The main issue of this master is to investigate what influence the phenomenon of postmodernity has on the Swedish public library. Is it possible to talk about the Swedish public library as postmodern, and if so, is it expressed by a postmodern discourse? The concept of postmodernity is defined as an open and inclusive value system where all kind of opinions and preferences take place. According to a postmodern point of view there is no such thing as an objective or general truth. A postmodern ideology does not talk about reality but about realities.

The purpose of the study was to learn how social structures can enable accessibility, by asking persons with visual impairment about their experiences of accessibility in the public environment in the city of Stockholm. Eleven adults with visual impairments, living in the city of Stockholm, were interviewed using two separate focus groups. The study was carried out with the objective to allow for the participants to be involved in the research process. The resulting data was analyzed on the basis of Nancy Fraser?s theory on social justice, focusing on the conceptions; needs, politicised needs, redistribution, recognition and misrecognition.

This Masters thesis concerns a series of ten police procedural novels, Roman om ett brott, Novel of a crime, by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. These books are among the most translated Swedish novels and have been popular among audiences and critics all over the world. The books were produced 1965 1975, a period during which a left wing movement swept over the Western world. Besides from being detective stories Novel of a crime is an analysis of contemporary society, and this thesis will focus on the social and political ideas and the criticism expressed in the books. Theories used in this study are the Sociology of Literature and the Analysis of Ideas.

This Masters thesis is analysing four Swedish novels written by first time authors published between 1993-2002. The purpose is to make the fictitious main characters illustrate what conditions and obstacles there can be for the individual of today to create a self-identity. Anthony Giddens ideas about the self in the late modern society are used as a theoretical framework. In the core of Giddens theory is the concept of reflexitivity which means that the self must be constructed in a continuous fashion because the overall conditions in society are subject to constant change. The questions posed in this study are dependable on Giddens in general and the concept of reflexivity in particular.

This paper examines the relationship between the experienced quality in the offering of a brand, emotional attachment and consumer commitment. The study aim to explore several dimensions of the experienced quality in the offering of a brand. Further we examine two conceptualizations of emotional attachment - Brand Attachment and Brand Love - and intend to declare the two of being two separate phenomena. We then conduct a relationship-based analysis wherein the mediating ability of Brand Attachment and Brand Love, between the experienced quality in the offering of a brand and consumer commitment, is examined. Therefore we conduct a focused quantitative study, wherein 171 customers of the fashion retailer H&M have responded to a comprehensive survey both online and in-store, to examine this fun-damental relationship and its components.

By conducting a text analysis this study analyzes possible similarities in the portrayal of story characters between historical Norse myths and contemporary film productions. The chosen historical texts are two stories from Norse mythology which render a myth about Thor and a giant named Hrunge as well as the myth Trymskvädet. The selected movies are two of the comic company Marvel?s productions about super heroes ? Thor and The Avengers. Different categories that this study compares are how the characters are defined by their possessions or artefacts, the actions and the choices which the characters make, and also how their relations, roles and origins are being portrayed.

This thesis is a study of Parties as an outflow of societal changes where the aim has been to find out how parties are affected by societal changes and how they justify to new party formation. This is done by using a theory called Parties as an outflow of societal changes which is a theory developed by Swedish researchers in Political Science. To confirm the theory it is necessary to do an argumentation analysis of one external developed party?s electoral program. In this case the party selected is Feminist Initiative which brings a different view on how the society of Sweden should look like.Selected parts of the argumentative analysis will be examined with the purpose to give a perspective on how Feminist Initiative values the changes in society and how they describe their role as a new party.The main question of this study is; Are new parties an outflow of societal changes? The basic arguments includes that along with societal changes in Western Europe also changes the view of a representative democracy in which political parties play a central role.

The beauty industry has experienced a turnover increase of 220 % the last 20 years (Jones, 2010). At the moment the market for men's skin care is seeing the fastest growth rate in the cosmetic industry and multinational companies such as Procter and Gamble and L'Oréal have identified a "multibillion-dollar potential" within the segment. BUT - fresh research from the category leading company L'Oréal, shows that only 48 % of the male consumers use a skin care product specially adapted for men. It further shows that as many as 28 % of these do not even know how that skin care product got into their bathroom cabinet. The purpose of this paper is to get a deeper insight into men's relationship with skin care products and grooming.

The technological development and increasing popularity for integrated multichannel solutions constitutes both severe opportunities and challenges for todays' and tomorrows' retailers. On the account of consumers leaving traces when using digital channels and the technological development enabling retailers to use this information to create relevant offers, goal-congruity is relevant to apply in the multichannel shopping context. Based upon previous research on goal congruity and channel integration, our main purpose in this study is to increase the understanding for how congruity in an offer increases the intention to redeem the offer. Several studies focus on and contrast the product characteristics hedonic and utilitarian. However, it has been stated that it is crucial that research also examines the difference in target audience, buying situation and as examined in this study: buying decision process.

Event marketing's ability to create strong communication effects is a well-known fact and a contributing factor to its popularity in the world of marketing today. But while we know that it is the interaction between consumers and the brand within the scope of live marketing that gives rise to loyalty and purchase intention, we have no knowledge in how the company's efforts affect the outcome. As the investments in event marketing are growing at a comparatively high pace, it is urgent to obtain a deeper understanding and a sense of direction of the elements infuencing its success.In this study we investigate in what way and to what extent the amount of effort that a company puts into the making of an event is used as a signal of manufactor credibility, ability (i.e., expertise) and consumer care. And in what way and to what extent the perceived effort influence purchase intent, attitude and word-of-mouth. We also analyze marketing events in terms of the theory of equitable exchange and "desperation", a subject matter thus far only touched upon.As we identify two different types of events on the market today, we include both in our study: the in-store promotion related event and the party event, which is held in an external venue.

The family and relatives caring of older people in Sweden lies on an old tradition. By legislation the responsibility for the older people has gone through a development from the family to the society. According to the new social service law (2000) it is not that clear that the utmost responsibility lies on the society. According to the social service law ( 5th chapter, 10 §) the municipality should ease things up by giving support and relief for relatives taking care of older people, prolonged ill and function disabled people. The purpose with the study was to examine how the family care givers are finding their everyday work and their experience of the support that the society is giving.

Throughout the years the Swedish local history societies have collected a large quantity of material, consisting of photos, documents and items, among others. As the society has become more computerized, the need has increased for these collections to become digitalized. This is a way to make their media more easily accessible to the general public, but also to easily be able to archive and preserve for example photos and videos electronically.This thesis concerns itself with the work we have done for the local history society of Nyed in Molkom. The task set before us consisted of creating both a website for the society, and a reliable database from witch the website draws its information. This project allows anyone with administrator privileges to upload new files and any additional information.

This study deals with questions about male and female, power and church, related to the Mariologies of three prominent leaders in the Church of Sweden in the last century: Erling Eidem, Paulina Mariadotter and Cristina Grenholm. The mentioned topics are important for conservative High Church people as well as for radical feminists, and they are therefore necessary to address in the context of discussions about the church´s identity and the search of greater unity.Each Mariology is related to contemporary ideas about the relations between male and female, and to the tradition of the church as the leaders themselves see it. During the years 1920-2010 the relations between the sexes changed a lot as a result of the impact of modernity, which also affected how people perceived the relationship between the individual and the tradition/authorities. The present study concludes that there is a connection between Mariology and contemporary ideas about male and female. However, the Mariologist´s attitude to the tradition of the church seems to decide which perspective is allowed to dominate.

Abstract.In Sweden today, a collaboration was formed between the Swedish Sport Confederation andthe Swedish upper secondary school education. While this process was taking place, theSwedish Sport Confederation also tried to collaborate with the Swedish Academy. However,at the time the Academy did not have any involvement with the former.The purpose of the study was to research when and how the Swedish Sport Confederationcreated a collaboration with the Swedish Education Systems both on a National and Locallevel. I have also done a research on both the Knowledge Society and Elite sport talents tofind out if Elite sport will be affected in any way because of the existence of Knowledge Society,and also the reactions of the sports talents if any. My final pursuit was also to find out ifthe Knowledge Society can bring about a quick change to this silent conflict between theSwedish Sport Confederation and the Swedish Academy.For my study, I have used two different theories.

This essay concerns sponsorship of libraries within Sweden. It takes its starting-point in the libraries economical situation where resources are decreasing. The main purpose of the essay is to investigate how sponsorship is used in public libraries. The main questions are:o Why are sponsorships appealing to libraries? o What does the processes of sponsoring look like? o What are the possible risks concerning sponsor-ships ? could it endanger libraries democratic role? o How does library staff reflect on the role of libraries in contemporary society? In our study we chose to investigate the sponsorship issue from the sponsored libraries perspective.