TitleSystems, Stability and Power. The Discourse of Information in Organizing Knowledge.AbstractThe aim of this Master's thesis is to inquire into the consequences of an unequal distribution of power between information Discourses in the field of knowledge organisation. A deconstruction of Jennifer Rowley's and John Farrows introductory textbook Organizing Knowledge from 2000 is related to the major Discourses of information in LIS. Questions posed in this study are: What meaning is ascribed to information in the material studied? Which information Discourses are given a dominant position? Which are excluded? and: How does this affect the construction of the library and information science student's identity, in relation to practices of knowledge organisation? The theoretical framework is provided by Ernesto Laclau's and Chantal Mouffe's theory of Discourse and combined with techniques for text analysis originating from the work of Norman Fairclough.The analysis reveals a strong domination of a cognitive Discourse of information that underlines the importance of information systems for the organisation of knowledge.

The thesis explores how the category religion is used discursively in Swedish public debates and in what way the Discourses can be related to debate-positions. The thesis also exploresquestions of power and how social identities are negotiated: which identities are madepossible ? and encouraged ? by the Discourse, and which are being excluded?The specific cases chosen are: (i) the election of Omar Mustafa as a substitute member of the governing board of the Social Democratic party in April 2013, (ii) the appointment of Elisabeth Svantesson as Minister of employment in September 2013, (iii) the debate concerning male circumcision (2011-2013), and, (iv) the debate about Jewish home education(2012-2013).The theoretical and methodological perspectives used in the thesis are Discourse analysis and Pierre Bourdieu?s theory of social fields, usually interwoven together. Discourse analysis is mainly used to explore how the category of religion is attached to central binaries in the debates such as faith/politics, private/public, secularism/fundamentalism, etc., and also how chains of equivalences are established. Bourdieu?s theory of social fields is used tocontextualize the Discourses in the specific debates and relate them to orthodox and heterodox debate-positions.

Social work is a social phenomenon, existing in most societies, that has given rise to a multitude of special organizations and professions. For that reason social work is dealing with a complex identity. The purpose of this study is to illustrate how social workers and the scientific Discourse interpret the concept of social work. In addition to that the study intends to show similarities and differencies. The research process containes two studies, one based on qualitative interviews with five social workers and the other consisting a surway of academic litterature.

Hasselapedagogy mission in society, as a collective activity, is to help young people in LVU-care. Young people who are in need of help have shown abnormal behavior and thus become analyzed and sentenced for custodial care. The analysis and the establishment of the young people go after the rules for how a healthy life should look like. This means that there is an understanding in society about how we should live in order to fit into society. There is knowledge of normal and abnormal behavior in linguistic structures.

Baserat på den kritiska diskursanalysens (CDA) teoretiska ramverk, som det har utvecklats av Norman Fairclough, undersöker denna uppsats hur tre svenska läroböcker för vuxna andraspråksinlärare behandlar temat hälsa. Analysen görs på tre nivåer: text, diskursiv praktik och social praktik. På textnivå visar undersökningen av teman, propositioner, modalitet, talhandlingar och röster hur läroböckerna framställer hälsa som individuellt ansvar, personlig prestation och plikt. På den diskursiva praktikens nivå fokuserar uppsatsen på interdiskursiviteten och belyser hur texterna bygger på ett spektrum av olika genrer och diskurser. Slutligen framhåller analysen hur texterna är en del av en bredare samtida social praktik, enligt vilken hälsa betraktas som ett individuellt projekt, relaterat till begreppet risksamhälle, och fungerar som en brännpunkt för värden som är framträdande i västerländsk kultur..

Building on the concept of constructive iconoclasm as a creational force of iconicity, this thesis examines how the contemporary iconoclastic Discourse is related to artistic process. Studies have shown that the performative act of destroying art that is an historical phenomenon is highly present within the contemporary art Discourse today. Due to the many dimensions of contemporary art, the ways in which iconoclastic deeds appear may differ from the historical narrative. While iconoclasm and iconicity are being reciprocal processes that can only exist in relation to each other and their context, there are signs that the destructive act itself is being recontextualized by contemporary artists. Guided by the framework of Norman Fairclough?s critical Discourse analysis, the thesis examines the processes of conceptual and constructive art destruction by analyzing the Discourses of two case studies situated in the contemporary art market.

Through a Discourse theoretical apparatus, this study examines Sweden's national curriculum, which is constructed for primary schools, pre-school class and leisure time classes. The study also examines the syllabus in physical education and the supplied comment material to the syllabus, the above mentioned material all valid from 1 July 2011. Using cultural researcher Marianne Winther Jørgensen's and communication researcher Louise Phillips interpretation of the political theorists Ernest Laclau and Chantal Mouffe's Discourse theory, the study identifies several Discourses in the new curriculums. The analysis shows that the curriculums writers construct their expectations through a rhetoric that is perceived as instructional and descriptive. The analysis identified eight Discourses, woven into three "orders of Discourse", the body, health and physical education.

Sweden is seen as one of the world?s most feminist societies. In January 2009 all grounds of discrimination were merged into a common law; Diskrimineringslagen. This paper examines representations of gender discrimination, linked to feminist perspectives, in the Parliamentary debate on Sweden?s new discrimination legislation through a Discourse analysis.

The following Bachelor?s thesis examines how three Swedish national newspapers (Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet and Aftonbladet), which all represent different points on the ideological spectrum, portray victim and perpetrator in their representation of rape during the year 2011. The thesis examines the newspapers news, editorial pages and reports of rape. The study uses a quantitative approach with qualitative elements which has its foundation in the theory of social constructivism and priming theory. Political science can be studied from the perspective of power, and media has a central role of this power.

This paper aims to describe and elaborate on a recent discursive change within the new-age movement. Since the seventies and the publishing of speculative popular science books like The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra and The self-aware Universe by Amit Goswami, the idea that quantum physics resonates with spirituality has become the topic of hundreds of books and movies.The quantum-spiritual Discourse has three distinct ways to approach quantum physics in its discussion on spirituality: The parallelistic approach which emphasizes the similarities between eastern philosophies and modern physics, the monistic-idealistic approach which tells us that mind is the foundation of matter and the scientific spiritual approach which tries to explain spiritual claims scientifically. In the quantum-spiritual Discourse, quantum physical phenomena (e.g. non-locality and entanglement) are being called upon to validate metaphysical statements. The primary assumption of the Discourse is that the shift of paradigm due to the establishment of modern physics also is a shift of paradigm of spirituality.With the object to examine the common claims made in the Discourse, cross-references between spiritual arguments and facts of quantum physics are being made.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to investigate how the image of the Public library is described in the Swedish national library politics, and compare it with the image given of the public library in the Danish national library politics. The method used for this analysis is a comparative Discourse analysis of the homepages produced by the Swedish central government Regeringen and Kulturrådet and its Danish counterpart Kulturministeriet and Biblioteksstyrelsen. Theories on postmodernity have been used to analyze how the Swedish and the Danish central governments image of the Public library corresponds with a changing society and the changing behaviour of the public library users. Our analysis concludes that the traditional view of the Public library as an institution mainly concerned with literature and reading still is of great significance in the Discourse of the Swedish central government. In contrast, the Danish central government presents a more postmodern view of the public library as an institution that is part of the Information- and the Knowledge society.

The aim of this thesis is to seek understanding to how a national identity is constructed. Five women and five men at the age of 21-37 years old have been interviewed during November 2005 and January 2006. All of them lived Oslo at the time. The informants have been divided into two groups, `Swedish immigrants` and `Norwegian immigrants`, none of the people interviewed is ethnic `Swedish` or `Norwegian`. The empirical material has been analysed with the help of Billig´s theory about banal nationalism and Laclau and Mouffe´s Discourse analysis.

Reading and analyzing literature has a long tradition of being an essential part of the teaching of English in Sweden. As the offers of entertainment have increased in popular culture with the introduction of computer games, internet and other media, interest in reading novels has decreased. Literature is still a compulsory part of English teaching and the question is how teachers of today use literature and what kind of literary instruction they use.The aim of this study is to explore and discuss the literary instruction Discourse in pedagogical texts, lessons, created by and for English teachers of Swedish Upper Secondary Schools. The lessons have been collected from the site lektion.se, where teachers are able to share knowledge and lessons. The study uses an analytical method based on Norman Fairclough´s Critical Discourse Analysis in order to analyze the lessons.

The purpose of the study is to expose how the US newspaper New York Times and the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter mediate the war in Afghanistan. Furthermore a comparison is done to map out possible differences and similarities. To fulfill the purpose of the study a critical Discourse analysis has been used. The results have shown both differences and similarities between the newspapers. The main conclusions are tendencies of correspondence with previous research and theoretical base, such as the furtherance of elite sources, the promotion of the national political agenda and the national identity and an obvious construction of us and them..

The purpose of this paper is to explore the female experience as it is spoken of in the novel Sindhia written by Rut Hillarp (1954) and how the main character in the book violates the experience from a queer perspective. My aim is to through a close reading highlight a number of Discourses that underpin the book's imminent theme of love and submission.According to Norman Faircloughs critical-Discourse analysis, the text one reads produces a certain amount of Discourses that one consumes. This way there is a dialectical interaction that can be set into a practical analysis together with a suitable academic perspective. This is the method I use in this thesis.The academic perspective I add isJudith Butler's queer theoriessupported by Michel Foucaults social genealogyin order to understand/analyze the woman?s position in relation to a social empirical history.I came to the conclusion that Sindhia produces the woman's Discourse from an ancient biblical/ mythological time up to modern time.