AbstractTitle: Equalis quality assures the communication. A qualitative study of superiors and co-workers view on the internal communication.Number of pages: 39 (42 including enclosures)Author: Ia AppelbergTutor: Else NygrenCourse: Media and Communication Studies CPeriod: Autumn term 2010University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala UniversityPurpose: Superiors and co-workers view on the internal communication is studied with the purpose to identify whether their opinions correspond with one another, and what differences and similarities there might be.Method: This study is based on qualitative interviews with superiors and co-workers, and complements with the use of observations.Main results: The results indicate that superiors and co-workers agree on several aspects of the communication, such as the fact that the organizational communication is disorderly and lack clear rules and guidelines. Superiors believe that the organization has a corresponding view on the internal communication, while co-workers are convinced this is not the case. This despite the fact that the results in the end show that both groups overall have very similar opinions on several of the elements in question. Another mutual opinion is that both groups wish to receive more information about current events and such.

The aim of this study was to investigate in what way content marketing can be understood through podcasts as an alternative marketing tool. The material which the study was based on is Ölpodden, a podcast initiated by Carlsberg Sweden. The study intended to shed light on the interdiscursivity that emerges when brands are communicated through podcasts. Another aim was to understand how relationships and identities are constructed through the podcast by examining its intended audience. In order to achieve this a critical discourse analysis was used as both underlining theory and comprehensive method.

The representative democracy has become weakened during the last decades. At the same time the United Nations declared at the Rio de Janeiro meeting in 1992 that environmental problems can best be solved by involvement of all concerned citizens in decision-making. The main purpose of this study has been to examine if citizens panels is a possible way to involve citizens in environmental decision-making and what the outcomes can be. Furthermore the study has investigated what the participation has contributed to environmental politics and how representative the results have been. This has been carried out by investigating the Piteåpanel in the municipality of Piteå by conducting interviews.The result of the study shows that the involvement of the citizens in the decision-making influenced the environmental politics of the municipality.

The aim of this study is to learn about and demonstrate the process in which Försäkringskassan (The Swedish Social Insurance Agency) customizes texts and the texts linguistics influence on a potential beneficiary. I use three different questions to fulfill the purpose of the study. I examine what the manuals writers of Försäkringskassan use say about the issues of sentence length, addressing the beneficiaries and wording ? three language features that represent different perspectives within plain language research. Furthermore, I examine how decision texts are created and tailored for its beneficiary group and how the language in decisions is perceived by potential beneficiaries.

The purpose with this thesis is to demonstrate that other factors than the existing set of rules could influence the Management Group?s decision in regards to depreciation of goodwill. We have explained the conflicts between the management group and the stakeholders by using the Agency Theory and the Stakeholder Model. We have used the Positive Accounting Theory to describe how the management group?s opportunistic behaviour decides which accounting method to use.

Introduction:Corporate limits becoming more diffuse due to the globalization taking place and requirements for analytical strategies are becoming more fundamental parts of organizations. Business Intelligence systems are hot and not without reason, today's world is spinning faster and with a flow of information that is constantly increasing Business Intelligence promises to introduce a support that will render a better decision-making, something that everyone wants.Problem Discussion:The local government business has today demands from the Swedish School-inspection to analyze and create adequate target images to the school and students meet curriculum goals and guidelines. Therefore, local government activities has increasingly begun to implement Business Intelligence tools, with the purpose to facilitate strategic and operational decisions were the result plays an increasing role in today's society.Purpose:This study evaluates how the analysis tool Qlikview fulfills the function of monitoring and controlling the improved student achievement in public schools.Method:The evaluation has been conducted qualitative interviews with staffs that have leadership positions in each municipality and management and possess a deep knowledge of the analysis tool and its processes.Conclusion:The evaluation has shown positive effects on the monitoring and control of student performance through better control of school operations..

Ever since its conceptual birth, the questioning of consequences due to the implementation of ideas from the reformation doctrine, called New Public Management, has been a common occurance among those who have dedicated themselves to research in superior methods of Public Administration. What this thesis aims to do is shed light upon what value-conflicts may occur within public administration organisations when they begin to idealize the rationalization of economic issues. The goal of this thesis will be fulfilled through the creation of two ideal types of public administration that exist in opposition to each other. These two ideal types will show two different views on how decision-making and organisation will be managed in their respective sectors. By doing this, there will be clarification as to what conflicting values arise with the implementation of ideas taken from New Public Management, as well as defining the fundamental difference between which ethical decision model is used..

The purpose of this master thesis is to examine some information aspects of decision-making in Swedish municipal committees. Which are the information needs and how do they emerge? How is the needed information sought and received and which are the sources? How do the members of the committees use information when making decisions? To answer these questions qualitative interviews were conducted with four politicians (two chairpersons representing the political majority and two vice-chairpersons representing the opposition) and three officials in a municipality with a population of about 50 000. The politicians were interviewed in capacity of decision-makers, whereas the officials from the local administration are of interest through their decision-supportive role, which includes providing of reports and other information. The examination indicates that even if the conditions to some extent differ between the committees, the administration is highly influential: Notions and proposals about action may come from inhabitants, organizations, politicians etc., but are handled by the administration, which often is the problem formulating actor, through which the informational needs nearly always are canalized.

Many perceive a boom in nostalgia and what is retro, especially within the marketing discipline. This thesis studies how nostalgia functions in the advertising context and aims to shed light on which effects there are from nostalgia evoking communication, what connections there are with other important factors as well as aspires to develop the understanding of the underlying psychological aspects and the emotional bonds to events (as nostalgia evoking stimuli in the thesis), which pave the ground for nostalgic emotions. Point of origin has been classical measures of communication effects and models of connections and causality and to these important factors have been added. Results show clear connections and correlations between nostalgia and positive communication effects, even with control for other factors that may interfere. However, the results show that some factors have moderating effects that should be important to take into consideration, namely how well the brand and the event in the ad are perceived to fit the advertising context.

Many perceive a boom in nostalgia and what is retro, especially within the marketing discipline. This thesis studies how nostalgia functions in the advertising context and aims to shed light on which effects there are from nostalgia evoking communication, what connections there are with other important factors as well as aspires to develop the understanding of the underlying psychological aspects and the emotional bonds to events (as nostalgia evoking stimuli in the thesis), which pave the ground for nostalgic emotions. Point of origin has been classical measures of communication effects and models of connections and causality and to these important factors have been added. Results show clear connections and correlations between nostalgia and positive communication effects, even with control for other factors that may interfere. However, the results show that some factors have moderating effects that should be important to take into consideration, namely how well the brand and the event in the ad are perceived to fit the advertising context.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate possible reasons Sweden might have had to motivate the start and end of its nuclear program during the Cold war. This investigation will be conducted using a qualitative research method and making a comparison between the theories realism and liberalism?s ability to explain the decisions. The question this paper is based upon is as follows: Can Sweden?s creating and shutting down of a nuclear weapons program during the Cold war be explained by the international events and actions that were taking place during this time period? The result consists of liberalism pointing out several failures on the international level that might explain the cynical decision from Sweden to create the nuclear weapons. Realism considers the decision to make perfect sense at this point in time, to protect Sweden on the anarchy that was going on at that time according to this theory.The ending of the nuclear weapons program is being explained largely by the rise of the MAD-concept which renders the acute need of nuclear weapons in Sweden void.  Liberalism on the other hand considers this a logic step due to the better established UN that is playing a larger role now than in the 1940s. In conclusion, realism does a better job explaining the start of the nuclear weapons program, while liberalism explains the end of it more efficiently. The contribution this thesis has to the research of political science can be seen mainly in three areas.

When contemplating entering an alliance the rationale behind the decision should differ depending on the size of the companies involved as well as on other important factors. The important factors influencing the decision are related to the resource pooling potential of the alliance, the power structure along with the business network the companies are a part of. The analysis has shown proof of a need for cooperation if one wish to succeed in the telecommunication industry and it has also determined which resources that are deemed to be most important to get in touch with, for our study object, to facilitate its access to the market. Those resources are defined as a direct channel to the customer, funds/capital and the access to relevant business networks. To get in touch with these lacking resources, three alternative approaches has been proposed; all of them involving a strategic alliance decision.

AbstractTitle: The GI- method ?bluff or the path to healthy life?Number of pages: 41Tutor: Lowe HedmanAuthor: Annika WestlundCourse: Media and Communication Studies CPeriod: Fall 2006University: Division of Media and Communications Studies CPurpose/Aim: The aim of this essay was to investigate how the site GI viktkoll describes glycemic index on their website. The intention was also to investigate how the media presented GI through articles and how they used doctors and dieticians to appear trustworthy. Another aim was to investigate what effect GI viktkoll could have on its readers.Method/Material: I have chosen a qualitative method where I did a discourse analysis of the articles which were presented on the GI viktkolls website during a period of three weeks. This was my main method in the essay.

The aim of this study is to investigate a number of social worker views on long -term drug abuse and how they feel that this group of individuals should be treated. Our purpose is also to examine these social worker discretion in terms of decision-making under the Socialtjänstlagen (SoL) and Lag om missbrukare i vissa fall (LVM ).We conducted two focus group interviews and assumed a number of open questions. Our empirical data have been categorized by the study's purpose and issues and by recurring themes in our individual stories.Our results shows that all social workers believe that one should always look at the big picture in estimates related to drug users. They also believe that the process of long -term addicts occasionally feels hopeless. Social workers felt that their room for maneuver in terms of decision-making was fairly limited.

The aim of this study is to explore how sports journalism can include and/or exclude athletics from a national community. This study put emphasis on finding patterns from articles by Swedish sport media on non-ethnic Swedish athletics. The theories central to this study are ethnicity and nationalism, as these concepts contain reflections on why certain groups of people are excluded and/or included. Norman Faircloghs critical discourse analytical model has been selected for the study method that analyzes texts in three levels: the text level, discursive practice and social practice. Four non-ethnic Swedish athletes have been chosen to explore how they were portrayed in the media.