By conducting a text analysis this study analyzes possible similarities in the portrayal of story characters between historical Norse myths and contemporary film productions. The chosen historical texts are two stories from Norse mythology which render a myth about Thor and a giant named Hrunge as well as the myth Trymskvädet. The selected movies are two of the comic company Marvel?s productions about super Heroes ? Thor and The Avengers. Different categories that this study compares are how the characters are defined by their possessions or artefacts, the actions and the choices which the characters make, and also how their relations, roles and origins are being portrayed.

The purpose of this thesis was to study how four swedish lifestyle magazines: Veckorevyn and Cosmopolitan for women, King and Café for men, represent three groups of people and how often these people appear in the magazines. These groups are HBT, homosexuals, bisexuals and transsexuals, disabled and immigrants. The years we studied were 2007 and 2008.Our main questions were: How often do the three groups appear in the four magazines? How are the groups represented? In order to answer these questions we used a qualitative analysis. We used tools from semiotics, narratology and discourse.

The purpose of this essay is to examine Marjane Satrapi?s comic novel Persepolis from a gender and postcolonial perspective. To reach this I have used several theories from mainly three different fields of theory: gender studies, postcolonial theories and theoretical texts which focus on the form of comics.My analysis has shown that idols, Heroes and other cultural symbols are important for the creation of the main character Marji?s identity, but that she at the same time has many Marxistic influences. These casts of mind do not stand in opposition, but become an expression for her hybridity.

The aim of this essay is to illustrate a modern phenomenon, the Olympic Games, by applying the ideas of Mircea Eliade concerning space, time and myth. This literature study is mainly divided in two parts, one descriptive and one analytic. In the first part Eliade?s ideas and some criticism, which has been pointed against his theoretical approaches as well as his character, are presented. In the second part an analysis is carried out, based on the previously presented ideas and elements essential for the Olympics; the idea of the Olympics, the place, the ceremonies, the competition and the concept of individual idolism.I have discussed what seems like gnostic tendencies in Eliade?s ideas, in the sense that both Eliade?s ideas and the concept of Gnosticism argue that knowledge is a necessary condition for salvation, as well as the fact that Eliade and his ideas have not always a pro-Christian approach.

The purpose of this study is to examine how women?s reading of the Harry Potter books can be understood on the basis of gender theory and reader-response criticism. The empirical data is gathered through qualitative interviews with six female Harry Potter readers between the age of 21 and 35, and is analyzed through several theories regarding gender and reading. The results show that the readers are critical towards many aspects of the books, especially when it comes to the stereotyped depiction of women and men. The books are said to reproduce the gender dichotomy, the gender hierarchy and the heteronormativity in society.

By conducting a text analysis this study analyzes possible similarities in the portrayal of story characters between historical Norse myths and contemporary film productions. The chosen historical texts are two stories from Norse mythology which render a myth about Thor and a giant named Hrunge as well as the myth Trymskvädet. The selected movies are two of the comic company Marvel?s productions about super Heroes ? Thor and The Avengers. Different categories that this study compares are how the characters are defined by their possessions or artefacts, the actions and the choices which the characters make, and also how their relations, roles and origins are being portrayed.

The globalisation of the world is believed by some to homogenise individuals from different national cultures. However, the values and norms of an individual are deeply rooted in their national culture and are therefore difficult to change. Since birth these values and norms are learnt through interaction with others within a specific national culture. The differences in values of a national culture are shown in the cornerstones of the nation. These cornerstones are language, aesthetics, religion and social institutions.

I vår uppsats undersöker vi svenska tidningars framställning av två löperskor: Meraf Bahta och Abeba Aregawi. Vi har använt oss av teorierna National Sporting Heroes (NSH) och framing, detta för att få in den idrottsliga aspekten tillsammans med journalistiken. Vi har använt oss av både en mindre kvantitativ innehållsanalys och en kvalitativ textanalys. I den kvalitativa textanalysen koncentrerade vi oss på ordval. I den kvantitativa innehållsanalysen undersökte vi bland annat artikelns vinkel och hur ofta löperskornas bakgrunder nämndes i artiklarna.

The purpose with this study was to describe and analyse the daily activities of a criminal group in a southern suburb of Stockholm, Norra Botkyrka, and their attitude to drugs, the police, crimes in general, accomplices and their plans for the future. The study is a combination of different qualitative methods that is built on unobtrusive methods and interviews that was carried out during winter in 2006 and spring in 2007 and six interviews. My interest to carry out this study was grounded on my several years of experience as a prison and probation officer in the prison. I chose to ?live? with a group of criminals and participated in some of their social activities.The respondents that I chose to call ?anti-Heroes? proudly tell me about their criminal lifestyle that characterizes of violence, drugs, crimes and conflict where this people show no regret.

This study examines how a couple of Swedish daily newspapers construct the hacker network Anonymous, with an aim to discuss its possible effects. The question was: In which ways is the network Anonymous constructed in a few Swedish newspapers?                      26 articles from four chosen newspaper were analysed, but because of many similarities in content, only 10 were chosen for deep analysis. With Fairclough's model of critical discourse analysis as chosen method, constructions varying from the images of Heroes to villains were found as a result. The most common construction was that of Anonymous as a threat, which was most often exaggerated compared to what actions were actually described in the texts.

AbstractTitle: Den mångtydiga svenskheten: En studie av det svensk-amerikanska föreningslivet i Kalifornien utifrån en etnisk aspekt 1910 & 1915. (The multiplicity of Swedishness: A study of the Swedish-American society?s associations in California from an ethnic point of wiew 1910 & 1915.Author: Joakim FranssonMaster Thesis in History (10p)Växjö UniversityThe purpose of this thesis is to examine the Swedish-American associations in San Francisco and Los Angeles and how they withheld or/and formed a Swedish or American ethnic identity. The primary source for obtaining that objective is the newspapers Vestkusten and California Veckoblad were the announcements from the associations are analysed. The thesis main questions are as following: Which ethnic aspects appears in the announcements from the Swedish-American associations in the newspapers Vestkusten and California Veckoblad 1910 and 1915? And What similarities and differences in the ethnic expressions appears in the primary sources during these periods?The conclusions can be briefed as there was a great variety of Swedish-American associations during the examined periods, there was a frequent occurrence in both religious and secular movements.

Syftet med denna studie har varit att undersöka om ett nationalistiskt budskap förekommer i tre svenska morgontidningars rapportering om fyra uppmärksammade extraordinära händelser inom svensk idrott. Undersökningen har genomförts i två delstudier, dels en kvalitativ textanalys och dels en intervjuundersökning. Undersökningen tar sin utgångspunkt i teorier som grundar sig i journalistiska arbetsmetoder så som gatekeeping-teorin och tidigare forskning om nationalism och sport som teorin om National Sporting Heroes. I den kvalitativa textanalysen var syftet att undersöka hur sportjournalister vid Dagens Nyheter, Göteborgsposten och Sydsvenskan rapporterade om de fyra uppmärksammade svenska idrottshändelserna: Tennisspelaren Mats Wilanders kokainskandal, häcklöperskan och bobåkaren Ludmila Engquists dopningskandal, Sverige och Danmarks 2-2-match i fotbolls-EM 2004 och brottaren Ara Abrahamians pallprotest i Peking-OS 2008.Den centrala forskningsfrågan var om det funnits ett nationalistiskt budskap i rapporteringen och hur det i så fall kom till uttryck. För att få en tydligare bild av hur journalister som skrev artiklar om de fyra utvalda idrottshändelserna reflekterar över hur de rapporterade genomförde vi en andra delstudie med kvalitativa samtalsintervjuer med journalister som undersökningsdeltagare.

Behovet av beslutsstöd är stort, inte minst i den militära sektorn där beslut kan få stora konsekvenser. CoMap är ett verktyg framtaget av FOI (Totalförsvarets forskningsinstitut) för att stödja beslutsfattaren fatta dynamiska beslut. CoMap gör det möjligt att se omvärlden på en karta i såväl 2D som 3D.Studien ämnar besvara frågor om vilken visualiseringsdimension som föreligger den bästa prestationen i dynamiskt beslutsfattande samt hur prestationen förändras i förhållande till visualiseringsdimensionen. Likaså hanterar studien frågor om informationshantering. Hur mängden information påverkar dynamiskt beslutsfattande samt hur mängden information upplevs hanterbar och i vilken utsträckning beslutsfattarna skattar att beslut grundats på delgiven information.