum. I studien jämförs de två forumen med utgångspunkt i forumets kontroll, vertikal och horisontell dialog, samt den professionella ansatsen som Soctanterna på nätet har, respektive den icke-professionella ansatsen som förekommer på Flashback.

By means of text creation I approach, reflect upon and try a number of aspects of my own professional existence as a joker in forum theatre and as a forum play pedagogue.This essay is structured like the days of a week and it specifically relates three problematic situations: first, a Monday containing a case of discrimination during the performance, then, a glimpse from a Wednesday when I failed to use the time with enough consideration of our common work and, finally, a Thursday when I was professionally questioned.These three situations are described thoroughly and then they are tried by me. This is carried out partly by reasoning, partly by using for example sociological, pedagogical and above all philosophical texts in order to widen my understanding of my existence as joker and forum play pedagogue. When writing this essay I really realized the importance of taking the reactions of the spec-tators into consideration. I have had the opportunity to develop thoughts about the way in which reflection is created and thoughts about different layers of reflection. I have also pondered over the way in which I distinguish between forum play and therapy as a forum play pedagogue.

Theatre is often seen as an act to entertain or provoke, however the main argument of this paper is that theatre also can be seen as a process to build peace. This study focuses on and explores how artistic processes, such as Forum Theatre developed by Augusto Boal, can be used as a method to promote psychosocial reconciliation in war-shattered areas. With the use of Forum Theatre the spectators becomes the spect-actors, the subjects that act and not the objects that are acted upon. Subjects that are encouraged to try and find solutions to social problems by acting out possible solutions and evaluating them. By analyzing how a number of organizations have worked with Forum Theater on the Balkans and with a theoretical approach combining Homi K.

Title: Journalism 2.0: About the journalist's perspective on citizen participation and its influenceon the news content.Purpose: The aim with this study was to examine whether, and if so how, professional journalists experience that the production of news has changed as the media development has progressed and the citizens opportunities for active participation in this process has potentially expanded.Research questions:Does professional journalists experience that the opportunities for citizen participation in the news making-process has changed with the spread and accessibility of new media- if so, in what ways?Wheatear professional journalists experience that the relationship between themselves and their news sources has changes with the spread and accessibility of new media?What consequences can an empowerment from citizens have on the production of news and on the professional role of the journalist?Theory: This essay is based on theories about convergence, gatekeeping, agenda building, participatory journalism, news sources and the journalistic profession.Method: The survey is based on ten qualitative interviews with ten professional journalists, eight reporters and two web editors from the newspapers NWT and VF.Results: The results of this survey shows that the citizens? opportunities in influencing the production of news has partly changed. The journalists do not experience that citizen participation affects their professional role. Citizens have always had an impact on the production of news but new technology offers citizens and journalists new channels that facilitate the communication and interaction. The gatekeeping process is protecting the decision-making role of the journalist, which restrains citizen participation.

Sellout är ett community där medlemmarna har en presentationssida, en gästbok, ett bildgalleri och en dagbok. Det finns även ett forum, där medlemmarna kan diskutera med varandra om allt mellan himmel och jord. Det som skiljer vårt community från andra är att medlemmarna även kan lägga upp bilder och beskrivningar på saker de vill sälja, tipsa om och söka efter musikevenemang, och de kan också få sina demolåtar spelade i vår webbradio. Designmässigt har vi försökt förmedla en känsla som ska få användarna att uppleva att sidan är levande..

Våra attityder har stor betydelse för det kontrollkriminologiska fältets utseende och för de civil och straffrättsliga institutionernas funktion i vår samtid. Forumanvändarnas språkbruk är i den meningen ideologiskt och bidrar till att underbygga den rådande världsbilden. En världsbild som legitimerar etablerade maktförhållanden. Av denna anledning är medvetenhet om dominerande attityder betydelsefullt. En kritisk granskning av inläggen i Flashback Forum bidrar till att klargöra de sociala konsekvenserna av människors inställning till bidragsfusk.Syftet med uppsatsen är att genom Norman Faircloughs kritiska diskursanalys granska forumanvändarnas attityder om grovt bidragsfusk i Flashback Forum mot bakgrund av nyliberala tankegångar.