This study puts emphasis on an international discourse describing how cities frequently compete against each other, and also describing factors that cities should enhance to make themselves more competitive. The discourse in this study has therefore been used to seek understanding how three different municipalities Borlänge, Karlstad and Malmö strive for growth by applying central factors from the discourse on the municipalities strategic documents. What the study shows is that the central factors from the discourse strongly imprints the strategic documents, but the presence of the factors varies between the municipalities and also to what meaning that lies behind the strategic goals..

The urgency of sustanible development is world-over issue. This essay focuses on the relations of enviromental ethics in the context of the Swedish upper secondary school and the subject of geography, by analysing different educational texts.The purpose of this essay is to reveal and identify discourses of enviromental ethics in curriculum documents; Lgr 11 and the plan- and the coursedocuments for the subject of geography, in educational publisher?s textbooks and in sponsored texts related to the subject of geography and finally to discuss potential consequences this might implicate for education. For this have the methodology of Norman Fairclough´s Critical discourse theory, CDA, as well as a matrix of environmental ethics, based upon Mikael Stenmarks classifications of enviromental ethics, been used.In the Cirriculum, Lgr 11 and documents for the subject of Geography, and in the educational textbooks from ?Liber? and ?Gleerups?, are the environmental ethics of intergenerational anthropocentrism the dominant.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to identify discourses within the school library field and to analyse which professional identities the discourses result in for school librarians. The empirical data consist of 71 articles from Swedish journals concerning school libraries and school librarians, between the years 2000-2003. The theory and method used is a discourse analysis which is inspired by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. This form of discourse analysis was chosen since it was useful when identity was the focus of study. The analysis is accomplished in three steps.

The aim of this essay is to analyze the discursive production of Food, within the Slow food movement, by its members. Through a discourse analysis inspired, theoretically and methodically, by Michel Foucault, this essay examines how the idea of food ? that is ?what should be eaten? ? in opposite to what can be eaten, is constructed within by Slow Food members in the Gothenburg area. The essay analysis how Slow Food?s food discourse is structured and what results this formation has on food within this discourse.

 The aim of this thesis is to examine men's attitudes towards literature, and how social norms affect their book reading, in order to contribute to the knowledge of why men's book reading is decreasing. This is realized through a discourse analysis of literature recommendations in men's lifestyle magazines.Two magazines, King of Sweden and Magazine Café, are examined through Critical discourse analysis. Theories of discourse are combined with theories of gender to explore how gender stereotypes affect men's reading habits.The analysis shows that ideals of masculinity have a great influence on the book recommendations. Social norms, associated with gender, also seem to have significance to whether or not a book is considered suitable for men to read. These are, inter alia, norms of heterosexuality and violence.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to study opinions about the Swedish hospital libraries and their activities for the patients, in a selection of Swedish library journal articles. The theoretical starting point is grounded in Laclau and Mouffes discourse theory. The empirical material consists of 43 articles from three library journals; Biblioteksbladet, Blänkaren and DIK-forum, published between 1990 and 2004. These are analysed through a reading scheme in four levels. In the empirical material two themes appear; the culture theme and the patient information theme.

This study aims at using discourse analysis to analyze SFI students attitudes to religion and religiosity in an SFI-context. The questions are: How is the discourse constructed and maintained by religion and religiosity of SFI students in an SFI context? How do SFI participants experience that their religion has affected their time at SFI?Using a case study approach, interviews were conducted with a group of SFI students. The results show that the religious discourse in SFI is influenced by the SFI-context and affected based on the current education discourse that exists there. Furthermore, the discourse is designed and maintained by the participants private religious beliefs and the religion of the majority of the group, One canhere speak of a strong social unit forming a plausibility structure The power structure that emerges is that the majority has the power to define the significance of religion and place within the SFI context. In the SFI-context the participants view is that religion is something private that should not be expressed in the school environment.

The crisis on Wall Street. This essay is a comparative study of how two business newspapers report on the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings in September 2008. Seven articles from the Swedish European financial newspaper Affärsvärlden (Business World) and five articles from the Chinese-Asian news agency XINHUA FINANCE are examined. The aim is to analyze, understand and evaluate from a rhetorical perspective. My thesis is that rhetors storytelling can tell us more about how we cope with crisis in the global economic discourse. The texts can portray man as a narrative creature when identification as a rational actor is not enough. The analytical methods used are linguistic analysis with an emphasis on metaphor analysis, narrative analysis based on pentad - Critical dramatism, and discourse analysis with doxological outlook. The results show that both newspapers seek to defend the global economic discourse, but they do so in different ways. Affärsvärlden advocates calmness and conveys a cautious attitude. The heart of the crisis, as well as its solution, is on Wall Street. XINHUA advocates control and expresses confidence in authorities and the system. Asia is presented as Wall Street's savior..

This is an analysis of how the Swedish newspapers Dagens Nyheter and Aftonbladet and the English newspapers The Independent and The Guardian reported about the sexual molestation and rape charges that were alleged against the Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in August 2010. Through a Critical discourse analysis, a theme- and proposition analysis and a process analysis this paper aims to investigate how the above mentioned newspapers create reality in their articles. The purpose is to shed light upon with what means the journalists through the inherited structures of the newspaper illustrate actions and events, how they let other people get visible in the text and who is described as responsible for current events.    The results of the analysis shows that Aftonbladet uses a relatively large amount of propositions and speech cues to create an image of the reality that is almost explicitly angled. Dagens Nyheter and The Independent claims a higher degree of objectivity and through micro themes with different perspectives and few explicit statements they create a reality with plenty of room for the reader to make her own conclusions. The Guardian creates an image of the world where the Wikileaks is a great force of democracy and where actions are performed by humans as well as by objects and organizations.   .

The purpose of this study is to find out what preschool teachers think about antisocial children's literature. Based on five qualitative interviews with teachers at a preschool that works with a standard critical approach. In order to fulfill my purpose with this study, I focused on how these teachers felt that it was important to use the standard critical children's literature in preschool. I wanted to find out what the teachers' thoughts were on the concept of standard critical children's literature and how and whether they use it in their daily activities. When I analyzed the results of my interviews I used the queer theories that include standard critical pedagogy and literature in preschool.

Academic research indicates that critical publicity can have a detrimental effect on brand attitudes. The negative effects have been showed to be buffered by cognitive bias elicited by strong favourable attitudes, commitment, brand certainty and brand identification. It has been proposed that the influence of such bias in a news reporting context should be studied, something that also is interesting from a brand perspective. The study therefore investigated whether a well-publicised scandal in one period can lead to increased critical publicity in the coming periods. A case study of Swedish grocery chain ICA was conducted.

The aim of this study is to analyze the discussion on the publication of twelve caricatures of the prophet Muhammad, in two Swedish newspapers ? Dagens Nyheter and Sydsvenska Dagbladet. The caricatures were originally published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, in September 2005. Even though the violent protests and attacks against Danish interests gained major media attention in Sweden few ? if any ? major Swedish newspapers published the caricatures.Using Fairclough?s Critical discourse Analysis (CDA), a theory and a method that critically examines the relationship between text, the discourse practice in which text is produced and consumed, and the wider social practice, this study examines why Swedish newspapers chose not to publish any caricatures.The study concludes that the relationship between orders of discourse continuously affect, and is also affected by, Swedish media content.

I have studied the curriculum for the compulsory Swedish school, from the curriculum from year 1962 when the Swedish grundskolan became a reality, to the curriculum from year 1994, the one in practice today. My primary interest has been what the curriculum says about bringing up the Swedish youth. My theory has been the British analyst Norman Fairclough?s Critical Language Studies. His thoughts about actual discourse, type of discourse and order of discourse has led me through out this essay.

Fashion creates reactions. It is a type of art form that constantly needs to be updated. This is the thrilling part about fashion, but it is also the part that can create unintentional reactions.In this essay I will examine two garments that have achieved a great amount of media coverage, both in Sweden and abroad. One of them is a jumpsuit from H&M that was criticized because of the resemblance to the uniform worn by the Peshmerga-soldiers in Kurdistan. The other garment is a children?s sweater launched by Zara.

This thesis is an attempt to shed light on how the authors of the Swedish Government Official Report, SoU 1999:83, speak about how the globalization affects democracy. The method used is Critical discourse analysis and ideological analysis, with the main emphasis on the former. The results of the analysis are then interpreted with central parts of Jürgen Habermas? The theory of communicative action. One of the main conclusions is that an absolute majority of the authors, talk about how the globalization affects democracy in terms of the economic market and the European union.