Discussions about the democratic deficit of the European Union have gotten more intense and the criticism usually points towards a great gap between the citizens and the EU politics. In this study the political communication policy is being put under the scope to investigate to what extent the policy is designed to counter the democratic deficit, supported by the theory of deliberative democracy. The analysis examines three aspects of the deficit ? decentralization, participation and the distribution of information ? and makes research into the communicative measures that have been implemented. The importance for EU to make deliberation possible is stressed throughout the essay and in the conclusion I argue that improvements still need to be made.  .

Previous research on Twitter use among nonprofit organizations has been centered on the US, thisessay Nonprofits on Twitter: a content analysis of Swedish nonprofits working for gender equalityseeks to expand that research to include nonprofit organizations operating in Sweden. By studying tenSwedish nonprofits all working to achieve gender equality this study can begin filling a gap in theexisting research. Focusing on both what kind of messages the organizations publish, and what kind ofmessages engage the organizations? followers. This is achieved by quantitative content analysis:categorizing messages into the categories Information, Community and Action, and measuring whichof these categories got the most shares, comments and likes.

The aim of this thesis is to make a comparison between solitary graves and graves in grave fields from the Roman Iron Age on Gotland, Sweden. Differences in burial customs, morphology, dating, gender, age, grave-goods and social status are compared between 19 solitary graves and graves in three different grave fields in different parts of Gotland. An attempt is made to explain these differences and to discuss which functions the solitary graves had. Discussions about whether it is possible to distinguish social status and gender with the help of grave-goods are also made in connection to the determination of status and sex..

Alcohol and drug abuse is something that undoubtedly exists in our society today. Our interest in this area was inspired by an earlier study of the influence of socialization on these dependencies. From this we developed new hypotheses concerning men and women?s drug and alcohol abuse. The main purpose of this study was to highlight the experiences and reflections of six women and seven men on their own alcohol or drug abuse.

Detta examensarbete behandlar ämnet genus med fokus på en grupp femåriga barns tankar om leksaker och kön. Syftet utgörs av att undersöka om en grupp pojkar och flickor vid femårsålder tänker könsstereotypt om leksaker. Samt om dessa eventuella könsstereotypa tankar kan kopplas till föräldrarnas utbildningsnivå. För att söka svar på detta genomfördes en bildundersökning med 11 barn på en centralt belägen förskola i en medelstor svensk stad, de medverkande barnens föräldrar besvarade en enkät rörande barnens bakgrund så som syskon, leksaker och kamrater. Resultatet visade att yttre påverkan i form av föräldrars utbildningsnivå tycks ha ingen eller liten betydelse för barnens könsstereotypa tankar.

This study in Public Administration uses feminism and historical institutionalism toanalyze a highly debated contemporary policy problem that concerns genderequality in the policy of parental leave. The parental insurance was introduced in1974 with the governmental goal of gender equality. In 1974 only 0,5 percent of thenumber of days of parental benefit was paid to men. Today, 40 years later, the goalremains the same and the numbers of days of parental benefit paid to men are 24,8percent.The debate that has characterized the Swedish policy of parental insurance andspecifically the design of the parental benefit is the debate of freedom of choiceversus quota.Our study focuses on ideas and arguments that influence the policy of parentalbenefit. The study assumes, with basis in the theories of feminism and historicalinstitutionalism, that a policy like parental benefit is slow-moving and that pathdependency has lead to a slow development of gender equality..

The aim of this thesis is to examine representations of masculinity in the activities of a local professional wrestling promotion. After briefly outlining what professional wrestling is, the study draws on a body on feminist and intersectional theory which critiques the notion of gender as a binary and essential category. The material comprises 10 recorded shows and oth- er material published on Sthlm Wrestling?s website between 2010 and 2013, and is analyzed using a qualitative methodology derived from cultural studies. The thesis argues that there are many different types of masculinities in the narrative, which are constructed in relation to different power hierarchies such as ethnicity, class, sex and sexuality.

AbstractWhy do Political Parties emerge? ? A Study of "Sjukvårdspartiet i Värmland"Political Science, Johan UtterThe political parties have important roles to play in contemporary society. They act as bearers of power and presents the voters with finished packages of ideas on how society should grow, develop and change. Political parties are essential to the survival and wellbeing of representative democracy. Many theories have been developed over the years concerning matters related to political parties, but one area of research remains largely unexplored, namely the topic on why political parties do emerge in the first place.

This thesis examines young people's thoughts about their presence on social media. With asocial constructive approach the study focused on how young people think and act on socialmedia in relation to constructions of gender and normality. The analysis is based on fourgroup interviews with 13-year old boys and girls. The theoretical approach is based partly onsocial constructionism where discourses and ideas of normality are identified and analyzed.Erving Goffman's theory of social interaction was central to illustrate how young peoplepresents themselves based on the prevailing discourses. It is clear that they adjust theirrepresentations of themselves depending on the context.

The political landscape is constantly changing and influenced by outside forces. The strong connection to the traditional media has evolved to include a new important part, social media. A good way for the politics to utilize social media is through their youth associations, whose main purpose is to engage young people and spark their interest in politics. Due to the increasing influence of social media, the politicians, parties and various actors have to adapt to its demands, to be able to gain visibility on these platforms. One way to adapt is to become more entertainment driven, because these platforms are a safespace where people find time to relax and have a good time. With a growing emphasis on simplified, engaging and more fun political massages, political communication has changed its form. This phenomenon is referred to as ?politainment? and encapsulates the merging of politics and entertainment. The purpose of this study is to examine and measure the frequency of politainment in Swedish political youth associations political communications.

AbstractSouth Africa is a country where apartheid has created a segregated population and the countrys cultural traditions affects the human situations in a unique way. Equalities between gender, class and ethnicity is a main focus for female activists in their work to give the exposed population tools and knowledges to stand up for themselves to cope with the unbalanced structure. This examination paper is done in a qualitative case study in South Africa. The content consists of thourough descriptions of how the society is percieved by four different people, explained by feministic theories and former research that is connected to the papers purpose and question formulations. The purpose of this paper is to examine how Sikhula Sonke, a women´s movement in South Africa looks at the female?s situation in the society and how they are going about their work to improve social equality.

"The choreography of fear" is a discourse-analysis study which focus at how young men speaks about fear, threat and violence in the public everyday life. The study adopts socialcontructionism as theoretical approach and also uses theories about gender, hegemony masculinity, fear as a social constructed phenomenon and moral-panic. The study is based on qualitative interview whit young men in age 18-30 and the method is mainly discourse-psychology. The section of Analysis discuss subjects as what and whom the young men consider to be a threat and which areas in the public space they consider to be dangerous and how they choose to handle the menace. The Analysis also focuses on how the informants speak about fear, how they define fear and what they consider arouse fear..

Previous research on Twitter use among nonprofit organizations has been centered on the US, thisessay Nonprofits on Twitter: a content analysis of Swedish nonprofits working for gender equalityseeks to expand that research to include nonprofit organizations operating in Sweden. By studying tenSwedish nonprofits all working to achieve gender equality this study can begin filling a gap in theexisting research. Focusing on both what kind of messages the organizations publish, and what kind ofmessages engage the organizations? followers. This is achieved by quantitative content analysis:categorizing messages into the categories Information, Community and Action, and measuring whichof these categories got the most shares, comments and likes.

The purpose of this study was to examine how youth useFacebook and how Facebook perceives construct their own identity. Anotherquestion was if the construction of the self-identity is different between thegenders.The study is based on empirical material that has been collected by usingquestionnaires. The questionnaire was handed out in three different classes in3rd grade in secondary school in southern Sweden. The analysis in this studywas based on two different kinds of theories, Erving Goffman?s social theory ofdramaturgical analysis and stigma and Yvonne Hirdman?s gender studies.

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.