Title: Identity and self-staging in the blogosphere- A qualitative (text and semiotic) study of the fashionblog ?iMilk?Number of pages: 55 (excluding references and appendix)Author: Lea KaufmannTutor: Göran SvenssonCourse: Media- and Communication Studies DPeriod: Spring term 2013University: Uppsala UniversityPurpose: The purpose of this master thesis is to theoreticallyinterpret contemporary identity in the web by analyzingthree fashion blog posts created by Signe Siemsen.The analysis is based on theories regarding identity andself-staging in the network society. The work aims tohighlight the relatively fresh theme "Internet as anidentity-creating and identity-seeking platform" andexplores ways of using a blog in order to create a virtualidentity. The study calls for more in-depth research andfurther discussion.Material: The material consists of iMilk, a Swedish fashion blogwritten by a 21-year-old girl. The blog existed betweenSeptember 2007 and March 2010 and three posts,namely from September 2007, April 2008 and October32008, were analyzed based on theories regarding identityand internet by Manuel Castells and John Sulers.Method: The following thesis is based on a qualitative discourseanalysis and a semiotic image analysis.Main results: The thesis you are about to read shows clear signs ofhow the creator behind iMilk, Signe Siemsen, is using herblog to construct and highlight selected parts of herpersonality and to define the person she wants to be andbe seen as.

Lifestyle magazines portray women in different manners and have an influence on how media consumers create self-images. The importance of knowing how different visual representation of the female acts out in magazines with large target audiences is therefore of weight for the magazines? readers to understand. This thesis analyze how the two lifestyle magazines ELLE and LOVE portrays women in images and how they in turn create ideal images of women.The thesis has been conducted through a qualitative analysis of 5 images from each magazine that represents the magazines artistic styles. The theories used in this study are semiotic image analysis and visual text analysis viewed from a gender- and discourse perspective.The conclusion of this thesis is that ELLE portrays women as strong, happy and feminine, with at tendency towards androgyny, while LOVE describes women as inferior and sexual objects constructed for the male gaze.

The portrayals of women in lifestyle magazines has been a continuous subject in genderresearch, but have mainly been focused on research about heterosexual women. However, how women are being portrayed through editorial content in an LGBT magazines have shown to be a gap in gender research.The purpose of this study was to find out how female identities were portrayed in theeditorial content in the LGBT magazine QX ? Sweden?s largest magazine aimed atmembers of the LGBT community in Sweden.The analysis of the material was conducted through a semiotic and a narrative analysis. Patterns and reoccurring themes were selected, and furthermore were analysed againstfeminist theories and views such as queer theory, radical feminism and post-modernfeminism.Four different gender archetypes derived from the result of the study: The strongfemale, The passive female, The stereotypical female, and The intimate female. Thestudy did show that women featured in QX magazine were portrayed throughheteronormative patterns, although the magazine represents a larger alternative group..

The purpose of this thesis was to examine the relationship between feelings and visualizations of climate change. A case study was done on visualizations of climate change from a web page concerning climate change published by the Swedish newspaper Expressen and from the American photographer Gary Braasch?s web page ?World view of global warming?. The thesis is based on the article ?Emotional anchoring and objectification in the media reporting on climate change? by Birgitta Höijer.

Title: What are you doing - A study in the Swedish Armed Forces marketingAuthors: Johanna Hillforth & Linda OlanderTutor: Josef PallasPurpose: The purpose of this thesis was to analyze the communicativefunctions as the Swedish Armed Forces uses in its marketing communications.Method and material: The used method in this study is a qualitativesemiotic content analysis, and the material analyzed is five ads from five oftheir latest advertising campaigns.Main results: The results of the study have shown that the Swedish ArmedForces primarily uses three of the four communicative functions in theircommunication, by being of informative, expressive and affecting nature..

This article evaluates the narrative and it´s didactic role in historiographic textbooks for schools. The primary study is a comparing qualitative analysis of the narrative in the different textbooks. The result leads to a pedagogical discussion based on Kieran Egans theories about cognitive tools, and how they shape our comprehension. The theoretical background defining and discussing narrative as a concept is partly based on a semiotic view, part linguistic. The main conclusion of the work is how the narrative seems to be a product of discourse in the ways the textbooks differ at the most from each other; Broken down, how the role of the writer and the reader and their conception of the world take part I a significant comprehension of the stories told in history textbooks..

I?ve chosen primary to analyze commercial form of advertising by world leading companies; McDonald?s, Coca-Cola and HP due to their implementation of global advertising. The fourth campaign that?s being analyzed is not of commercial type instead it?s characterized as an informative campaign that the ideal organization Amnesty is carring out.  The study has been successful in gathering data that could be presented in correlation with already established theories and then comparing the results. The goal of the research is to create an understanding regarding global advertising as well as the scientific debate that?s going on within the subject.

According to law all Swedish authorities must express themselves using correct, plain and comprehensible language whenever they communicate with the citizens in order to make it easy to understand what needs to be known to participate in the Swedish democratic society. I would like to explore if there are more tools than the language that could be used to make their communication easier to comprehend, in this case images and stories. In this essay I will investigate the relationship between the written words and the visual components ? images and illustrations ? in brochures from Swedish authorities. I will also try to identify possible narratives in the brochures, and examine the functions of these narratives.

The Barbie doll is an icon filled with meanings; this thesis discusses the Barbie doll and herfeministic potentials and subject positions using a discourse analysis. The thesis analyzeswhat sort of femininity Barbie portraits in magazines, web series and films about her.Theories being used originate mainly from gender and queer studies, where the focus is on theperformative constructions of gender and femininity. Since the material mostly consists ofmoving images some influence is taken from feminist film theorists and semiotic theory,which focuses on signs and their meaning. The thesis centres around the questions: how isBarbie?s femininity challenged, strengthened and constructed in different types of mediaabout her produced by Mattel? And is there any feminist potential in Barbie?s subjectpositions in these media forms?.

The purpose with this essay was to see how the mathematic books showed sexual roles in pictures and if they confirm or deny the traditional sexual roles that school shall counteract according to the curriculum, Lgr11. The questions I focused on were this:How sexual roles are introduced on the pictures in the chosen mathematic books?What are the similarities and differences between the presentations of the gender in the chosen education materials?I used a semiotic method to analyze my pictures. The central parts of my theories were how we think that gender is created using characteristics and attribute. In my analyze I found out that the pictures in one of the book series showed more stereotypic sexual roles than the other book series did..

The purpose of this master?s thesis is to examine from a psychoanalytic point of view how Mare Kandre narrate the complex process when girl becomes woman. Earlier theoretical work concerning Mare Kandre is sparse and limited to narrow cut-outs of her authorship. There are two dissertations, but none with Kandre and her unique fictional works alone in focus. Most frequently she is presented as part of different groups of authors.

With a new digital world that runs parallel with our physical one, we are also facing a new type of architecture and new materials that this new architecture is built on. In this thesis I examine pixels and vectors, two of the digital materials used to create pictures. By approaching them as digital materials, I have mapped their different qualities, when and where one or the other is more or less applicable and the reason behind it. My main research question asked was the following: Are the (digital) materials challenged outside their primary fields of application, and in that case, in which way? With this question in mind, I carried out a semiotic picture analysis on four pictures, later on dividing them into four different categories, based on their different qualities and their ability to deliver information.

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.

Inför detta examensarbete hade båda författarna enligt dem själva mött relativt lite bildteori i skolan. Eftersom teorin har varit så pass central på högskolan väcktes ett intresse för frågan: Hur arbetar bildlärare på fältet med teoretiska begrepp och bildanalys. Begreppet vi har valt att arbeta är semiotik och hur bildlärare arbetar med detta. Vi har varit ute på fem högstadieskolor och intervjuat fem bildämneslärare. Vi har valt att göra detta med semistrukturerade intervjuer. För att få insikt och kunna behandla våra frågeställningar har vi använt oss av litteratur som berör ämnet semiotik och semiotik i bildundervisning.

For the sender of television advertising, it is important to utilize content that gives effect, especially to get the receiver?s attention and then maintain it (Hägg, 1998). What is the content of a commercial that creates effect? Previous research focused on the impact that commercials have on the receivers. A discussion of which content that produced effect in commercials does not occur.