In February 2002 the European commission put forward a proposal for a new directive on The patentability of computer-implemented inventions, but which during my work on this essay has not been decided on yet. The directive has divided the decision-makers in the union, the commission and parliament, into two different positions regarding by which range computer-implemented inventions should be patentable. The parliament has amended the commissions proposal in a substantial way and the legal process has caused a heated debate both within the unions administration and among various interest groups both in favour of and against a patent on computer-implemented inventions. The loudest protests have come from a group that feels threatened by a possible software patent: Open Source. In this study I examine both the arguments by the decision-makers and by the lobbying for and against the proposal.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the subject matter of visual communication in presentation brochures of two Swedish regions: Region Halland and Region Dalarna. My focuses are the following questions: what is the aim of the brochures and in what ways does the visual material relate to that aim? How can strategic communication be defined through a visual perspective and in what ways is it useful in the context of presentation brochures of the regions? What sort of communicational functions are specific for the visual material in relation to the written language of the brochures? Lead by these questions, I start by analyzing the brochures through a textual analysis and a social semiotic approach. The result shows that the aim seems to be both political and commercial, but that the visual elements relate more strongly to the commercial aim than to the political aim by the way they strive to present a positive image of the region. The visual elements work in strategic ways that I define as visual strategies.

This essay studies how advertisements in various anti-smoking campaigns can influence and persuade by using anti-logos as counter-arguments to the tobacco industry's logos. In contrast to tobacco advertising arguments such as freedom (logos), pleasure (pathos) and trademark (ethos) the anti-smoking campaigns create anti-logos arguments with various connotations such as repulsive pictures and sexual implications to influence groups of people not to start smoking or to quit smoking.Advertisement of tobacco does not exist nowadays due to legal restrictions in the western world; however several decades of myths created in the consumer consciousness still exist. Thus one can speak of a tobacco advertising ideology that exists and the various anti-smoking campaigns trying to change that ideology.The purpose of anti-smoking campaigns is to conduct a kategoria of myth that tobacco advertisement has created over the years. Anti smoking organizations do this by creating a new ideology to affect consumer?s attitude toward smoking and the tobacco myth with an anti-myth.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka hur Internet fungerar som arena för alternativ offentlighet och för kommunikativa utövningar om mode- och skönhetsideal. Avsikten är att förstå hur Internet, och i synnerhet bloggen, fungerar som en plats där man kan tillämpa alternativa praktiker på.Undersökningen fokuserar på svenska modebloggar som skiljer sig från mängden, det vill säga de privata bloggar som innehållsmässigt sticker ut och är nischade. De alternativa modebloggar som väljs ut för studien jämförs med Sofi Fahrmans (Aftonbladet) och Ebba von Sydows (VeckoRevyn) bloggar. Anledningen till att valet kom att falla på just Fahrman och von Sydow är att båda är välkända moderedaktörer som ofta figurerar i svenska medier; i TV, tidningar och på Internet.Uppsatsen bygger på såväl beskrivande som komparativa innehållsanalyser av sex modebloggar och kompletteras med en öppen enkät som besvaras av ett antal strategiskt utvalda modebloggare. Syftet är att, genom att skapa en bakgrundsbild kring fenomenet modeblogg, få kunskaper om hur modebloggar upprättade av medieföretag samt privata och alternativa modebloggar skiljer sig åt.

Attityders betydelser är en undersökning som syftar till att skapa en förståelse av hur attitydgestalter fungerar i en debattsituation genom att analysera hur ickeverbal retorik såsom kroppsspråk, blickar och gester samspelar med det som uttryckligen sägs. Forskningsobjektet utgjordes av en tv-debatt i SVT Agenda mellan Gudrun Schyman (Fi) och jämställdhetsminister Maria Arnholm (Fp) kring den såkallade ?lönefrågan?, om hur politikerna ska verka för att lönerna i Sverige ska bli mer jämställda mellan kvinnor och män.Analysen visade att Schyman uttrycker många starka negativa attityduttryck som skapar en konflikt i debattens diskursdynamik. Dessa attityduttryck i kombination med vad Schyman säger till Arnholm gör att de båda debattörernas ethos och maktpositioner förändras, där Schyman får ett övertag i debatten som hon kan utnyttja för att till slut vinna den.Frågor som kan vara intressanta för vidare forskning är om Schymans konfliktskapande attityduttryck kan generaliseras till andra retoriker och med vilket syfte det i så fall verkar ske. Sådan forskning skulle kunna nyansera den retorik som framförs i politiska debatter och indirekt bidra till att granska dessa ideologikritiskt..

Gendered reading has a history of intense debate and negotiation. In this essay I will examine how feminine and masculine reading was construed in the early 19th century through three Swedish texts that all give a didactic, moral and instructive opinion about gendered reading. They consist of an advice manual, a collection of letters and a periodical featuring an assortment of suitable reading material, all published between the years of 1808-1815 and directed to a female audience. As the male sex was generally considered the invisible, desirable norm and the female sex tended to be viewed as deviant and problematic, gendered discussions are inclined to focus on the latter. I will argue that female reading is largely construed in relation to the bourgeois marriage while the male is construed in terms of citizenship.

Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att klarlägga hur de politiska partierna formulerar sitt budskap i tv-reklam inför valet till Sveriges riksdag 2010.Teoretiska perspektiv: I denna studie används teori om politisk kommunikation, reklam och marknadsföring. Metod: Tre olika metoder användes vid denna studie. Två typer av visuell analys: bildanalys och filmanalys samt en retorisk analys.Empiriskt material: Avsändarna av filmerna som granskats i denna studie är Moderaterna, Kristdemokraterna, Socialdemokraterna och Miljöpartiet.Resultat: De svenska politiska reklamfilmerna använder sig inte av personkampanjer, dvs. de egna politikerna framträder inte alls i filmerna annat än som speakerröster. Resultaten visar också att filmerna skiljer sig åt gällande musikval där Moderaterna och Kristdemokraterna använder sig av mer välkända låtar än de övriga partierna.

The purpose of the present study is to investigate mindfulness as a New Age phenomenon in the modern western society. Since a religious phenomenon does not exist in a vacuum, but is dependent on its historical and cultural context, my aim is to give a broad depiction of mindfulness and New Age in its wider context, the historical background and the societal implications of common values, themes and concepts that are frequent in the literature, how mindfulness is presented by the authors of popular literature and also how it is presented in science. In order to bring forward a deeper understanding of New Age and mindfulness? role in the modern western society, my intention is to see how the authors of mindfulness claim validity of their doctrines in the discourse. Mindfulness attracts a wide range of perpetrators and is used in many areas in the society today.

In order to convince, one must know which arguments are most suitable for the specific situation. But even if you think you know how others will react to your arguments, you may be wrong. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to find out a way of examining to what extent informative text take account to the subjective views of their addressees. The theoretical framework is Blitzer's theory of the rhetorical situation, pragmatic theory of speech acts and their presuppositions, Burk´s theory of consubstantiality and phenomenographic theory of subjective perceptions. Methodologically, phenomenography has also been used as a guideline for selecting informants, collecting data and processing the interviews.

The crisis on Wall Street. This essay is a comparative study of how two business newspapers report on the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings in September 2008. Seven articles from the Swedish European financial newspaper Affärsvärlden (Business World) and five articles from the Chinese-Asian news agency XINHUA FINANCE are examined. The aim is to analyze, understand and evaluate from a rhetorical perspective. My thesis is that rhetors storytelling can tell us more about how we cope with crisis in the global economic discourse. The texts can portray man as a narrative creature when identification as a rational actor is not enough. The analytical methods used are linguistic analysis with an emphasis on metaphor analysis, narrative analysis based on pentad - Critical dramatism, and discourse analysis with doxological outlook. The results show that both newspapers seek to defend the global economic discourse, but they do so in different ways. Affärsvärlden advocates calmness and conveys a cautious attitude. The heart of the crisis, as well as its solution, is on Wall Street. XINHUA advocates control and expresses confidence in authorities and the system. Asia is presented as Wall Street's savior..

In the years between 2012 and 2014, Burma has been shaken by waves of violence against Muslims which has resulted in destroyed mosques and shops, at least 140 000 displaced and 200 killed persons. The person who is said to lay behind this violence is the Burmese Theravada monk Ashin Wirathu. Being the founder and leader of the radical Buddhist movement 969, he has been accused of indirectly motivating violence against Muslims and has been portrayed with titles such as ?The face of buddhist terror?. This essay investigates the relation between Wirathu and the anti-Muslim violence by applying the method of content analysis on a speech of him.

Posters had their breakthrough in 1830-1840?s all thanks to the lithographic printing technique. The poster was used as an advertising tool.In this essay, we have looked at which semiotic and rhetorical elements that are found in today?s Swedish movie posters. What kind of image and text elements does the poster use and with what function? With what and how do they persuade the audience that the movies are interesting and worth seeing?We have taken the most popular Swedish movies between 2001 and 2010, one for each year, going by the statistic found at the website of the Swedish Film Institute.

The aim of this study was to examine how sports journalists used religious metaphors when covering football during the time span of the study, and how the athletes were portrayed as a result of the usage. The aim was also to study if the usage differed between the two newspapers chosen for the study, one of which is a morning paper (Dagens Nyheters sport section) and one which is an evening paper (Sportbladet).To answer our questions we used a quantitative and a qualitative method, the later of the two was based on a metaphor analysis. The quantitative method consisted of a content analysis where different variables were examined. The time span of the study is articles from one year.The results show that the religious metaphors were used in many ways. Some religious metaphors, such as ones including the word miracle, were more prominent than others.

I valupptakten hösten 2010 fick Sverigedemokraternas två valfilmer oerhört genomslag i media, och hade inte mindre än en halv miljon visningar på Youtube, på bara några få dagar. Denna här uppsatsen undersöker vilka strategier som ligger bakom ett sådant genomslag i media. Frågeställningen försöker besvara vilka verklighetsbeskrivningar som TV4 respektive Sverigedemokraterna (SD) ger i sitt pressmaterial angående lanseringen av SD:s två valfilmer, och vad de får för effekter.Uppsatsen analyserar nyckelord som används, vilken ram de sätter på situationen och om SD använder sig av anti-etablissemangsstrategin. Den diskuterar också omkring problemformuleringsprivilegiet, det vill säga att den som formulerar frågeställningen alltid äger tolkningsföreträdet till den.Uppsatsens slutsats är att SD:s strategi vid lanseringen av valfilmen var att synliggöra och förstärka avståndet mellan SD och etablissemanget, såväl till politiska partier som till media. SD använde sig av de egna problemformuleringarna massinvandring och censur, som i sin tur skapade egna ramar, till vilka enbart SD hade tolkningsföreträde.

Sammanfattning Utgångspunkten i den här studien har varit lärarens muntliga kommunikation och hur den kommer till uttryck i den konkreta undervisningssituationen med fokus på skolämnet idrott och hälsa. Pedagogisk forskning om lärande och ämnesdidaktisk forskning brister ofta i att hänsyn ej tas till lärarens roll och dennes muntliga kommunikation i undervisningen. Området är relativt outforskat vilket är förvånande då lärarens främsta redskap är hennes tal. Syftet med den här studien var att ge en bättre förståelse för hur lärares muntliga kommunikation kommer till uttryck och om ämnets karaktär är av betydelse. För att ta reda på detta har jag använt mig av en kvalitativ forskningsansats med intervjuer och observationer som undersökningsmetod.