The aim of this thesis is to investigate and increase the understanding of a present function of today´s public library, namely the function of meeting place; here called the social function or social space. Two small town libraries are included in the study, and the questions examined are:How is this function described at the two libraries and what similarities and differences are there between the two? How can one describe the relation between how the library as social space is described in research and at the libraries? The theoretical framework used in examining these questions, consists of three different discourses in culture policy (the discourse of state, market and civil society) and theories on civil society and the public library. A summary of current research makes visible eight different aspects of the public library as a social space. These aspects functions as parts of the theoretical framework as well.

The main purpose of this master thesis is to investigate how six elderly individuals, 65-75 years old, use and perceive Internet in their everyday life. The focus in this study is to enlighten elderly people as Internet-users.In 2010 many elderly people are still digital excluded. In Europe and in Sweden efforts are made to educate citizens to use the Internet, and that benefits of the digital society should be available to all.This study is based on the following questions: what made the informants take an interest in the Internet in the first place? How and for what purpose do they use it? And how do the informants regard to their own Internet usage and its importance in society?We interviewed six people aged 65-75 years old, using semi-structured questions. The data was analyzed by using the theory developed by Hektor concerning Internet and information behaviour in everyday life.

This master thesis is a study of a new electronic library reference service-project called Speak instantly to a librarian and the purpose of the thesis is to investigate a new electronic reference service and how the librarians who work with it experience it. This should be seen from an informational society point of view. The study is conducted from two questions: - What needs do the libraries have and how do they argue for the project and the chat-reference service Speak instantly to a librarian? - How do the librarians experience the personal work situation in the new reference service, and its use of chat technology? Together with interviews of a selected group of librarians from the public libraries of Göteborg, Malmö, Nacka and Stockholm, this thesis includes aspects such as the theory of the informational society by Manuel Castells, as well as literary studies of the history of library reference, the development of electronic reference service and the virtual library, and the background and the beginning of the studied project Speak instantly to a librarian. The thesis also contains an overlook of other similar library projects in the United States of America.

Recently, there have been intense discussions about the humanities and their role in society. Internationally, as well as in a Swedish context, the humanities have been regarded to be in a state of crisis. However, these discussions usually demonstrate a lack of historical perspectives based on thorough empirical research. The notion of a crisis needs to be historicized.In this study, a case is being examined where the relationship between science and society was renegotiated. In the context of World War II, a discourse has been identified in a borderland between science and politics through an analysis of Swedish journals and anthologies during the time period 1937-1947.

The study discloses unaccompanied children´s socialization in their new society. The purpose of the study is to investigate how unaccompanied children's schooling is an important factor in their socialization and skills development in their new society. For example, we have chosen to illustrate how their school works and if and whether the teachers receive the support they need in order to help children develop their skills so they can find their way in society. The research is based on three different methods. The first method is based on literature research.

There is a lack of consensus within politics on how to deal with the so-called youth problem that exists in vulnerable areas. The politicians' positions are communicated in speech and writing and influence the majority society's attitude to children in vulnerable areas. Children are at the same time a vulnerable group in society. They are dependent on adults and need their guidance and support throughout their upbringing. In vulnerable areas live children whose health is affected by social and economic vulnerability and discrimination from the outside world. By looking into how hegemonic masculinity as norms are formulated in Swedish political documents, in relation to experiences of stigmatization and violence among children from vulnerable areas, this study wishes to examine if children?s right to a life without violence is being respected in vulnerable areas.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how masculinity and femininity are constructed in the magazine Veckorevyn, through a critical discourse analysis of 18 articles from six issues in 2011. This is done by using a variety of theories and previous research results, which is gender theory, the theory of late-modern society and media theory. The analysis shows that Veckorevyn depicts virility and feminine differently. Furthermore, pointing the results from the analysis that a change of manhood and womanhood takes place in the social practice. The selection of articles from the magazine also shows that Veckorevyn seems to promote gender equality. .

As revenues from newspaper advertising plummet and their readers loyalty erode, the need to understand newspapers' changing environment and the actors involved in this change is growing in importance. Evidence is the entire industry is entering into a restructuring phase and that this restructuring is driven by the rapid consumer adaption of internet media.In this thesis I elaborate on "how the Internet is affecting the conditions for value creation in printed newspapers" and "how the Internet is affecting the conditions for other actors involved in the printed newspaper's value creation". These two questions land us in the bigger question of "Does the Internet act as a compliment or a substitute to the printed newspaper ".To answer these questions the printed newspaper is represented as the actor in the middle of content producers, advertisers and consumers. It is in its role as a means of distribution and as a co-ordinating force that we study the value creation of the printed newspaper. The empirical base of this thesis is a qualitative participant observation where the author during a period of time interacted and collected data from the open discussion in blogs by several of the industry's top influentials combined with material from seminars and reports on the current state of media.

The main objective of this paper has been to construct a way to measure the level of social capital in a society. Based on a theory which describes the ideal society have I herein tried to find out to what extent the Swedish and Danish communities correspond to this model. The theoretical foundation consist of several different levels of analysis, and I have indeed found there to be consideral differences between the two nations on these different levels. The paper however conclude that these differences even out to add up to a Social Capital Index that is remarkably similar. A result which is to be interpreted as one nation being about as close to the ideal situation from a social capital point-of-view as the other..

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to examine how The Trilogy of Pippi Longstocking, written by the author Astrid Lindgren, has been received by the critics in the Swedish daily press. A second aim is to examine how the critics could be of importance for the consecration of Pippi as a literary character. The study is mainly based on reviews from the daily press with nationwide coverage. The theoretical framework consists of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu?s theories of the literary field, and the method of the reviews is a qualitative text analysis.

This thesis is closely related to the Dynamically Self-Configuring Automotive System(DySCAS) project. DySCAS is a middleware for electronics in an automotive system. Thethesis work has been performed in cooperation with ENEA. Parts of the demonstrationplatform Self configurable High Availability and Policy based platform for Embeddedsystem (SHAPE) developed for the DySCAS project by ENEA have been used in theimplementation phase of this master thesis.The goal of this thesis was to evaluate how the Meteor MW, an offspring of the DySCASmiddleware, should handle QoS and to design a Quality of Service Manager (QoSM) for theMeteor MW that fulfilled hard real-time requirements. The thesis also had the objectiveof analysing and identifying the requirements on such a QoSM from a QoS perspective.Specifically the requirements to guarantee real-time support for applications running onthe MW.

Hemmasittare is a new term for children and youths with a history of long term truancy. As the term indicates these youths spend most of their time in their homes. This often results in them being socially alienated and the loss of their earlier social network. The consequences of hemmasittande and social alienation are many and include not only a deficient social network but also psychological and physical problems. Research has shown that many of these problems follow on through into adult life.

Media has the power to influences society. Some call them the third power of a state. Through amongst others, the agenda setting theory and the framing theory, this report seeks to understand how media describes the swine influenza and how it uses its power to influence people to vaccinate. As this report will show, there is no doubt that media has had an impact on the Swedish population of which 60 per cent followed through with the vaccination. Media used an information discourse and attempted to present its articles in an impartial manner and used governmental authorities and experts to support its arguments.

Fitting in is something that many strive for in today?s society. In order to do this, more or less all of us use impression management. The illness Anorexia contradicts the norms of society since eating is a fundamental need, and to refrain from this is therefore a major discrepancy. It is the impression management among anorectics we have chosen to put our emphasis on in this survey in which about ten people have been interviewed with a qualitative method.

This research intends to study the media's representation of unaccompanied refugee children on the basis that the media has a power in the construction of society. The focus is on whether children's vulnerability and needs are presented in the media and whether the children?s voices are heard. It is also of interest to study the agents that speak in the media concerning unaccompanied refugee children. The study is based on a theory that social reality is a construction of interaction between individuals and groups. Furthermore the study also incorporate the idea that the media, through its control of language, has power to create discourses which may affect the way different groups in society are looked upon.