This thesis rests on the theory and methodology of discourse theory. By viewing social reality as constituted by discourses, meanings that are taken for granted can be challenged.The events of September 11th 2001 resulted in the American war on terror. This thesis explores the impact of 9/11 and the war on terror on the Russian image of the conflict in Chechnya.Discourse theory is applied to shed light on how the conflict over Chechnya is discursively constructed by the Russian state and media. The discourse is organized in three thematic sections: Identity, Enemy Images and Islam. Russia establishes itself as a member of the Western civilisation.

The aim of this study is to examine whether the image of the stereotype librarian has created conflict in young librarians´ personal identity and/or professional identity and if this has shown in their choice of clothes? Our purpose was to find out, with the help of their choice of clothes, the young librarians view of themselves as individuals and professional librarians. We have searched for the answers to the following questions: - Do young librarians experience that clothing at their workplace has any significance and if so, what do they want to signal with their clothing? - Do they experience that clothing and appearance has any impact on their personal and professional identity? - How do they relate, by their choice of clothes, to the stereotype images of the librarian? We have performed qualitative interviews with eleven young female librarians. As a theoretical framework we have used ideas and concepts from different areas of research; semiotics, social psychology, business administration and ethnology.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how the research library of Linnæus University is used by students as a meeting place. Building upon Putnam's theory of bonding and bridging social capital and Audunson's conception of high and low intensive meeting places, it aims to explore the research library's potential for creating social capital and thus strengthening both learning and democracy in a university context. Borrowing part of the survey design from a study conducted as part of the Norwegian PLACE project, this study collects responses from 134 students as to their use of the library as a meeting place. The results show that the Linnæus University library is used for a variety of meetings of both high and low intensity, why it should provide a good setting for the creation of social capital. There seems to be a connection between how often one visits the library, as well as to which department one belongs, and how one uses the library as a meeting place.

This thesis is based on two different parts. First a presentation and a brief insight of the most comprehensive picture educational structures/theories and their various branches in Sweden from the post war period. Secondly a presentation of my artistic masters project Fantasy World, where I together with a group of children aged 7-12 freely created an artwork in the form of a world of its own, in sculptural expression. The idea behind the thesis has been to study how the perception of picture education and children?s creation has been in the recent decades and how different picture educational theories looks like and then to compare with the idea behind my project and how it may look in practice..

The exclusion of visually impaired from the information flow presented to us through signs was what led me into this project. With a growing amount of information being presented to us on signs and digital information surface the need of communicating this information in a way that could be read by visually impaired is evident. Looking into different ways of communication, my goal was to create something that filled the need of the visually impaired without branding them as disabled. Having a close relative with bad eyesight is became evident on how much it limited her in her everyday life, not being able to navigate herself without the support of her husband. Through interviews with her and others with varying diagnoses I reached an insight in their situation. To my surprise they still favored a visual form of communication before an auditory or tactile form, because it?s easy to survey and quick to interpret.

Titel:     Mätinstrument: Kundnöjdhet ? Att jämföra image, förväntningar och upplevelser i modebutikerSyfte:Syftet är att undersöka de förväntningar om nöjdhet som kunder baserar enbart på en varumärkesmix. Vilka aspekter av ett butiksbesök dessa varumärkesbaserade nöjdhetsförväntningar framförallt rör, hur nöjda kunderna förväntar sig att bli med dessa aspekter och huruvida nöjdhetsförväntningarna infrias vid ett besök i en butik som har en specifik varumärkesmix. Som ett delsyfte undersöks vad i ett butiksbesök som är viktigt för de deltagande konsumenterna när de handlar kläder.Metod:Vi valde att använda oss av en kvantitativ metod där vi intervjuade 111 kvinnliga respondenter om vad de tyckte var viktigt, vilka förväntningar en varumärkesmix skapar samt hur nöjda de var efter ett besök vid dammodeavdelningen på Åhléns i Umeå. Vi utgick från ett deduktivt angreppsätt med befintliga teorier som stöd för våra frågeställningar.

Title: Women's best beautiful will never be good enough: a rethoric and semiotic analysis of four advertisements for beauty products.Because of the medias central role in peoples lives in the modern society we today live in, they have become a reference in peoples processes of making sence of their subsistences and environments. Commercial companies also want to present an as good image as possible of them towards the recipients through their marketing. Both parts can lead to a distorted picture of the real och everyday and norms and ideals easily form, for example about the correct way a woman should act and be, as the media affect which references should be made available for society.The purpose of this thesis is to examine how four advertisements for beauty products produce ideals and norms of beauty as well as construct and reconstruct femininity through the ways women are represented. The study will also contain the question about how rethoric and semiotic tools are used to strengthen the messages and sell the products. The following questions will be answered within this study:How is femininity being represented in the advertisements?How can the advertisements contribute to the creation of ideals and norms of beauty? How do the companies use rethoric and semiotic tools in the four advertisements to sell their products and/or strengthen their brands?The study will be executed with a qualitative rethoric and semiotic analysis and the theories applied to it are Mediatization theory, Envisionment theory as well as a theory about gender and femininity.   The foremost results of this study has been that women are represented as constantly striving towards a better beauty to be able to also feel better about themselves, gain better self-esteem and to have more fulfilled and successful lives.

AbstractThe purpose of this thesis is to examine the professional female members of a board in listed companies. During the 21st century the issue of female quotation into the executive boards was discussed in both the media and politically due to womens underrepresentation in these contexts.The main purpose of this thesis is to examine the professional female members of boards stories of the role models they have, what characteristics have evolved, the views of others, and the self image. In addition, we want to investigate how women perceive themselves in a male-dominated field to identify how the female identity is created at work.Through a qualitative research in the form of personal interviews, we have gathered empirical material that forms the basis of our results. The answers from the interviews have been analyzed with the help of relevant theories and a social constructionist approach throughout the thesis. For our theoretical approach, we primarily chose symbolic interactionism, identity theories, and concepts such as the glass ceiling and gender strategies to analyze the data.The result of the survey shows that there are many elements that play into how women form their identities.

I started this project with the understandning that European hisory has become more important in government documents as a part in a larger European discourse, and that this fact is likely to be reflected in the chools textbooks. Therefore this essay deals with the task of comparing history textbooks over time trying to find changes. Firstly to find out how much space European history is afforded in the textbooks, and secondly how Europe is described and used in the textbooks. In my first task I will use a content analysis and in my second a conceptual analysis. My material consists of eight books and I have three pieces of older educational materials from the years 1949, 1954 and 1962.

Undersökningens syfte är att analysera hur Sverige, svensken och invandraren presenteras i läromedel i svenska som andraspråk. Dessa läroböcker är för många vuxna invandrare en dörr som leder till livet i Sverige då böckerna inte bara ger information om språket utan också om svenska traditioner, levnadssätt och hur man klarar sig i samhället.I resultatet framgår att läroböckerna ibland presenterar en stereotyp bild av landet Sverige och dess invånare. En del stereotyper kan anses vara positiva men en del är relativt negativa vilket ger ett dystert intryck. Vissa generaliseringar förekommer också vilket kan vara ett problem då läsaren, d.v.s. invandraren får en skev och vinklad bild av verkligheten..

Women ledaers and profitability, is there a correlation? Earlier research show different outcome on the correlation between women leaders and profitability. A Swedish consultant firm, Caran has a belief that more women leaders would create more financial profit, we ask us if that is the true situation. Using two different IC measurement methods we have shown the difficulties in calculate intagible resources, which methods that can/ can not be used and if women leders create financial value. We found the women leaders in Caran to add more value per dollar spent on the woman leaders than the value added per dollar spent on men leaders.

Konsten att berätta historier med bilder och illustrationer är något som har funnits i flera tusen år. Detta kandidatarbete undersöker ämnet illustrerad narrativ och redogör olika aspekter och principer som är avgörande för att man ska kunna förmedla ett budskap med hjälp av illustrationer. Idag förknippas illustrerad narrativ framför allt med serietidningar, bilderböcker och grafiska romaner som berättar en narration i form av en serie av bilder. Under den teoretiska delen av arbetet har jag först gått igenom illustrerat narrativs historia och sedan redovisat principer för det moderna illustrerat narrativet. Jag har också forskat kring bildens kommunikativa värde och samspelet mellan bild och text.

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.

Den hårdnande konkurrensen emellan städer för att attrahera turister, nya invånare, investerare och företagsetableringar skapar ett klimat där destinationsmarknadsföring inte bara är nödvändigt utan kan bestämma platsers framtid. Destinationsmarknadsföring bedrivs fördelaktigt i samordnade former vilket är upptakten till Örebrokompaniet, Örebro stads marknadsföringsbolag. Studien har sin förankring i destinationsmarknadsföring med integrerad marknadskommunikation, image, destinationsutveckling, nätverk och värdeskapande som underordnade teorier. Dessa sammanfattar Örebrokompaniets arbete med att marknadsföra staden. Uppsatsen som är en fallstudie bygger på en intervjuundersökning där flera betydelsefulla aktörer inom både kommunen och näringslivet finns representerade.Studiens resultat pekar på att Örebro kan vinna stora fördelar gentemot andra städer i form av Örebrokompaniets samordnade marknadsföring.

AbstractAim: The aim of this essay has been to study how the Swedish church has created the image of their religious activity through media. This has been by studying the three commercial campaigns launched by the Swedish church during the years 2000, 2001 and 2003. Questions asked are: How has the Swedish church chosen to profile it self? Which discourses can be recognized in the campaigns? Which messages has been communicated through the campaigns? How has these discourses created the image of the Swedish church?Method: The methodological framework is critical discourse analysis inspired by Norman Faircloughs? three-dimensional model. Thirteen images all part of the campaigns are analysed using a semiotic method.