The intention of this thesis is to examine "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and its position and functions in the public sphere. Particularly interesting aspects are like the linking of private and public issues, the show's potential as a forum for debate and dissemination of knowledge, and what types of criticism the show has been subjected to. The methods used dealt with the textual aspects of the show. Semiotic analysis and conversation analysis were applied to five episodes and a search of literature was made. The thesis rests on theories concerning television studies and talk shows, in addition to theories on modernity and identity.

On-call work has increased substantially in the past 20 years in Sweden, not least in the public sector and most notably in health and social care. This thesis argues that the increase has considerable influence on the prospects of on-call workers in the public services to act as guardians of democracy. Based on theories of Lennart Lundquist, the results of this study show that on-call workers suffers from inferior opportunities to act as democratic guardians in particularly two matters. First; they have fewer prospects than standard employees of professionalism due to lack of education and capacitation. Second; on-call workers have inferior opportunities to protest against wrongs, due to no real formalized possibilities to inform and due to transactional psychological contracts.

The public administration and its officials have a number of values which they have to relate to in their work. The values are a set of democratic and economic values.This study?s purpose is to examine how the officials at the National Insurance Office in Sweden give priority to these values. The study is performed by interviews with officials at two insurance offices.The study shows that the officials in a high degree value the democratic values legal security and public ethics. In turn they experience that productivity, which is an economic value, is being promoted in a high degree from the management.

The environmental monitoring in Sweden has been developed by several different parties and is now being coordinated and made more effective in order to meet the current demands on high quality information regarding the state of the environment. Sweden has been divided into five different water districts based on watershed areas because of requirements in the Water Directive of the EU. In Sweden there are two common types of environmental monitoring programs used to gather information on changes in time and in space. Currently both these two types are used for lakes in the water district of the western sea but only one is used for watersheds. The purpose of this report is to supply basic information regarding the possible need for a second environmental monitoring program for watersheds in order to better describe the spatial variation within the district as well as to determine the number of samples necessary in order to describe the district over time and space.

Ten years ago the public computers with Internet access were introduced in the public libraries. The purpose of the public computers was to give the possibility of searching information. Along with the Internet came also communication media like chat and e-mail. This type of communication was a new function for the libraries and the reactions among the librarians were mixed. It has been a source of big frustration and attempts to block it has not succeeded.

This essay investigates how the chapters of the interwar and the Second World War have changed in the high school history textbooks during the period from 1944 to 2008. In the study eleven history textbooks have been studied, most quantitatively but also qualitatively. For example the number of pages and rows devoted to different subjects and countries are compared in the books over time. The result of the study shows that there are some big changes over time but in most sections there are also big differences between the books, which make it harder to draw general conclusions. There are a lot more names, pictures and dates in the newer books compared to the older ones, although the number of different names is about the same in all the books.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine attitudes and standpoints amongst librarians at the Swedish public library towards literary awards and awarded literature. The questions posed in the study are: What attitudes are expressed amongst these librarians towards the Nobel Prize in literature, the August Prize and literary awards and awarded literature in general? What significance do the Nobel Prize in literature, the August Prize and other literary awards have concerning purchase and display at these public libraries? How is awarded literature perceived and how do they talk about it concerning quality and are questions of quality significant? Qualitative interviews with seven librarians at four different public libraries have been done. Theories regarding J?rgen Habermas the bourgeois public sphere and Pierre Bourdieu?s terms habitus, field and capital have been used as to explain the library as a public sphere.

In the 1940s the Swedish town planning was inspired by the English city development with the concepts of neighbourhood and community planning. In order to promote democratic development and solidarity the ideal would be to create community centers with full service. Community centers are part of the building of the suburbs during the postwar period. The buildings in Sweden from 1940 - and -50s were built with the intentions to be good homes for all regardless of income, class and status. Collective solutions to individual problems were characteristic of the Swedish policy during this time.

Title: By what strategies is the old media using the new media? A qualitative essay on TV: s use on social mediaNumber of pages: 54Authors: Marie Magnusson och Sabina KarlssonTutor:  Karin FastCourse: Media and Communication Studies CPeriod: Spring 2011University: Karlstad UniversityPurpose/Aim: Our purpose is to examine which strategies and why two TV-channels, SVT and TV4, are using social media. Our anticipated view is that SVT as a public service organization and TV4 as a commercial operator may have different motives with its use of social media.Material/Method: A qualitative method consisting of interviews by informants from SVT and TV4.Main results: Our result is that there isn?t any big difference between SVT and TV4 in the way they?re using social media. However, that SVT has to more specifically make sure no commercialism exists, while TV4 don?t have to think about it.Keywords: Social networking, convergence, commercialism, communication, Internet, public service, television..

The aim of this study is to describe and analyse the creation and the design of a new public library. In order to concretize this, the study sets out from two examples, the public libraries in Simrishamn and Landskrona. The material used to attain the purpose of the study consists partly of interviews, partly of literature on the subject. To be able to put these two libraries in their historical context, the essay also provides a short overview of the development of public library buildings in Sweden during the 20th century. Another aspect that is discussed is the actual procedure of planning a public library from scratch.

The aim of this Bachelor´s thesis is to describe the phenomenon ofmarketing. Four public libraries in the County of Kalmar have beenstudied in the aim to obtain information on their current marketingin the autumn of 2004, as well as their view of marketing and itssignification in connection to a vision that the Regional Library inKalmar has established. The vision is that the County of Kalmar isgoing to be the best Region of Libraries in Sweden in the year of2010. Target markets for the vision is the general public, studentsand entrepreneurs. The study has done a landing at an early stage ofthe vision, the starting point of which was in the year of 2001.

Water connects heaven and earth. Water is the most obvious element of nature. To move in water is for me more than cooling of on a hot summer?s day. It is about freedom and the feeling of being above the state of things.

The purpose of this master?s thesis is to investigate children?s access to specific children?s activities at Swedish public libraries 2005. The thesis is based on literature studies and qualitative interviews with children?s librarians, library directors and local politicians at two demographically different libraries in Gothenburg.The sub questions are: What measures exist to promote children?s access to public libraries and children?s activities when it comes to: law and other political statements: different efforts on the state level and different efforts on the municipal level in the direct activity with children at public libraries? What driving forces and needs justify activities for children at public libraries? How will the responsible persons judge that the efforts are sufficient? The result of the study shows that children?s access to library activity has increased in the last couple of years due to reorganization, economic savings with closing down of library affiliates and because libraries have given priority to other things, like IT and new media. Children?s librarians have got new assignments and less time for children?s activity.The conclusion of our investigation is that children?s librarians are ambitious in their work, but unfortunately don?t give children?s library activity adequate resources.

The theory of deliberative democracy believes in collective decision-making to achieve an expanded legitimacy and rationality in the political process. It is argued that those good public dialogues best take places in public spheres between citizens, where the common interest is carefully thought about. This thesis was done with the assumption that theatre can strengthen the idea of the public sphere and create a meeting place in the civil society, where a good public dialogue can appear. To create a good public dialogue you need citizens that are corresponding and participatory. Citizens who participate in the political process develop an increased knowledge about the society and the more knowledge about the society the larger reason to participate.

This Master thesis is about how to involve young people in a creative process. The aim is to see what methods can be applied to make them reach the kind of knowledge they need to be able to contribute to the creation of a memorial place. Issues such as if a place that displays death has a right to exist in an urban environment or why young people should be involved in the creative process are brought up and discussed in this thesis.The memorial place that the young people contribute to is unique, in some sense, due to it not commemorating any special event or person. The purpose of the memorial is rather to serve the public when larger catastrophes occur or to serve individuals who do not have a grave they can visit to commemorate their loved ones. The idea is to place the memorial in an urban setting in the city of Borås.In this thesis the process that the young people participate in is reported in a form similar to a diary where the reader can follow the developments of the young participants, from how they gain knowledge to how they develop their ideas.