Organizational democracy has been a popular research area in recent decades but the implementation in real organizations is slow (Kokkinidis, 2012; Verdorfer, Weber, Unter Rainer & Seyr, 2013). Several researchers (Schön Jansson, 2012; Falkheimer, Heide & Johansson, 2013) argue that communication practitioners have a key role in democratic processes and that because their job role is under constant change there are only a few modern studies regarding the subject. The purpose of this study is to illustrate how communication practitioners in private and public organizations experience their role in the process of internal communication and to what extent they are aware of, and work with internal organizational democracy.The practitioners we interviewed had a strong feeling that they were a support function for the business and the organizational management. As a result of the study it is clear that communication practitioners are very loyal to their employers and to the organization they work for. They are, therefore, not neutral in their professional role and argue that their task is to represent the management's interests.

The purpose of this study is to investigate differences of how the Swedishemployees union ?Unionen? communicates with its members, on one hand thosewho are members of local union clubs and on the other non-club members. Thenumber of non-club members has increased due to labour market changes implyingthat workplaces have been fragmented and hence affect the possibility to form localunion clubs.The questions posed in the study are: How does Unionen communicate with itsmembers? How does the communication differ between club members and non-clubmembers? What are the preferences of Unionen´s members as far as communicationwith the central organization? What kind of information do the members seek andhow do they find it? What values does Unionen represent? Are there differencesbetween the messages that Unionen is sends out and how members and non-clubmembers, respectively, perceive them?A case study method has been used applying both quantitative and qualitativeanalyses. Quantitative methods have been used in illustrating the number ofdiscussion subjects at Unionen´s website, the members needs for receivingcommunication and channel usage while qualitative methodologies have been usedin interviews with Unionen´s members, club chairmen and union representatives aswell as semiotic picture analyses and analyses based on methods of Uses andgratifications theory.One conclusion of the study is that two significant differences of communicationhave been found between members and non-club members.

The aim of this essay is to analyze how media constructs strategic positional statements in debates of great immediate interest in order to stress ideological standpoints. Two questions are derived on the basis of this aim.- How is Russia positioned in Svenska Dagbladet's and Dagens Nyheter's editorials in the debate on the Swedish defence during 09-01-13 - 09-01-31?- Are there differences in the positional statements between the newspapers?In the study a Critical Discourse Analytical (CDA) approach is applied, and more specifically that of Teun A. van Dijk. Both the theoretical basis and the methodological tools are based on van Dijks CDA.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether there are any similarities or differences between leisure-time pedagogs and primary school teachers' verbal communication with parents. Questions we ask ourselves is how the verbal contact looks like today, the desire for how it should be and the importance of verbal communication has.We chose to make a qualitative questionnaire study in the form of open questions to three leisure-time pedagogs, three primary school teachers and eleven parents were asked to answer.The results show that leisure-time pedagogs, primary school teachers and parents believe that verbal communication is important and significant. They believe that it is working well today, whether is via face to face, telephone or email. The verbal communication should be honest and straight between all parties. Parents believe it is important to know leisure-time pedagogs who take care of their children, in order to create a sense of security among parents.

The purpose of this study is from a case study develop a model that aims to cost effectively improve productivity in a manufacturing production process. The study highlights the importance of having knowledge about customer needs and using a holistic process perspective when improving productivity to identify the relations between the process stations and by this find problems that cause waste and losses in productivity. Tools and methods used to make production more efficient such as single minute exchange of die, spaghetti diagram, 5s and master production schedule is presented an applied in the model to see how these effect costs, productivity etc.Maintenance effects on quality and productivity in a manufacturing company will as well be covered in this thesis. The results and conclusions finally reveals how the process improvement tools, maintenance and production planning for example effects each other and why it is important to establish an attitude in the company where continuous process improvement should be emphasized..

The purpose of the study is to observe how the participants of the study interacted musically through verbal, non-verbal and musically resonant expressions. Verbal communication was expressed in discussion of the music's tempo and to clarify for ensemble participants from where they we?re going to play and sing. Non-verbal communication could be used to gesticulate an instrument or a melody. For example, the movement of a hand could symbolize notes on a musical stave to indicate the notes placements.

In Sweden whenever trains or maintenance workers want access to the railway system, their requests of usage and movements are being supervised, granted and handled by train dispatchers. The profession holds a key role in making the complex railway system work in terms of efficiency, safety and delivering on-time arrivals. This master thesis, delegated by the Swedish Transport Administration, has been carried out at the Division of Human Computer Interaction at Uppsala University and at the train traffic control center in Gävle. The aim has been to map what information the train dispatchers use in order to make safety-related decisions concerning their working goals. And further to describe and analyze how the train dispatchers, visavi their tools and systems in the work domain, gather necessary information.The result indicates a complex, diverse and spread out setting of different programs, procedures and tools that make satisfactory fulfilment of efficiency, safety and punctuality in relation to the time table hard.

A vulnerable group in society is people with ASD (autism spectrum disorders) or autism. This group seems to increase, mainly due to genetic factors but also environmental problems. Medical research has accelerated in the U.S. and Europe. The biggest problem for people with disabilities is the inability to communicate, both verbally and socially.

The purpose of this essay was to determine whether signs as alternative and augmentative communication is one possible resource for children?s language development. Based on my research questions How educators perceive the importance of SAAC as possible resources to enhance children's communication?, For which children is SAAC used? and How does educators perceive child?s best in communicative interactions? have I interviewed six educators in two different kinds of municipalities with different kind of positions.In my background I lift the importance of communication for the human being, what happens to the children who doesn?t get stimulated to their language and child?s best. My literature has shown that children need to have an incentive to acquire a language and that SAAC is mainly created for children with special needs.

The purpose of this thesis was to find out what experiences teachers have from using a class blog in teaching. What are the advantages and disadvantages by the use of blogs in education?I have used qualitative interviews with four teachers in grades 1 to 6 who have worked with a class blog in teaching between one and three years.The study has shown that teachers' experience is that the blog serves as motivation and promotes learning for many different pupils and that, together with other digital tools is more equal. The main benefits that teacher mention is the expanded concept of text that offers multiple forms of expression and the authentic reader, which makes it more real, important and meaningful. Other benefits that come up are that it helps students to see their learning and learn from and with each other.

This study is based on motivation theory, communication theory and knowledge about change management and workshop arrangement. The aim of the study is to develop a communication strategy which increases motivation for sustainability work in municipalities.Main focus of this report is to (1) determine whether motivation theory is applicable on a municipality?s sustainability work, in order to gain a willingness to change and (2) decide if workshops are suitable platforms for communication with municipalities. The opinion that global, complex problems require local solutions is a starting point for this study. The role of municipalities is claimed to be of great importance and is furthermore suggested to undergo a change in order to meet the current demands.

Corporate spending on information technology is persistently increasing and a majority of companies are currently employing an intranet. Intranets have implications for internal communication but are also instruments for the dissemination of corporate culture. Existing research on intranets and corporate culture is limited to Swedish organizations within the industrial or IT-sector and to foreign companies. The purpose of this study is to understand how or if corporate culture can be embedded into an intranet. Specifically, this study addresses the research question: How is corporate culture communicated via an intranet in a Swedish service-sector company? We perform a qualitative case study and find that communication on intranets is still characterized by a traditional top down approach.

 Conversation Analysis (CA) is a tool to facilitate analysis of everyday conversations. A small number of studies have used CA as an intervention for people with aphasia and have seen positive effects as an outcome of the intervention. The authors of the present study have not found any other studies where CA was used as an intervention in other target groups. The purpose of this study was to investigate if CA may be used in intervention with an adolescent who uses Bliss. The main participants in the present study, which the intervention was based upon, were a sixteen year old girl who communicates through Bliss, and her assistant.

The purpose of this essay is to analyse the movie Hotel Rwanda from a didactic point of view using the movie?s use of history and historical culture as the main analytical tools. We also intend to problematize the use of movies in teaching focusing on the teaching guide from the Swedish film institution concerning Hotel Rwanda. We choose to work with a qualitative method. The reason why we decided to work with a qualitative method is the intention, as mentioned before, to analyse the movie using the tools we described earlier.

This thesis has its focuson media portrayal of a large political institution; the European Union. Articles from two nations daily newspapers have been analyzed in order to examine how the European Union is described and framed for their readers. The newspapers that was chosen for this study and from which the material was collected, were the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet the American newspaper The New York Times. The material was taken from three periods of time, and by this the results did not only serve a presentiment on how the media reports about the subject, but also an idea over the media?s coverage character over time.