Prostitution has been intensely debated in Sweden for nearly four decades. Two major investigations have so far been initiated by the government and numerous propositions have been put forward in the Swedish parliament resulting in the sexköpslag from 1999 that criminalizes purchase of sexual services. The law aims at punishing the buyer and protecting the women in prostitution, thus making it possible for women to be helped by various social interventions rather than punished. Swedish society has undergone major changes in these decades. Globalization, the internet and the membership in the EU have changed the Swedish society and influenced the Discourse on prostitution.This paper has a twofold aim, on the one hand investigating if and how these changes have had an impact on the prostitution Discourse in texts produced by the government and analyze how female and male sexuality in connection to prostitution is constructed.

This thesis focuses on the perception of immigration and refugees in the commonEuropean refugee and immigration policy. It identifies different Discourses andstudies their development and interrelated power structures.Using the Discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe, documents from theEuropean Council, the Commission, the Justice and Home Affairs Council andParliament debates are analysed. The study is defined in the time span of 1999-2006, i.e. from the European Council's first agreement on developing a commonEuropean asylum system, following the period up till today.Four Discourses are distinguished, focusing respectively on rights, security,European Union's needs, and cultural identity. I use Sandra Lavenex theory ofrealism and idealism to analyse one of the main points in the thesis: There is afundamental schism between the one rights-based Discourse, focusing on universalhuman rights, and the three sharing a particularistic focus on immigration as asecurity concern.

This study examines imagined boundaries between Swedes and non-Swedes. Rather than using pre-determined definitions as a starting point, the attempt is to examine the discursive construction of difference. The purpose is not to study the portrayal of immigrants per se but to examine how the ?immigrant-ness? is constructed. The result shows the perception of ?immigrant-ness? is linked more to a person?s origin than to the act of immigration itself. The selected newspapers are Dagens Nyheter (DN) and Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) for the period of 15th November ? 21st November, 1999.

On the first of October 2012 the media reported that the women in the Ikea cataloguehad been airbrushed in the Saudi edition. Initially the blame was put on either theSaudi government the Islamic culture or the Saudi franchise. In the end it wasrevealed that the Swedish company Inter Ikea Systems had the full responsibility forIkeas actions and therefore was the culprit behind the airbrushing. On whoseinitiative or why the airbrushing was done the media never found out. These areanswers only Ikea has, although they remain unresponsive to these questionsthroughout the news portrayal.This study methodology uses a qualitative content analysis as framework to furtherinvestigate the news media with support of theoretical perspectives such as mediatheory, power relations and cultural differences.

This thesis takes as its point of departure the Swedish governmental family policy and the debate on the proposed reform ?vårdnadsbidraget?. The supporters of the reform present it as something that will increase the freedom of choice for families and benefit the children, whereas the opponents warn for decreased equality and a return to the male breadwinner-model.From a constructivist perspective, language is closely related to power through defining and ascribing meaning to reality. By applying a feminist political theory on the debate within the Swedish national parliament 2007/2008 and conducting a Discourse analysis, the aim of this paper is to analyse which concepts are used and how they construct to what makes a family within the political debate ? is there any difference or similarity between the view of the opponents and the supporters of ?vårdnadsbidraget??The main conclusion of this paper is that even though the political ideal and rhetorical concepts differ between the supporters and the opponents, they still constitute the heterosexual nuclear family as an obvious norm in family politics.

This bachelor thesis is based on how the two cultural institutions in Sweden have been working onincreasing physical accessibility. Based on the three objectives specified by the Swedish Kulturrådet(Swedish Arts Council). These points are 1.forming a workplace strategy, 2. Work to remove simpleobstacles in buildings and 3.Improved Web access in regard to the accessibility for physically disabled.The work regarding the accessibility goals is set on the time frame 2011-2016. The institutions studiedin this paper are Wermland Opera and Västanå Teater and how the two institutions have worked toimplement the three objectives and how the discussion about the accessibility within the two theaters hasbeen organized.The method of information gathering in this paper has been interviews with representatives from the twotheaters.

Through Discourse analysis of twelve Library and Information Science theses, covering the period between 1975 and 2007, this thesis examines representations of homosexuality and homosexual identities. By using queer theory as a point of reference aspects such as essence/construct, equality/difference, notions of gender and views on the historical and contemporary situation of homosexuals are brought to the fore in the analysis. It is shown how the material unequivocally posits the contemporary situation of homosexuals favourably in comparison to a past signified by prejudices and oppression. This can be seen as an implicit essentialism in the texts, though ambivalences open up the possibility that it in some cases may be only strategically used while explicitly adhering to constructionist views. In linking concepts of a homosexual difference to prejudices, frequently involving notions of inverted gender performances or sexual ?extremes?, the Discourse of progression posits normalcy and assimilation as positive values.

This is a paper about the process of creating meaning in speeches held by president Bush after the terrorist attacks on September 11th 2001. People need tools to orient and understand the surrounding world. They need to create a meaningful orientation in a chaotic world. Some meaning is favoured due to the prevailing social structures. Thru language Discourses are produced that helps us understand how the world is constructed.

This is a two year master's thesis in the field of museum and cultural heritage studies. The purpose of the thesis is to examine different opinions among museum employees about the role of museums. The thesis also aims to find out to what extent and in what way these opinions are influenced by the museum's own policy documents, the national cultural policy and the academic field of museum studies. I have conducted qualitative research interviews with six employees from three different cultural history museums. The theoretical framework of the thesis is based on Laruajane Smith's term authorized heritage Discourse.

Rupert Smith (2006) menar att det har skett ett paradigmskifte inom krigföringen. Från ett industriellt krig till ett krig "amongst the People". De moderna konflikterna vi ser idag i Irak och Afghanistan går i linje med hans resonemang. Motståndaren är inte längre en annan nationalstat, utan en icke-statlig aktör som inte uppträder på ett militärt traditionellt sätt. Numera är andra entiteter än plattformar viktiga, till exempel klanstrukturer eller kultur.

This study focuses on the politics around ecological sustainable development in Sweden today, with emphasis on urban development, building and living. The starting-point for this study is the environmental adapted city district of Stockholm, Hammarby Sjöstad. The primary focus of the study is to investigate what means of control the environmental investment in Hammarby Sjöstad is expressing, and to elucidate their ideological, political and social implications. The empirical material is primarily based up on the local Hammarby Sjöstad environmental program along with qualitative in-depth interviews with citizens of this district. The study is based on critical Discourse analysis The result of this study is that the ecological investment in Hammarby Sjöstad partly constitutes a hidden exercise of power, taking shape as built-in physical measures in the dwellings and the neighbouring surroundings.

 Prostitution has been intensely debated in Sweden for nearly four decades. Two major investigations have so far been initiated by the government and numerous propositions have been put forward in the Swedish parliament resulting in the sexköpslag from 1999 that criminalizes purchase of sexual services. The law aims at punishing the buyer and protecting the women in prostitution, thus making it possible for women to be helped by various social interventions rather than punished. Swedish society has undergone major changes in these decades. Globalization, the internet and the membership in the EU have changed the Swedish society and influenced the Discourse on prostitution.This paper has a twofold aim, on the one hand investigating if and how these changes have had an impact on the prostitution Discourse in texts produced by the government and analyze how female and male sexuality in connection to prostitution is constructed.

Abortion remains a contentious issue, which greatly raises ethical problems. This thesis examines the leading arguments in the Swedish abortion debate around the ? in terms of legislation ? critical years of 1938 and 1974. With Foucault's genealogical method, Butler's theories of gender as a social construction in relation to power and doxa, the study examines what the development of the argumentation says about the views on morality, the woman's body, life, individual and state? How has the arguments pro and against abortion changed over time and what does this say about the norms that guide and orientate the arguments? The most obvious change in argumentation is seen in the shift from an absolute moral and conservative position into an increasingly relativistic and liberal position, and this study will argue that this shift has its prerequisites in the changing status of the citizen and state.

The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to study cultural sponsorshipof cultural institutions and cultural events in some particular pointsof views. Namely, how do the Moderate party look at culturalsponsorship based on their motions and how these motions havebeen received by the Swedish parliament. The aim has beenbroken down into three questions. Firstly, how does the Moderateparty look at sponsorship of cultural institutions and culturalevents based on their motions on the subject. Secondly, whatviews have been existed in parliament both in committee andplenary, against the motions? Thirdly, what are the most relatingparagraphs for the different material groups.

Computer and videogames has increased rapidly over the past few decades and today a majority of the Swedish population enjoys them on a daily basis. When there are many users, it becomes important how the media chooses to portray the medium because it can affect how the society judges and looks at computer- and videogames.The purpose of this essay is to look at how the portrayal of computer- and videogames has changed in Swedish Newspapers during the period 1994-2014. How the player is being portrayed is also relevant. The method was the Discourse analysis founded by Laclau andMouffe and the material was chosen from the two biggest newspapers in Sweden, Dagens Nyheter and Aftonbladet. Theories that were used in the analysis were mainly framing, cultural studies, moral panics and theories based on gender.The result shows that there has been different kinds of portrayals of computer- and videogames from the beginning, though it was mostly negative in 1994 and 2004.