This essay will try to analyze how Syria?s official news agency, SANA, describes events taking place in Syria in the days between 1.4 and 18.4.2012. This will be contrasted with how BBC and CNN describe the events. These other two news agencies were chosen, because they represent media from democratic countries in Europe and the USA. This rebellion became a full scale civil war over time.

This thesis examines young people's thoughts about their presence on social media. With asocial constructive approach the study focused on how young people think and act on socialmedia in relation to constructions of gender and normality. The analysis is based on fourgroup interviews with 13-year old boys and girls. The theoretical approach is based partly onsocial constructionism where discourses and ideas of normality are identified and analyzed.Erving Goffman's theory of social interaction was central to illustrate how young peoplepresents themselves based on the prevailing discourses. It is clear that they adjust theirrepresentations of themselves depending on the context.

This master thesis is about art activity in the public library. The essay takes its starting point from Government cultural political directives and my purpose has been to study how these are followed up in the municipal level. My survey takes place at the main library of Flen in the county of Södermanland. What I am looking for is, what the art activity looks like, what is decided regarding it and what the strategies are. Furthermore I look into how library visitors understand and participate in the art activity.

The purpose of this study was to examine how a local newspaper, Landskrona Posten, describes the youth that commit crimes. More specifically the aim was to see what kind of discourse the newspaper had about the young criminal and to see if that picture could create and confirm stereotypes. The theory and method used in the study is a discourse analysis. The study was based on nearly seventy articles that were published in Landskrona Posten in 2006. Three items were identified in the newspaper's description of the youth.

On the 17th of January 2002 the Swedish government presented a bill to theSwedish parliament, proposing ways of strengthening the Swedish democracythrough reforms for increased elements of participatory democracy. A publicreport on the state of the Swedish democracy had been released two years earlierwith similar enthusiasm for participatory democracy. However, the participatoryideals of these two documents were strongly criticised by a group of scholars.The aim of this thesis is to analyze and compare the arguments articulatedbetween the years 2000 and 2002 by the actors mentioned above, and to examinetheir relation to arguments concerning political participation, articulated bythinkers from previous times. By classifying the arguments into different groupsdepending on their content I find that both parties in the Swedish argumentationfocus on the effects of participatory democracy on political equality, on theefficiency of the political decision-making and the quality of the decisions beingmade, and finally on the personal character of the citizens. Among the argumentsarticulated by thinkers from previous times, similarities with the Swedishargumentation can be seen as well as important differences.

Många PR-konsulter anser att mediebilden av PR och lobbying är negativ och att branschen skildras som manipulativ och dold. Det finns dock en annan uppfattning som går ut på att verksamheterna inte framställs lika negativt som för tio år sen, att de har naturaliserats. Uppfattningarna är motsägelsefulla. Syftet med uppsatsen har varit att undersöka om de stämmer överens med den verkliga mediebilden av PR och lobbying (aktiviteter och utövare), och därmed också få en insikt i om olika aspekter av verksamheterna har naturaliserats. En jämförelse har gjort av DN:s och SvD:s rapportering senhöstarna 2000 och 2010 genom en kvantitativ och kvalitativ innehållsanalys.Resultatet visar att mediebilden är mer negativ 2010 jämfört med 2000. Någon egentlig naturalisering kan inte skönjas.

Med FN:s konferens om miljö och utveckling i Rio de Janeiro 1992 fick handlingsprogrammet Agenda 21 och begreppet hållbar utveckling en enorm internationell uppmärksamhet. Samtidigt bröt Agenda 21 dokumentet mycket med tidigare insatser på miljö- och utvecklingsområdet i det att medborgarnas direkta deltagande i beslutsfattandet uppmuntrades. Tio år efter Rio hade 70 procent av landets kommuner antagit en lokal Agenda 21 i kommunfullmäktige och en folkrörelse hade startat där politiker, tjänstemän och eldsjälar involverade allmänheten i studiecirklar, direkta dialoger och övergripande kommunalt planeringsarbete. På detta sätt gjordes underifrånidealet till en demokratifråga där tjänstemän och politiker överlämnade delar av förvaltningsorganisationens maktutrymme till allmänheten. Under senare år finns dock en tendens som pekar på att arbetet med hållbar utveckling blir alltmer toppstyrt och att underifrånperspektivet gått förlorat.

This is a study about the relation between the Swedish school and the political system of Sweden. I wanted to see if the relation had changed since the election of 2010 as it was in that election the Sweden Democrats got over five percent of the votes and took seat in the Swedish parliament. The thing that is unique about this election is that it was really the first time a right-wing party had been elected into the Swedish parliament. Many experts argue that this is the first xenophobic party that has been elected into the Swedish parliament. This led to a problem for schools and their principals and a difficult question to answer because xenophobia is contrary to the school?s core values and the school?s democratic mission.Should the school still be open for political parties? How do schools manage to distinguish between political information and political propaganda? If parties still are welcome into the schools, which parties should be allowed? The equality ombudsman has said in a report that the schools have to comply with the principle of objectivity, which stipulates that the public sector has to be unbiased.I have chosen to make use of a qualitative method because I think the study then gets a deeper understanding of the topic.

This paper is based on observations made in the classroom, interviews and studies ofliterature.The observations that I made during my practical training period made me believethat pupils with writing and reading problems succeeded more often with the methodsof teaching used in media education than with more traditional teaching methods.Through this study I hope to specify and define the factors that were the reasons for this. In doing so I wanted to show that you could adapt the teaching methods to reach more pupils with different kinds of learning styles.I have come to the conclusion that the following factors made the pupils with writing and reading problems succeed more often in subjects related to media education:Variety, time spent, the pupils? interests and the equipment used..

This study analyzes the political view of criminality and crime politics in three political parties in the Swedish parliament, Socialdemokraterna, Folkpartiet and Moderaterna. The study seeks to describe which kind of view these parties present on the criminality in our society. The material for this study is the ideologies that the parties descend from which are, socialism, liberalism and conservatism, the political programs of these three parties have also been studied as well as the parties proposals, political documents in the Swedish parliament. The current public debate shows that the crime politics is an attractive question and the parties may seem to have similar proposals on how to lower the criminality in our society. The theory that has been used to describe the results of the study is ?actors and structures? and the results are related to this theory as well as the theory has been used as an instrument to explain and sort the material and the results.The results of the study show that the parties are different in their views on criminality as a problem in our society.

Nerikes Allehanda publicerade år 2007 konstnären Lars Vilks teckning av profeten Muhammed som rondellhund. Publiceringen följdes av en debatt i media angående yttrandefrihet.Vårt syfte är att presentera klarhet i debatten och den metod vi har valt att använda är en beskrivande idéanalys. Vårt analysverktyg är fyra dimensioner där vi har kategoriserat tidningsartiklar efter åsiktsinriktning för att urskilja idéer som från början inte varit självklara.Då ständig diskussion om demokratiska värden är viktigt har vi även valt att fråga oss huruvida denna debatt har tillfört den svenska demokratin något värdefullt. För att besvara detta har vi utgått från Ulf Petäjäs forskning om yttrandefrihet.Vår undersökning visar att yttrandefrihet är ett värde som många verkar ta för givet, samt att det saknas kunskap om detta värde, vilket i sig inte är bra för demokratin. Avslutningsvis efterlyser vi mer forskning i ämnet, då denna okunskap kan bero på avsaknaden av detta..

The relationship between the government and organised interest in Sweden has changed. Formally considered as a good example of a corporatist state the country during the last 15 years or so experienced a more pluralistic system. This thesis is a qualitative study which discusses how interest groups seek to influence decision makers and policy thru lobbying and public opinion. It also examines how interest groups work with advertising and public relations in a changed climate of mass media. The main method of gathering material has been done thru interviews of representatives of different interest groups.The results of the study paint a picture where the interviewed organizations experience a vast competition in communication and information.

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 purpose of this essay has been to study if all the districts in the city of Malmoe get to be seen in the city?s biggest newspaper, Sydsvenskan. Is the reporting proportional? What images is the newspaper offering the citizens? Do they match the reality? Or are some parts of Malmoe in the dark, in a media shadow?Research done in the past has shown that Stockholm in many ways is in a media shadow. The same pattern was shown in Gothenburg.

AbstractWhy don't (some) regimes with formal democratic features undergo transition to democracy? Which are the internal dynamics of these regimes that can offer comprehension to this state of affairs? The main purpose of this thesis is to advance the above questions, and, on a lower level of abstraction, examine the case of Egypt. The Egyptian regime is characterized by, for instance, a multiparty-system, steps toward economic liberalization, and some level of persistent state opposition, and has been considered on the way to liberal democracy, but can still hardly be estimated as such.Thus, the thesis takes part in a theoretical framework on democratization, and further analyzes the case of Egypt on grounds of socioeconomic development, political culture, and class configuration. By this contextual approach, the thesis adduces that a low level of modernization, an incomplete democratic political culture, and a bourgeoisie supported by the state are impending significant factors. The thesis additionally remarks on the interconnection of the adopted theories, and discusses a potential need for new theoretical propositionsA secondary aim of the thesis also gives some insights into the concurrence of regime stability and the absence of democracy in, what often could be labelled, authoritarian regimes.