In this bachelor's thesis, we investigate the Swedish folk high school?s role in neoliberal society, which is analyzed through the lens of Norman Fairclough's critical discourse theory as well as Erving Goffman's theory of social deviants. The focus of our study has been participants in creative education, such as art, theater and creative writing. Our findings include that participants at folk high schools find great value in their education, both creatively and personally. They note that they have experienced a large amount of personal growth, regarding both openness towards others and higher confidence and their own abilities and identity.

This master's thesis analyses the concept of equality between men and women in parts ofRegion Västra Götaland's area of operation. With critical policy analysis I analyse how theproblem of inequality is represented in the European charter for equality of women and men inlocal life (CEMR) and the Region Västra Götaland's plan of action for the charter. Throughinterviews with people responsible for gender equality in different areas I analyse, withdiscourse theory, the ways in which the concept of gender equality is articulated in differentareas of Region Västra Götaland, and what kind of politics these articulations enables.In the analysis I show that a discursive struggle of how equality is to be defined canbetter be understood as a discursive negotiation. Equality between men and women isunderstood in several ways at the same time, as antidiscrimination and basic human rights, asbalance between the sexes, and as an approach critical of norms and stereotypes. Within thesenegotiations certain understandings of gender are made possible or impossible.

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.

Since the 1980s, the management philosophy New Public Management has resulted in major changes in the public administration system in several countries, especially in the West. A market oriented approach and an increased focus on performance measurement are ideals that are salient in these changes. The aim of this bachelor thesis is to examine the management philosophy?s influence on international relations through a critical analysis of some of its ideals in the management of international development cooperation, where effectiveness, quality, and results have been new dominant concepts. Through a qualitative content analysis of a Swedish Communication from 2014 ? the Aid Policy Framework ? and a debate in the Swedish parliament where this Communication was discussed, different themes that reflect the strategy of so called results based management in Sweden are identified.

   Purpose: The Essay is written on behalf of a company called ?Uppdragsgivaren?. The purpose is to connect theory with the result of the survey and thereby find the critical factors for an optimal placement of the cargo holders in the company?s terminal.   Method: A qualitative case study has been carried out. The theory collection is completed with the result from the survey, which include the information ?Uppdragsgivaren? provides and the result from the survey.

This study aims to analyze the effects of the proposal regarding mandatory reporting for undocumented individuals within the Swedish public sector and how this potentially affects leaders in their efforts to motivate their employees to comply with this requirement, which is considered ethically charged. The primary focus is to understand how these leaders can motivate their employees considering legal requirements that are both legally binding and ethically sensitive. By interviewing leaders from various sectors within the public domain in multiple Swedish municipalities, this case study seeks to highlight the challenges arising from the amalgamation of legal mandates and ethical dilemmas. Its goal is to provide insights that can support these leaders in their complex decision-making regarding such issues. The study addresses theoretical aspects such as change management and critical organizational theory. The study's findings indicate that political decisions play a pivotal role in the processes of change within public operations. Resistance to change varies and takes various forms.

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 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 aim with this thesis was to investigate how the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet construct and reproduce imaginations of gender and gender order. An important premise for our work is the agenda theory, which states that media has great impact on what is on their audience mind. We chose to investigate how Aftonbladet wrote about two Swedish footballers, Lotta Schelin and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, during a European championship with each players national team. By using a method of critical discourse analysis based on Teun van Dijks idea and with gender glasses, we analysed eight articles and two chronicles regarding each player.Our results show that Aftonbladet construct and reproduce gender and gender order by its different ways of portraying Lotta Schelin and Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Articles regarding Lotta Schelin tend to be more audience oriented, focus more on her and her teammates emotions and more often focus on things outside her profession as a footballer.

Purpose: The study aims to analyze how companies can learn from past communications in critical situations and during corporate crisis, and see how they use this knowledge in the management of subsequent critical situations and corporate crisis. Furthermore, the media is analyzed to see how the newspaper industry chooses to reflect an organization and its actions, and also to see if the pressure through articles in the newspapers has an impact on the extent of the situation.Method: A qualitative case study of Sweden?s largest food company, ICA Sverige AB, where knowledgeable people in media management within the company are interviewed using semi-structured interviews, with support of quantitative methods by a collection of articles from the news press.Theories: Concepts, theories and models in crisis management and communication has been applied to relevant data. These comprise Knowledge Management, a communication template in crisis management, The Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) and the model Content of crisis communication.Empiric: Based on the quantitative data consisting of articles from four Swedish news sources: Svenska Dagbladet, Dagens Nyheter, Aftonbladet and Expressen, a semi-structured interview guide was created and carried out with the person within ICA who possesses knowledge of the subject area.Conclusion: ICA has during the priod studied exhibited to have used the concept of Knowledge Management in the development of their routines regarding product recalls at product defects. The relationships between ICA and the media have shown improvements, which has resulted in ICA percieve the media coverage as balanced, true and fair..

The purpose of the study was to analyze how media, in this case, the daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter, produces the men and women in men's violence against women in close relationships in news articles and if there has been a change over time in this production. It is a qualitative study in which 40 news articles from DN were analyzed. The starting point in the tanks around the analysis is from a social constructive perspective. Critical discourse analysis is the method I chose to use in the processing of news stories. The result is divided into four different blocks where each block presents the results and the analysis for the following years: 1994, 1999, 2004 and 2009.

In the social sciences, geopolitical theory is used in order to analyze states actions and commitments when it comes to foreign policy. This thesis develops a new understanding of geopolitical theory. Firstly, the development and application of geopolitical theory, from its foundations in the early twentieth century to contemporary geopolitical studies is discussed. Secondly a revised understanding of the variables integrated in the concept and how it can be operationalized as an analytical tool is presented and tested empirically.The critical assessment of the research field of geopolitical theory tells us that six different geopolitical perspectives have been considered the most influential (room, strategy, power projection, identity, affiliation and governance) when it comes to analyzing state action. This model is applied as an analytical tool and thus tested on a single case.

A large number of genocides have taken place in our history. The purpose of this essay is to examine how genocide is treated in five high school history textbooks. I have studied a large number of issues. I have examined which genocides are discussed in the textbooks and which genocides the textbooks don?t discuss.

Our purpose is to analyse three different epistemological discourses that exist in the social practice, Library and Information Science LIS, using the strategy for interpretation from the mimesis model by Paul Ricoeur and the terms from the critical discourse analysis by Norman Fairclough. The aim is also to explore there different views of knowledge organisation. We review previous research involving epistemology, knowledge organisation and discourse analysis in LIS. These show that there are many different epistemological standpoints and that later research has shown a more critical and sceptical state of knowledge organisation than earlier traditional positivist ideals. Discourse analysis is described as an important theory and method in LIS.