The aim of this Master's thesis is to examine and analyze what discourses about children that can be found in three Swedish culture publications, and also to identify the different social roles that are attributed to children in these publications. The theoretical and methodological background is discourse theory, as described by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. Additional theory used is social constructionism and Norman Fairclough?s critical discourse theory. Three questions are asked: What discourse/s can be found in these publications? What do these discourses tell us about the view on children within the library domain? What social roles are attributed to the children in the texts and what consequences do these have for the power configuration between children and adults? Furthermore there is a discussion concerning what effects these discourses might have on the direct and indirect reception of children in the library.

The purpose of this thesis in Library and Information Science (LIS) is to examine concepts related to multiculturalism in Sweden. It aims to look beyond the rhetorical construction of these concepts, in an attempt to clarify the actual purpose of commonly emphasizing the importance of mulicultural library services. Norman Fairclough's critical discourse analysis (CDA) as well as theories on ethnicity and intersectionality constitute the theoretical frame. The material consists of selected anthologies, handbooks and articles in Biblioteksbladet from 1974?2014, as well as a small case study.

The purpose with this work is to describe the language that is built around the chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) in Sweden. Our questions are: What does the professional field look like; who writes, about what and for which kind of readers? How do they describe the expressions and the upcoming of CFS? For which reasons can CFS be considered as a medical diagnosis/illness? How can CFS be understood from a social perspective? Our theoretical starting point is a social constructive theory and also Karin Johannisson's theory about medicalization and Foucault?s theory about power. We have from a literature-exposition of Swedish articles from 1989 to 2006, done a social constructive discourse analysis with help from Laclau & Mouffe's discourse theory, and Fairclough's model of social practices. In our textual analysis we found three dominating discourses: A medical discourse, a social/cultural discourse and a general/popular discourse.

The essay, which is solely theoretical to its form, presents a critical view upon the unproblematized usage of the concept of ethnicity in the Swedish mass media discourse. Theories of critical discourse analysis and post colonial nature is applied to and used to analyze what ethnicity really means. The essay also provides an insight in the functions and power of mass media in Sweden today to understand why ethnicity is so widely used, and what consequences it may bring upon the systematically excluded "other" and the society as a whole..

Purpose: To explore how the changes in work life, here represented and depicted through the concepts of knowledge work and knowledge worker, have been incorporated in the official psychosocial work environment discourse in Sweden. Methodology: Critical discourse analysis, contrasting the official psychosocial work environment discourse to literature on knowledge work and knowledge worker, to explore how employees, employers and their relations are constructed within these two discourses; focusing identity, autonomy and power. Using the constructions to make visible how they are articulated, used and dealt with in a real life case from the Work Environment Authority. Theoretical perspectives: Our social world is socially constructed and language is the main tool for constructing it. Discourse analysis is thus not just a tool for deconstructing texts but also for enhanced understanding of our construction of the world and our ability to communicate about it.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine the profession of librarianship by studying tasks in Swedish public libraries. The method is a textual analysis of articles inspired by the critical discourse analysis of Norman Fairclough. The theory applied consists of the profession theory of Andrew Abbott and the gender theory of Yvonne Hirdman. The questions raised are: how do librarians speak about their tasks, which discourses can be constructed and how can profession theory and gender theory explain the result.

The purpose with this work is to describe the language that is built around the chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) in Sweden. Our questions are: What does the professional field look like; who writes, about what and for which kind of readers? How do they describe the expressions and the upcoming of CFS? For which reasons can CFS be considered as a medical diagnosis/illness? How can CFS be understood from a social perspective? Our theoretical starting point is a social constructive theory and also Karin Johannisson's theory about medicalization and Foucault?s theory about power. We have from a literature-exposition of Swedish articles from 1989 to 2006, done a social constructive discourse analysis with help from Laclau & Mouffe's discourse theory, and Fairclough's model of social practices. In our textual analysis we found three dominating discourses: A medical discourse, a social/cultural discourse and a general/popular discourse.

Thesis purpose: The purpose of the master thesis is to analyse the battle of meaning creation regarding the notion of smoking and to reveal the production of unequal power relations. The battle is fought by different stakeholders through means of language and the study focuses on the tobacco industry in Germany. Methodology: A critical discourse analysis is applied with a qualitative research strategy. Our data collection was inspired by grounded theory and is limited in scope through a relevant case within the context of smoking in Germany. Empirical data is collected by means of an internet based document study of publicly available texts.

The purpose of this master's thesis is to examine how a Swedish public library's collection of books on African history looks like, who the writers are and how Africa and its history areportrayed. The focus of the analysis is on the front and back covers and in some cases on theinformation texts inside the books. The chosen library is the city library of Umeå. The 15books examined were found on the shelf classified as Kp ? the classification for African history according to the Swedish SAB-classification system.

The purpose of this Master thesis is to investigate how the relation between users and librarians is affected by higher education librarians? talk about information literacy. The thesis uses Norman Fairclough?s critical discourse analysis in analysing four articles written by Swedish higher education librarians and in answering how information literacy, users and librarians are constituted. The analysis indicate that the questions have no distinct answers, there are discrepancies between, as well as within the texts.

The main aim of this study is to examine the political debate in Sweden around a potentionalcriminalization of buying sex abroad. A second additional aim is to analyze the debate from anintersectional feminist gender perspective, by bringing attention to ideas about gender, ethnicity andpower expressed in the empirical material.The questions at issue are:What are the arguments for and against the potentional criminalization of buying sex abroad andwhich central discursive battles can be discerned throughout the debate?What impact do ideas about gender and power have on the construction of a general advocatediscourse versus a general antagonist discourse?The methodological point of departure is Critical Discourse Analysis, drawing on the theories ofNorman Fairclough, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. The empirical material consists of 27articles and editorials publicized in Swedish newspapers between January 2011 and November2014.The result shows that the polemics manifested in the debate are based on different ideas aboutgender, ethnicity and power. A crucial discursive battle stands between human rights andinternational law as a superior principle.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how masculinity and femininity are constructed in the magazine Veckorevyn, through a critical discourse analysis of 18 articles from six issues in 2011. This is done by using a variety of theories and previous research results, which is gender theory, the theory of late-modern society and media theory. The analysis shows that Veckorevyn depicts virility and feminine differently. Furthermore, pointing the results from the analysis that a change of manhood and womanhood takes place in the social practice. The selection of articles from the magazine also shows that Veckorevyn seems to promote gender equality. .

The aim of this thesis is to investigate in what way Swedish universities regulates its internal and external communication by the use of policy documents. The purpose has led to three research questions: what scope of communication is given to the documents user, if the document is challenging or redefining the current means of power, and how questions regarding trademark is taken into consideration. In order to achieve the purpose a discourse analysis is used as both underlining theory and comprehensive method. The underlining theory is based around social constructionism, structuralism, poststructuralism and critical discourse analysis. The analysis have taken emphasis from Norman Faircloughs three-dimensional model in which the documents have been studied on three separate levels.

The present study examines power relations, textual genre and attitudes to the matching process in the labor market in the employment office?s opinion articles in the period 2009?2014.     The power relations that emerge in the debate articles between employers, job seekers and private employment constitute the study's main question.The theoretical starting points are taken from Fairclough?s critical discourse analysis (1992, 2001, and 2010), where the discursive practice consists of the employment office?s production of opinion articles during a recession. The social practice consists of the laws and regulations that make its actions to reduce unemployment in the society. The method is derived from Halliday?s (1994, 2002) systemic functional linguistics.

The term ?vulnerable areas? is developed by the Swedish police, referring to various areas in Sweden that are classified as socioeconomically disadvantaged, and with an active criminal presence. Over time, this term has gained significant popularity and is now used not only by the police but also by other entities such as the media, where these areas are often depicted as urban outcasts. Therefore, this study focuses on the portrayal of ?vulnerable areas? in the Swedish news media, where the topic has been widely debated in recent years.