The purpose of this thesis is to study how Swedish independent record labels, or indie labels, fared on the Japanese market. The research questions were based on how Swedish independent record labels establish themselves on the Japanese market and how the cultural differences between the nations affect the business relationship. It was decided to execute a case study on two Swedish independent record labels and the Swedish export council for music. The ones chosen as study objects were B & B Records, Razzia Records and Export Music Sweden. The conclusions were that the indie labels need to understand the importance of personal business relationships when trying to get established on the Japanese market.

The purpose of my study is to describe how educators think about the play environment, the nature and its importance for the children's development and learning in preschool. The study is based on qualitative interviews with four active educators. The results of the study show that the teachers regarded the children's interests to a great extent when the different play environments were structured. They are also based on different themes that they have seen that the children were interested in, such as the fire station, hair salon or shop and café. Educators designing not only these play areas for different types of play for the children, but the different environments also have a learning purpose. The outdoor environment however attracts greater interest from children, to where they have more space to move freely in and outdoors, there are no limits to the children.

Computer games is a growing market with over millions of players that are playing and/or enjoying the play of games on a daily basis. The nerdy gamers that once were, are now becoming professional athletes in the virtual world called eSport. We have identified a lack of studies in this area which implies that there is little data of what it is. In this paper we have focused on the phenomena that is eSport and more closely on the game series Starcraft made by Blizzard Entertainment. Our focus lies in the game series Starcraft and eSport organisations mainly outside South Korea.

AbstractIn this essay, I have performed a study on peer cultures and how these peer cultures are expressed in a group of pre-school children. My questions are as following:What positions/power positions can be seen in children?s play, and how will these be expressed?How do the children gain access to play?How do children act when they want to exclude other children?In order to understand this I have chosen to do observations as a method. In order to investigate these questions I chose to spend six whole mornings with a group of pre-school children, closely observing their behavior. The focus was on children, three years of age or older.

The purpose of this thesis is to study to what extent the UN millennium development goals have influenced Sweden?s development policy. The research method that I have used is a qualitative text analysis and I have studied the ideas in governmental texts and millennium development goals reports from 1995-2008.My hypothesis is that the basic ideas that has symbolized Sweden?s development policy has not changed much since the adoption of the millennium development goals in year 2000. This hypothesis is based on different ideas that the basic perspectives in international development policy are rather constant.My conclusion is that many of the areas that are affected by the millennium development goals already are prioritized areas within Swedish development policy, for example poverty reduction and gender equality.

Swedish school system is today victim of facing competition. Today sees the school leadership the students like customers whom they depend to operate their school. But I have asked myself, what will be the new students see and how much this spectacle in both money and time that project will cost for the municipality and school teachers. The question is if whether the school will be better when the competition becomes school or just better marketed? I'm interested in how clearly ideologies emerge in schools brochures if we study them at critically and analytically way.

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the unintentional learning that happens during the use of computer games. With the use of interviews with students in the ages 13-15 who all have played the game series Assassin?s Creed, and then compared them with students who does not play the game, we have been able to identify that some learning is taking place, but that the student?s attitude towards the subject, and their maturity, also is vital for the learning. Even tough, the students who didn?t really enjoy history as a subject showed better knowledge after playing the game, than the students who hadn?t played at all, which indicates that computer games can be a good source for learning.

AbstractTitle: Interactivity and participation - a qualitative study about the making of machinima withWorld of Warcraft (Interaktivitet och och deltagande ? en kvalitativ studie kring skapandet avmachinima med World of Warcraft)Number of pages: 68 total, 50 without appendixAuthor: Peter BrandbergTutor: Else NygrenPeriod: Autumn 2006Course: Media and Communication Studies CUniversity: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala UniversityPurpose/Aim: The aim of this study is to take a closer look at the phenomenon machinima by analysing a number of specific movies from the site worldcraftmovies.com. This analyse is focusing on how the content of these movies relate to the wider game culture of the MMORPG World of Warcraft, what specific elements in the movies is referring to and if there is differences or similarities between different genres (or categories).Material/Method: The method used in analysing the movies is a combined method inspired by hermeneutic, semiotics and discourse analysis.Main results: Instead of answers this study raises many questions about the diverse content of the movies. A general division can be seen between movies focusing on the games rules and movies that are trying to present a fictive world. But the study also shows how there are many movies moving between these two points.

Kandidatarbetets syfte är att undersöka mötet mellan människa och medium genom att undersöka hur människor relaterar till och tolkar mötet med ett medium. Undersökningen tar sin utgångspunkt i flera tänkbara kunskapsfält, bland annat posthumanism, transhumanism, tolkningsvetenskap. Dessa kunskapsfält prövas sedan i en gestaltning för att avgöra om kunskapen är relevant i förhållande till vårt ärende..

The aim of this paper is to investigate how teachers in Swedish schools abroad reason about their work developing the Swedish language as the students live in a non-Swedish speaking country although going to a Swedish school. Furthermore the study intends to examine the teachers' attitudes towards the impact the Swedish language has upon the school. Research questions:What thoughts do the teachers signify in reference to the language development of the students?How do the teachers reason about the role of the Swedish language in the school?In order to answer these questions, qualitative measures has been used in terms of observations and interviews. The study is based upon a social constructivist perspective with the idea that reality is socially constructed.

Today many industrial companies invest a lot of resources on research and development to resist the tough competition on the global market. This leads to a high risk game when the companies start many development projects, with uncertain outcome where some of the projects have to be terminated prematurely. The main purpose with this study is to identify factors, both internal and external, that influence the decision to terminate projects prematurely in Swedish development projects. Factors mentioned in the literature will be compared with case studies on three Swedish industrial companies to demonstrate the most important ones when taking such decisions. First a literature study was made to identify basic terms, a general project model and factors affecting the decision.

During a political election the public?s interest in politics and political journalism increases significantly. During the American presidential election in 2012 a big amount of articles on that topic were published in two of Sweden?s largest newspaper, Svenska Dagbladet and Aftonbladet. Political journalism tends to frame politics as sports, game and scandals rather than focusing on the political issues.

Att använda sig av virtuella tv- och dataspel inom rehabilitering är ett relativt nytt medel som det finns begränsat med forskning inom. Syfte: Uppsatsens syfte är att beskriva till vilket ändamål virtuella tv- och dataspel används inom rehabilitering och vad det ger för utfall. Metod: En systematisk litteraturstudie användes som metod i uppsatsen. De databaser som använts är Amed, Cinahl, PubMed och Medline (via Ebsco). De sökord som använts är virtual video game, video game, computer game, rehabilitation, outcome, movement, playthings och occupational therapy.

AbstractIn this essay, policy change and learning is studied in the case of the Social Democratic Party and their policy concerning independent schools. Their policy differs clearly from the right-wing parties. Between 1991 and 1994, the right-wing government made substantial reforms concerning independent schools. The question posed in this essay is whether the policy of the Social Democratic Party has changed as a result of these actions, and if they have approached their right-wing counterparts.Using the Advocacy Coalition Framework, defining a policy as a result of the values the actor holds, the question is studied by applying the theory's assumptions of policy-learning across coalitions. The argumentation of the Social Democratic Party, as it is expressed in official text documents before and after the right-wing government, is analysed.

Episodic gaming is a relatively new phenomenon, that hasn?t been as extensively explored as other areas in game research. In this paper we research how episodic narratives and gameplay engage players compared to regular continuous storytelling. By exploring this we get a better understanding of how to design games that captivate players to the point of them wanting to play the next episode.  A user study is conducted where ten players play two episodes each of an episodic game. We apply observations and interviews to capture a large amount of empirical data.