There are widespread discussions about the use of retouched models in media, ranging from bloggers to legal decision-makers. Research shows that there are negative psychological effects on especially females being exposed to idealized, retouched model images. The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of using retouched models in advertising from a marketing perspective, based on attitudes, perceived quality and purchase intentions.Based on theories about attractiveness, halo-effects and social comparison, an experimental study was done, investigating the different responses on above mentioned parameters to advertisements showing either retouched model images or non-retouched model images. Initially it was also tested if the retouched models were seen as more attractive than the non-retouched models. The results showed almost no differences between the reactions to the advertisements with retouched models compared to the advertisements with non-retouched models, when all respondent groups were analyzed together.

Research on Stone Age hunters and gatherers in Norrland has been lively since the 1960s. Central to this research are questions about the organization of society, sedentariness, continuity and resource management. One central part of life in the taiga is the need for fire and fuel. This aspect has been little discussed in conjunction with the mentioned research questions. My goal is to show that the matter of fire and fuel is an important one that needs to be taken in to consideration when discussing Stone Age Norrland and hunter/gatherers.

The purpose of this paper has been to explore how Swedish users of the file-sharing software Direct Connect perceive their own situation and the file-sharing phenomenon. In addition to ascertain what attitudes prevail in the file-sharing culture and what knowledge file-sharers have regarding the relevant Swedish legislation. The questions central to my area of interest were: - Why do file-sharers use the program Direct Connect? - What knowledge do file-sharers have of the relevant legislation in Sweden? - What attitudes prevail in the file-sharing culture? - Is file-sharing behaviour affected by an individuals experience and/or level of knowledge? I compared the results of my survey with earlier surveys done. In addition I compared categories within the file-sharing group such as gender, age, experience and level of knowledge to determine if there were any patterns within or differences between the groups.

Background: In Sweden around 6500 women suffer each year from breast cancer and during lifetime every tenth women is affected. Mastectomy (removal of part of or the whole breast) is carried out mostly in purpose to remove malign tumours or in prophylactic purpose. The breast can be rebuilt through breast reconstruction. Method: The result analysis was based on nine articles. A Manifest content analysis was used and data from the articles where divided into themes and patterns, on the basis of these categories were created.

The aim of this essay is to try to gain understanding and to get a more profound knowledge of suicide. The questions at issue were 1) What empirical factors are mentioned in the research as possible to explain suicide. 2) Which theoretical perspectives are discussed in research concerning suicide. To answer our questions at issue we carried out a selective research overview with a qualitative perspective. The primary documents that has been the foundation of this essay is constituted by nine of the leading researchers publications in the area of suicidology.

The music industry has been subject to great changes during the last ten years. The most significant factor contributing to this change is the increasing usage of broadband and thereby the increasing frequency of downloading music illegally. Music piracy and file sharing have caused record sales to plummet. Consumers have now moved on to consuming music in a digital format, not only through downloading but also from streaming music online, an activity partly made possible by social media channels such as YouTube. As the consumption patterns have changed companies within the music industry have been forced to find other sources of income than record sales and they have also needed to find alternate ways to market their artists.

That many creative workers have uncertain and uneven incomes is well-established, but how or why they make a living is not. This paper examines the elusive value exchanges between creatives, buyers, consumers, and other economic supporters, and offers a model of how creatives make a living. By mapping income statistics of Swedish creatives together with in-depth interviews some patterns emerge. This, combined with Bourdieu's theories of social, cultural and symbolic capital, and Knorr's objects of sociality, forms a basis for a structured model of value exchange. The paper shows how creative workers create economic and non-economic capital (capitalization), how they advertise this capital (signaling), and how they convert between different types of capital (conversion) in order to make a living.

The purpose of this study was to investigate what attracts children to activity and movement on the playground in a central and municipal preschool in a town located in middle of Sweden. The method was to use a qualitative group interview with five children, two girls and three boys, at the age of five. The interview consisted of a general question about what kids think is fun to do on the playground and was complemented with follow-up questions depending on what the children said. A qualitative interview with a preschool teacher and observations were carried out in the hope that they would confirm what children claimed about play and movement. This study showed a gender difference when girls like to swing together while the boys are making the swinging for a contest.

This study examines the cultural place and status of video and computer games in the Swedish public library. Using works on popular culture and the theories of Pierre Bourdieu, this study employs quantitative methods, as well as textual analysis, to analyze the results of an online questionnaire with 19 questions focusing on selection criteria, shelf placement, perceived competence, as well as reasoning for having or not having these games in the library. 286 out of the 440 libraries contacted is participating in the study, and the libraries consist exclusively of public libraries in Sweden that are found in the database of the Royal Library.The results of this study show that a larger number of libraries than previously indicated have started to provide electronic games to their patrons. At the same time, patterns in the data and comments suggests that these games in many cases still do not enjoy the same level of cultural recognition as other media. Indicative of this is the way most libraries seem to focus on the medium being exclusively for their young patrons, with seem-ingly very little in the way of investment for adults.

Injuries are considered to be a major public health issue. More than 4600 people die each year and 10 % of all hospitalization in Sweden is related to injuries. The cost in a societal perspective is estimated to 59 billion a year. Injuries are possible to prevent. However it needs knowledge that the injury has occurred and the surrounding circumstances.

The economic growth in Ireland, during the 1990s, lead to changing migration patterns. Ireland became a destination country for immigrants instead of an emigration country. Before 2004 people who were born on the island of Ireland had a constitutional right to Irish citizenship. This right was removed after a referendum in 2004.National identity is a sense of community constructed through common history and defines who belongs to the nation. The purpose of this thesis is to do a critical discourse analysis of the debate in media before the referendum.The analysis was done on texts from The Irish Times, one of the major newspapers in Ireland.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate and analyze the importance of networking and relationships in the music industry. We also want to see whether these factors have any impact on the Swedish music exports.These musings have led to the formulation of the following question; -          How can the musiclabels in the music industry make use of networks and relationships to strengthen the Swedish music exports to the U.S. and make it more efficient? The essay is written with a qualitative method with an abductive perspective. That?s because our research question has demanded that we get a deeper view of the subject to be able to answer it.The empirical data is collected through telephone or email interviews.

Introduction: Elderly people have much to gain when it comes to physical activity andresistance training. Ageing is a process that every human being has to go through. The mostimportant physical attributes changes, when it comes to handle everyday life and ailment thatusually occurs in the later stages of life. Physical activity and resistance training may help thecommon problem among the elderly, when it comes to cope with issues of pain and strenuouseveryday life that occurs under this ailment. Objective: To identify a senior citizen´sperception about physical activity and attitudes about resistance training.

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 Bachelor?s thesis is to explore the useability of bibliometric analysis on scientists of the humanities. This is accomplished by doing a case study on philosopher Slavoj ?i?ek. The work process and the results the case study is able to produce and the limits of these results are then analysed and discussed.In the case study all scientific articles in English published 1987-2010 citing ?i?ek were analysed.