The aim of this paper is to study whether the way directioners (One Direction fans) on Twitter express self-understandings denote fandom as a sacred experience. For this purpose, the data was analyzed in relation to Nicholas Jay Demerath III typology of the varieties of the sacred experience. The method used was discursive psychology. The data was analyzed by how the fans draw the line between ?us? and ?them?, when expressing their self-understandings and their position in relation to others. Five themes were identified: (1) positioning and demarcation for membership, (2) group identity, (3) conflict, (4) the norms for behavior, opinions and language and (5) the group?s role and function.

The purpose of this study is to get increased knowledge of young people and their experience and thoughts about existential questions, and if the adults in Junior highschool take them into consideration. Our purpose to look at the result in a gender perspective was also a part of this work. Our starting point is the theory of youth, their existential questions and the importance of their identity-work in the late modern society. We interviewed six youth at the age of 15-16. We used hermeneutic theory to analyse the text.

This essay is based on seven lifestoryinterviews with people who are undergoing orhave undergone a long asylum process. Four women and three men have contributedwith their stories about their experiences of waiting for a determination of theirapplication for residence permit. The main aim of the essay is to give betterunderstanding of how to be a refugee and a long asylum process affects people's abilityto narrate and thus examine their opportunities to be active in the construction of theirown identity.The questions that are debated and discussed are:? What can it mean for an individual's identity to escape her country and for a longtime wait for decision of asylum?? What stories can be told?? What reality are highlighted as central in the stories?? How do they handle their situation and give meaning to their lives?The analysis is based on two main theoretical perspectives: narrative theory and identitytheory. The approach is that people create meaning of events through storytelling andthat they through this process of narrating construct (and reconstruct) their identities -the self image as one have and wants to present to others.In the analysis three different types of stories are distinguished, stories that arerepresented in the empirical material: the story that can not be told, the story that mustbe told and the story that are gladly told.

Blogpics ? young girls views on photography online Young people create new forms of social interaction on the internet, and in Sweden, especially young girls, have become very active bloggers. Girls write, publish pictures and build networks with, mostly, other girls.  This new phenonomen has been described in Swedish media partly as a problem, where adults are worried that the information the young girls publish about themselves is too personal, and can be used for the wrong purposes. It has also been suggested that the content of young girls blogs has little value, beeing mostly narcissitic, superficial and obsessed with fashion and shopping. The purpose of this paper has been to investigate how young girls reflect upon their photographic communication on the internet.  The idea has been to ask the girls themselves about their own experiences, to get a more complete picture of them as internet users, to investigate their communication strategies and solutions when it comes to net integrity  and to talk about how they create gender and identity online..

The purpose of this study is to examine how a particular niche in tourism can attract international visitors to a certain destination. To do this, the Swedish food culture was used as a tool to find out how it is marketed to attract international visitors to Sweden. International visitors today wants to find destinations with a rich culture, authentications and traditions to get closer to the destinations identity. The study examines how three of the biggest companies, who works with the promotion of Sweden to an international audience, using the Swedish food culture as a marketing tool. We find that the visitor would like to get closer to the Swedish identity, which the Swedish food culture helps with..

Cultural organizations set on capitalizing on artistic ideas are subject to an industry specific economic condition that requires a balance of art and commerce; two opposites reflecting credibility and non-credibility. Hence, commercialization of the cultural industries implies non-credibility in an industry insisting on symbolizing the opposite.This study aims to demonstrate how cultural industries can attract a wide audience, while maintaining credibility. This is done through the perspective of folksiness since its context indicates the existence of credible commercialism.The study demonstrate that credible commercialism is part of folksiness and is possible thanks to the folksiness context that 1) utilizes attributes that balance and disarm "negative attributes" creating an atmosphere of acceptance and 2) meets the consumer's need fulfilment of identity through individualism and belonging, and 3) contains attributes that increases loyalty..

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine boys?/young men?s forming of masculinity and gender identity and how discussions around gender stereotypes and conceptions represents themselves in contemporary youth novels. Gender theory based upon R.W. Connell?s theoretical framework which discusses masculinities in plural is used.

This study is primarily an account of my examination work in archival science which took place in the archive of Margareta Böttiger, the state epidemiologist at the Swedish Institute for Communicable Disease Control Stockholm. The records are from Böttigers period of work, mainly divided into three parts, polio, HIVS/AIDS and vaccination. Of these I have focused on polio with was the area she got renowned for. Moreover, owing to the uniqueness of the material this study has focused on the properties of the archive as a working-life archive which I propose as a special type of personal archive with unique attributes. To summarize, a working-life archive has in comparison with other personal archives a more fluid process of archiving where the profession is important, not the personal production of records.

This essay focuses on Finnish immigrants living in Sweden and their experiences of educationof literature in Swedish upper secondary school. It concerns the fact of how education ofliterature can be used to strengthen students? formation of cultural identity. The essay tries toidentify obstacles as well as possibilities in the teaching of literature with a view to deepenand enrich this process. The method consists of a phenomenological approach includinginterviews with a group of Finnish immigrants living in Sweden.

In recent years, the Internet has exploded with different kinds of social media, where a significant function is to share your life in text and images. This changes how we form our identity, our religious identity included. The aim of this paper was to study how Instagram forms a space for the creation and development of religious and spiritual beliefs. For this purpose, Instagram updates from five women with yoga oriented Instagram accounts have been analyzed in relation to two theories: Paul Heelas? och Linda Woodhead?s theory of a spiritual revolution and Heidi Campbell?s theory of networked religion.The aim of the study was to explore how these women presented themselves in their Instagram flow and what part religion and spirituality had in their presentations.

The purpose of this thesis is to study how today?s consumer society can be understood from ananalysis of the phenomenon Every Day Carry (EDC). The aim is thus to problematize the daily useof the artifacts that surrounds us and investigate how these can be understood as networks of humanand non-human actors, aswell as identity- and meaning-making practices in today?s consumersociety.The theoretical and methodical framework is built upon an eclectic variety of consumptiontheories,Michel Callon?s, John Law?s and Bruno Latour?s work on Actor-Network-Theory,Discourse analysis inspired by Michel Foucault, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe and anethnographic methodology specifically adapted for online research. The empirical material consistsof photographs and commentaries from two EDC blogs aswell as commentaries regarding EDCfrom a commentary field on Youtube.com.

The purpose of this essay was to examine the packaging design´s communications related to the colloquially brand's symbolic capital and how they became meaningful through experience and perceptions that led to the identification processes in the consumer society. There were eight interviews of snuff users who became my main collections materials. My theoretical framework was discourse psychology´s emphasis on language and Bourdieu´s concept provided important tools in the analysis of the material.I could highlight that packaging design and the brand had influenced the informants and given them symbolic beliefs and what it meant to sniff a certain brand. Color, brand awareness and price were crucial in choosing where the informants attributed themselves the cans symbolic values to their identity. It could be inferred high and low status perceptions based on stereotypes in the design itself..

Schyman?s legs in Let?s Dance as a communication strategy- a case study of ?Feministiskt initiativ? in the election campaign 2010.(Schymans ben i Let?s Dance som kommunikationsstrategi, en fallstudie om Feministiskt initiativ i valkampanjen 2010).Author: Joanna Morell, Tutor: Ann-Marie Morhed2009 was the first time where Swedish political parties were entitled to have TV- commercials, another sign of political communication taking one step closer to the strategic marketing communication. A type of communication that also is expensive.The Swedish political party Feministiskt initiativ (Fi) have existed since 2005 and is not yet a part of the Swedish parliament. They have not been entitled to the economic support that is given to Swedish parties with more than 2,5 percent of the votes in the last two elections. As a result Fi is completely dependent on economic contributions.

Personer med autism behöver ha människor runt omkring sig som förstår dem, vilket kräver kunskap både om autism och om den specifika individen. För att kunna uppnå detta behövs ett fungerande samarbete mellan föräldrar och personal. Syftet med denna studie var att jämföra personal och föräldrars syn på personer med autism. För att undersöka detta genomfördes 10 intervjuer som analyserades med meningskoncentrering som analysmetod. Resultatet visade att föräldrar och personal betonade olika delar av störningen.

AbstractBackground: Countries can be seen as brands (nation brands) with brand values that transmitto the country?s products. Country-of-origin (COO), the brands nationality, links the productto an associative network of cultural shared national stereotypes. Through associating thebrand with a country or a region, the credibility of the brand can increase and strengthen thebrand. Therefore COO is used in marketing to position a brand.Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine how luxury fashion brands communicatetheir national identity through analyzing their advertising.