The purpose of this thesis was to study descriptions of companies on their webpages on the Internet. This was performed from a socialconstructionist point of view with focus being on subject positionings and gender. A critical discourse analysis was carried out on two texts from the webpages of two organizations on the Internet. Using the three dimensional model for critical discourse analysis by Fairclough, the discourses and subject positionings that the texts included could be revealed. The purpose of this thesis was also to point out the importance of the use of language in recruiting personnel and to hopefully encourage organizations to put effort into text production to avoid discrimination.

This empirical work and base has been to analyze the new high school reform that the Swedish government introduced as a statement 2008/09:199 about: Higher demand and quality within the high school. This statement became legal through the government vote in spring 2010. But above all it is the investigation (SOU 2008:27) that is the central piece for these new examination changes for high school students that will come into effect 1 of July 2011. The purpose and questions asked in this analyze has been if the reform takes its base in a modernistic (traditional) way or a late modern scientific perspective. And also to find out how these new quality amendments in the investigation makes visible about the high school and what the purpose are about the changes. When scientific theories in these analyze is placed against the reform, the result shows that the modernization process reflects more of a late modern aspect, which constantly reappraise in a changeable society.

This essay concerns the notion of how immigration politics, defined as a political discursive structure that explains and justifies how and why the movement of people into a state's territory is restricted and controlled, has come to present its purpose not as solidarity with the 'immigrants' wanting to enter the state but as a protective measure for the state's citizens. By using discourse theory combined with theories from the International Relations field I attempt to explain why and how such a discourse positions 'immigrants' as a threat to the state.First, I concentrate on why an immigration politics discourse would position 'immigrants' as a threat. I argue that in order for people to construct their identity, the 'outside' what they "are not" has to be repressed. In the same way, the state has to dislocate the "outside" and create threats to uphold its supremacy. These boundaries are set to create a feeling of predictability and security, and ultimately they are a way of making peoples' "world" coherent.

The aim of the study is to make a comparison between the nursery/preschool recommendations (by the state) made in 1972 and the one used today. Here I?ve focused on the posts of looking after children vis-à-vis the educational responsibility. Also the type of education recommended in 1972 and what type of education recommended today. My questions concerns what the preschool recommendations from 1972 are and how they are viewed and applied today in the 2000nds.Since my questions has to do with ideologies regarding children, family and society I choose to do a specific form of text and content analysis called Idea and ideology analysis.In my theoretical chapter I choose two aspects central for my field of examination.

This paper concerns the divide between secularist and anti-secularist groups in Turkey, which is related to a greater antagonism between a Kemalist and an Islamic political discourse, dominant in Turkish politics since the 1980s. The main aim of the paper is to analyse the causes of the conflict using the discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe. The second aim is to analyse the contents of each discourse and identify the main points of conflict between them. The empirical material used in the study consists exclusively of secondary sources treating the topic, and these are analysed using the theory of identity conflicts, which is part of Laclau and Mouffe's theory. It will be argued that the attempts of Kemalism to impose strict secularism by hegemonising the concepts of ?modernity? and ?Islam? led to the creation of an alternative political discourse based on political Islam.

The aim of this study was to find out if the use of the concepts ?terrorism' and ?organized crime' has changed after the event on 11 September, 2001 when terrorists attacked World Trade Center and Pentagon. In this study I make use of discourse theory in a way which is inspired by the writings of Winther Jorgensen and Phillips. Knowledge acquired through this research has been primarily generated from two Swedish Government Official Reports concerning questions arising from introducing secret police surveillance. In these reports, there are many opinions from authorities whom have given their thoughts on introducing new ways of policing which are very interesting to analyze.

Lifestyle magazines portray women in different manners and have an influence on how media consumers create self-images. The importance of knowing how different visual representation of the female acts out in magazines with large target audiences is therefore of weight for the magazines? readers to understand. This thesis analyze how the two lifestyle magazines ELLE and LOVE portrays women in images and how they in turn create ideal images of women.The thesis has been conducted through a qualitative analysis of 5 images from each magazine that represents the magazines artistic styles. The theories used in this study are semiotic image analysis and visual text analysis viewed from a gender- and discourse perspective.The conclusion of this thesis is that ELLE portrays women as strong, happy and feminine, with at tendency towards androgyny, while LOVE describes women as inferior and sexual objects constructed for the male gaze.

This essay examines how age, power and agency is represented and reproduced in contemporary Swedish picture books.This is done through a combination of discourse analysis and literary analysis.It uses theoretical perspectives from sociology, and views childhood as a social construct. It sees discourse and language use as both representing and constructing social reality in the tradition of Norman Fairclough and critical discourse analysis. The main results is that the discourses of childhood in the material construct children as a separate group in society, and childhood as a special time in life. Children is portrayed as both social actors and in need of protection from adult themes and worries..

This paper attempts to survey the debate in the Swedish parliament on state surveillance on the Internet, from 1994 to March, 2007. With a discourse analysis inspired by Foucault, we follow how the idea of state surveillance is viewed by politicians during the period. By focusing on the Internet, we expect to find how politicians in the parliament regard the idea of an unregulated forum for citizen communication and interaction, and how the need for state surveillance on the new arena that is Internet, is expressed and argued for. Theoretical framework is given by Foucault?s theory of the Panoptic state, as well as his thoughts on discourse, power and governmentality.

The aim of our study was to examine how homosexual and heterosexual men and women are represented in the Swedish magazine QX, a magazine for gay, bisexual and transgender people. We wanted to find out what kind of roles the persons in QX appears in, and inquire the relationships that exist between them.We analyzed the texts in twelve magazines, from December 2008 to November 2009, in order to get the most current results as possible. We used a discourse analysis, with focus on identities, relationships and the representation of the world. Representations, gender, hegemonic masculinity and stereotypes have been significant theories to analyze our results.The results showed that the successful gay man is the most important person in QX. He is the perfect masculine macho fagot, who is highest in rank.

The aim of this thesis is to study through discourse analysis how users talk about librarians and the librarian profession and what perceptions they have regarding it. I have tried to do this by asking the questions: How do the users describe librarians and the librarian profession? Are there any patterns in what they say? The method and theory I have used is Laclau and Mouffes? discourse theory and partially structured interviews. The material consists of interviews with eight users that are both women and men, both students and members of the public and they were between 25 and 50 years old. In the material I found two discourses: the discourse about librarians and the discourse about the librarian profession.

This Master?s thesis aims to study how the concept ?youth? is understood and used in papers and publications about public libraries, written at The Swedish School of Library and Information Science from 1972 to 2002. It does this by answering three questions: Firstly, how is the concept ?youth? formulated in papers and publications at SSLIS from 1972 - 2002? Secondly, has the concept ?youth? changed in the analysed texts during the chosen time and, if that is the case, what constitutes this change? And, finally, what types of consequences for the understanding of the users can this have for the writers and readers of these texts? Discourse analysis is used to analyze how this concept is constituted, transformed and understood. Among the things studied in the discourse analysis is the interdiscursivity and intertextuality of the texts, as well as the meaning of the word, the wordings and modality of the analysed texts.

This thesis is a discourse analysis analyzing public library librarians' talk on the subject of public library meeting places. Within the field of Library and Information Science the public libraries' functions as social meeting places have been scrutinized for more than a decade. Researchers in the Nordic countries in particular have looked at library users' use of the library space and have highlighted the sociologic dimensions of the public library and the meeting place functions. Few however have paid much attention to the library personnel's point of view. The discourse analysis perspective is about language use and how people construct the reality.

The aim of this thesis was to investigate the relation between different kinds ofremedial teaching models, not specifically addressed to pupils with physicaldisabilities, in the Swedish school context, and to describe and analyze theobjectives related to each model. Research focus was held on professionaldescriptions of school related problems and arguments for different kind of models,but also on objectives formulated in Swedish school policy. As theoretical toolswere used discourse analysis and interpretive policy analysis. The concept ofalienation as it appears throughout Foucault?s work was also used to understand howdifferent knowledge fields as education, special education, psychology and medicinedivide themselves from each other.

The aim of this thesis is to describe and analyse the ideology behind Sida's cultural aid by using postcolonial theory. We want to analyse the discourse on cultural aid that is found mainly in Sida's publications. The interpretation of the sources is made with a hermeneutic base and by using postcolonial theory in combination with Paul Ricoeur's theories on the function of ideology: 1. ideology as distortion, 2. ideology as legitimation, and 3.