The purpose of the study is to reach knowledge about how public librarians understands and describes environmental scanning as a working process in a Swedish public library. The study consists of 5 interviews with public librarians working within the same organization. The empirical material is presented in two ways. The first one is what aspects of the external world the librarians find important. The second is through a theoretical framework based on Magnus Hoppes model of environmental scanning, including communication and cognitive processes aswell as ways of analyzing information from the external world.

AbstractThis paper is a comparative study of the final reports of the Norwegian and Danish power studies performed in 2003. While the Danish study found that democracy is thriving, the conclusion of the Norwegian power study was that democracy is in a crisis. The purpose of this paper is to find explanations to why the studies in two Nordic countries arrived at such different results.Methodologically, the paper consists of an ideological text analysis and critical analyses of the discourse. In order to study how the results of the power studies can differ so considerably, the following aspects have been surveyed; 1) external contexts (government inquiries); 2) work process (the researchers? background, role and co-operation); 3) the problem areas and themes studied; and 4) power perspectives.

AbstractTitle: To work or not to work, an essay about information and inspiration on www.ams.se.Number of pages: 39Author: Ann HöglundTutor: Peder Hård af SegerstadCourse: Media and communication Studies DPeriod: Fall 2005University: Uppsala University, Department of information science, Division of Media and CommunicationPurpose/Aim: To investigate the frequency of ethos, logos and pathos in the work-guides on www.ams.se, and study how they match the needs of the respondents in the essay-interviews.Method/Material: To investigate the needs and wishes for information I have made three group-interviews with university students. In order to analyse the texts and films on www.ams.se I have used tools from the modern rhetoric analysis. In the last part of my analysis I compared the results of the rhetoric analysis and the requests from the interviews to see if and how they match.Main Results: The respondents requested inspiration for their future work lives, and information that could de-dramatize the image of working. The texts on www.ams.seconsist mostly of facts, while the films made a slightly more emotional contribution to the image of the occupation. The films showing relaxed and satisfied people can be seen as a way to de-dramatize the image of working-life.

The aim of this study was to examine creativity, measured with four different tests, and self-image in 18-19 year old women (N = 30), and their earlier presence of imaginary companions. The result showed that there were many correlations between the different creativity measurements. Self-image correlated significant with fluency of ideas in one test. "Psychological health" along with "skills, talent and abilities" were the two most important self-image aspects for creativity. We found negative relationships between imaginary companions and creativity, but a positive relationship with self-image.

AbstractThe purpose of this investigation is to find out how the pupils can discover and to feel joy in their creative art activity and also to believe in their own ability. The aim is to figure out if creative art activity is able to raise the pupil?s self-image. By literature, pedagogue interviews, and interviews with pupils at the age of ten years old and by action research is the way that I have searched for an answer for my question. The main result is that fantasy, creativity, courage and lust are important parts to develop in the job of raising the self-image.

The purpose of this thesis was to develop and optimize a method of analysis for combustion of organic chemical products, followed by an ion chromatographic quantitative analysis. This was to be achieved with the decomposition equipment IKA AOD 1. The aim was to receive a precise and repeatable method that would be able to be applied to the process of qualification and technical marking of chemical products at the company, OKG AB in Oskarshamn. A complete instruction for the decomposition equipment and the method of analysis was written. A number of parameters were chosen from the general method of the combustion equipment, which then was tested parallel with a simultaneous development of an appropriate ion chromatographic method.

Title: Images of Sweden in ItalyNumber of pages: 5252 (589 including enclosures)Author: Oskar GustafssonTutor: Martin NilssonCourse: Political Science C level ? Bachelor?s ThesisPeriod: Spring term 2010University: School of Social SciencesLinnaeus UniversityPurpose/Aim: The purpose of my research study is to, through the use of political science theories on soft power and marketing theories about nation branding and in comparison to previous studies on the image of Sweden in Italy, gains a better understanding of the image of Sweden in Italy, with special focus on national political institutions and young Italians.Method: The method of analysis is a combination of qualitative methods: interviews where information about the image of Sweden amongst national political institutions were gathered and a survey where information was gathered about the image of Sweden amongst young Italians.Main results: On the basis of the results I have gained it can be concluded that a positive and well informed image of Sweden emerges when it comes to cultural and social factors but a more restricted and somewhat negative image come to light when asking national political institutions and young citizens in Italy about their views and knowledge on Swedish domestic and international politics and economics.Keywords: Soft power, Public Diplomacy, Nation Branding, Images of Sweden, Italy..

I denna uppsats undersöks huruvida image kan utgöra en värdeskapande faktor för mobiltelefonföretag. Dagens ekonomi drivs allt mer av högteknologiska branscher, dock har vi uppmärksammat bristen av branschspecifika marknadsföringsteorier, framförallt imageteorier, för högteknologiska företag eller produkter..

The mental constructions of other places are based on impressions from everything that surrounds us in our everyday life, e.g. pictures, videos, texts and narratives. The tourism industry is especially influential when it comes to creating the image of before ?unknown places?. Furthermore, it has a tendency to embellish and idealize people and places located in what is commonly known as the Third World.

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.

Johanna Petrén, a prospective teacher of religion, has examined how a couple of students view Christianity as it is presented in a Religious Education classroom. Furthermore, how this image matches their experience of Christianity outside of school. The key questions of this essay are: How do the students generally describe Christianity and what it means to be a Christian based on the image they have acquired from outside of school, or from Christian friends, confirmation or their own faith? How do the students describe Christianity according to what they learn in Religious education at school? What potential differences do the students perceive between the image of Christianity conveyed by the school and the image they have of Christianity from outside of school? Does the school's teaching influence the credibility and interest in Christianity? The questions have been discussed in focus group interviews, in which the students way of reasoning and talking about religious matters were analysed based on previous research. References used in the analysis includes research on topics such as science of religious history, religion in multicultural and postcolonial rooms, secularism and discourse analysis have.

AbstractIn the heart of Paris, you will find Sweden?s only cultural center abroad. Since the early 70?s a wealth of cultural activities has been offered, and every year the center receives more than 100,000 visitors. The center is a branch of the Swedish Institute (Si), a public authority which promotes mutual relationships between Sweden and other countries through culture, education, science and business.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate in what way Swedish universities regulates its internal and external communication by the use of policy documents. The purpose has led to three research questions: what scope of communication is given to the documents user, if the document is challenging or redefining the current means of power, and how questions regarding trademark is taken into consideration. In order to achieve the purpose a discourse analysis is used as both underlining theory and comprehensive method. The underlining theory is based around social constructionism, structuralism, poststructuralism and critical discourse analysis. The analysis have taken emphasis from Norman Faircloughs three-dimensional model in which the documents have been studied on three separate levels.

The purpose is to illustrate the phenomenon of self-harm from a social psychological and sociological perspective. The purpose is furthermore to examine the role social relationships play in the individuals´ self- imagine and what role does identification play for anyone who harm themselves? We want to examine in what way social relationships are important and how they function for individuals who harm themselves, both once they have started to harm themselves, and if the relationships in any part caused the cutting to begin with.Questions:How do individuals shape their identity based on self- harm? Which self-image do individuals have who self-harm? Is there anything in the person's previous social relationships that have caused them to begin to hurt themselves?Method:In this paper we have analyzed five autobiographies. We have used open coding from grounded theory as analytical method and subject positions based on discourse analysis.Theory:We have used the Cooley concepts looking glass self, Foucault's theory of power, Giddens' concept of ontological security and existential anxiety.Results and Analysis:We found six different categories that we thought were central. These were negative self-image, guilt, lack of family support, negative experiences of others' views, the protective identity as self- harmer and insecure social relationships in school.Conclusion:The self-harming is a very complex behavior.

The aim of our graduate work is to study the importance of image and shape?s in children's development and learning and also the preschool teacher?s views on image and shapes. Our research aims to explore the value of image and shapes creation and how it is expressed among children and in classroom activities. We are also interested in finding out how it differs from adults' views and what materials teachers use to promote the image and shapes creation in the curriculum. In our own experience, image and shapes activities are often structured differently in different curriculum activities.