Nature and culture are often described as opposites, but at the same time nature is often de-scribed as culture and past. This essay examines how nature and the past are culture. I study how 51 people make shifting distinctions between nature and the past in relation to culture, the present and the future. By using the concept of Orientation of Sarah Ahmed I analyze how the informants direct themselves against nature, past and culture through a questionnaire, ob-servations and walk-alongs. I discuss how their ideas about nature and the past differ with their different starting points and are shaped through their physical meetings with them.

This master?s thesis aims to study the practice of separating popular genres of fiction from the rest of the fiction stock, often seen at public libraries. The method being used is critical discourse analysis according to Norman Fairclough?s three-dimensional conception of discourse. The textual dimension of this analysis is the book shelf itself and the sociocultural practice is the everyday practice at a public library of supplying and mediating books to the visitors.

Today it is common to state that we are living in an information overloaded society. But there are many different definitions of what can be said to constitute Information Overload and there is a lack of substantial research on the subject. Conclusions in the available literature on Information Overload are often drawn on anecdotal evidence and carries a dramatized picture of the causes and effects of the phenomenon.With the tools of discursive analysis this two years master?s thesis explores how the phenomenon Information Overload is portrayed in six popular science books that deals with the subject: Alvin Toffler (1970) Future Shock, Orrin Klapp (1986) Overload and Boredom, Richard Wurman (1989) Information Anixety, Andrew Keen (2007) The cult of the amateur, Maggie Jackson (2008), Distracted and Nicholas Carr (2010) The Shallows. The result of the analysis shows that there is a common discourse of how the subject of Information Overload is represented, which stretches in and between the books intertextually.

The Swedish debate regarding chat control highlights a value conflict between protecting the safety of children and preserving democratic rights such as privacy and freedom of expression. This thesis examines key arguments for and against the proposed EU CSAM-regulation, analyzing them through a normative argumentation analysis method. The analysis is based on the Swedish constitution, representing the common values of Swedish society. The study reconstructs arguments from four debate articles and evaluate them according to their relevance and validity, which makes up the arguments? total evidential strength.

The purpose of this thesis is to study how homosexuals and homosexuality were represented in the press during the trials against the Pentecostal pastor Åke Green, and to what kind of social representations and narratives these representations can be related.Using critical discourse analysis and theories about the differentiation between in- and outgroups I try to unveil implicit meanings and attitudes towards gay people mainly at the local text level. The material consists of articles in Ölandsbladet and Dagens Nyheter that were produced before, during and after the trials.The analysis suggests that homosexuals are construed as a deviant outgroup and that the majority, the ingroup, is presented as an essentially heterosexual, tolerant community. Homosexuality is wrong and heterosexuality is the right way of living. Homosexuals, in terms of group lobbyism, are construed as an enemy, a threat, against Western ideals such as family values and freedom of speech. They indirectly become a threat to Swedish democracy.

The aim of this dissertation is the production of a landscape management document to protect and improve elements of biological, cultural and economic value found within the site at Tosthult. The study involves both analysis of the current grazing regime, comparison of today?s flora with flora collected in the fifties and a SWOT analysis of inhabitants? views on Tosthult?s landscape and neighbourhood. The resultant landscape management document applies to an area over 134 ha and is valid for thirty years. The proposal contains 26 separate management units, each with necessary information on the area, definition of management goals and the mix of management procedures to undertake.

The purpose of this essay is to examine how the supernatural and the occult are portrayed inpopular culture. To be able to do this, I have chosen to perform a discourse analysis of the twofirst novels in the L. J Smith series The Vampire Diaries. The novels are called TheAwakening and The Struggle.I apply the following questions in my analysis to narrow down the perspective further.?In what situations are supernatural used in the books and what part does it play??How does the supernatural affect the main characters and how is this portrayed in the novel??How is the supernatural portrayed depending on the gender of the character?I will focus mostly on the vampires since they generally are the ones who introduce thesupernatural elements into the story.I am applying gender theory in my discourse analyses of the novels, to hopefully be able togive a wider picture of the supernatural in relation to gender in the novels.I begin with analyzing the main discourses in the story, revolving around the supernatural.Secondly I analyze what impact the supernatural has on the main character.

This report is an analysis of the gender representation in Swedish sports media, a comparison between sport in public service television for adults and children. The study explores the differences between the number of male and female sports in the matter of air time and also the number of male and female appearances in the TV shows. The programs studied in this report are the Swedish SVT?s Sportspegeln and Lilla sportspegeln. When we began this analysis we were under the impression that men would be over-represented, but that representation in sports television for children would be more gender equal than the adult counterpart. The result of the analysis confirmed previous studies stating that men dominate the sports programs in Swedish public service television.

The purpose with this thesis work was to design and build a technical aid for installingbatteries in telecom base stations. Today that job is done manually, since there is noequipment on the market for that purpose. Installing batteries in base stations manually isa very tough job.To get ideas for possible solutions a preliminary study on existing lift aids was done.From the preliminary study the conclusion that some kind of overhead crane would besuitable for the task was drawn. After that a lift for installing batteries in base stationswas designed, built and tested. The tests show that it is possible to minimize heavy liftingwhen installing batteries in telecom base stations, at a relatively low cost.ii.

This paper concerns a comparative analysis between two pre-Roman burial ground and the cremated individuals buried there, Skogome cemetery in Bohuslän and Smörkullen cemetery in Östergötland. The comparative analysis consists of several parts that concern both cemeteries inner and outer burial customs, and the osteological analysis of a total of 18 cremated invidvidulas. By studying the different parts separately, it has been possible to identify similarities and differences between the two contemporary cemeteries. There are great similarities between the cemeteries, differences were mainly observed in the osteological material relating to the amount of bone in each burial. The smaller amounts of bone in the graves of Skogome also holds a higher degree of fragmentation, but can not be explained by a higher combustion rate than the skeletal material from Smörkullen.

Questions concerning the Cultural Heritage must be integrated in social planning.Therefore there is a need for adequate methods for cultural environmental analysis, toreceive knowledge that is relevant in an integrated conservation. The thesis is a review ofmethods for cultural environmental analysis and discusses the qualifications necessary fora method in order to receive adequate information as well as it discusses what kind ofinformation to be considered relevant. The thesis also analyzes a specific method forcultural environmental analysis in order to exam if it has got the qualifications concludedas necessary if it is to be used in an integrated conservation. The conclusion is that amethod for cultural environmental analysis should collect information about the entireenvironment (integrated information about nature and culture, in a historical perspectiveand how it is today), about social structures, physical remains (buildings etc) and what thecollected information tell about the history of the studied area, as well as what is importantin the landscape of today. Information about how the environment should be treated in thefuture is also of importance.

The purpose of this investigation was to find out more about students? spontaneous ideas about properties and transformations of matter. Examples of matter chosen are such which students know about from everyday life and focus is mainly on the questions if students know that all matter has weight and that matter is preserved in transformations.The method used is semi structured qualitative interviews with individual students. Different experiments were carried out together with the students who afterwards were interviewed. However, the students show varying answers and no generalizations can be done.

The purpose of this essay is to examine at how to portray characters in the stories and narratives which depicts one of these children's books and if they really have something to ethnicity and its identification to be done.The Research questions is: What are the different identification markers given, to the reading child in the books, which might indicate that the story depicts people of different ethnicities? How are the characters portrayed in the story and which role is assigned to the main character? What story is portrayed and is it relevant to an identifier can occur?The conclusions of the five children's books shows that it is important with identifications markers, to show that there are different ethnicities. For example the analysis revealed the specific features of the illustrations and how the books portrayes someone with a different ethnicity and cultural background as something exotic.In the texts, the analysis showed how it occurred ethnic differences, by explicitly demonstrating differences between the characters. It was found that the characters were produced mostly as good, happy, curious, suspicious and unsympathetic. Common to all the main characters was that they had been placed, in one for them unusual context and that they were trying to assimilate to the new situations.Depictions consisted of realism and fiction.

The Swedish working-class author Ivar Lo-Johansson (1901-1990) wrote a collection of one hundred short stories between the years 1968-1972. His other productions, generally speaking, have partially different social reform purposes, but, according to himself, these short stories were written with the intention to be totally free of tendencies (even though he himself doubted that he succeeded with this).During the same period that these short stories were published, the Swedish social democrats were under the challenge of radical movements that, mainly on the radical left?s ideological foundation, had a relatively strong influence in Sweden, among other countries, from the mid 1960?s to the late 1970?s. Since Lo-Johansson mainly seemed to have supported the politics of the social democrats, the purpose of the investigation in this thesis has been to see if he ? in the three short stories: Vikingakärlek (1970), Rikslögnaren (1971) and Ansgars resa till Sverige (1972) ? is conveying an ideological use of history and basic political values that were used by the social democratic party during this time period.

The Swedish working-class author Ivar Lo-Johansson (1901-1990) wrote a collection of one hundred short stories between the years 1968-1972. His other productions, generally speaking, have partially different social reform purposes, but, according to himself, these short stories were written with the intention to be totally free of tendencies (even though he himself doubted that he succeeded with this).During the same period that these short stories were published, the Swedish social democrats were under the challenge of radical movements that, mainly on the radical left?s ideological foundation, had a relatively strong influence in Sweden, among other countries, from the mid 1960?s to the late 1970?s. Since Lo-Johansson mainly seemed to have supported the politics of the social democrats, the purpose of the investigation in this thesis has been to see if he ? in the three short stories: Vikingakärlek (1970), Rikslögnaren (1971) and Ansgars resa till Sverige (1972) ? is conveying an ideological use of history and basic political values that were used by the social democratic party during this time period.