The potential of information technology as a means to invigorate democratic practise is constantly under discussion. Regardless of the differing opinions as to the most suitable way to utilise IT, there are certain democratic core values that have to be considered. One of these is freedom of information, defined by us as the right of every citizen to seek, obtain and express information. The aim of this study is to explore whether the use of IT as a means to enhance democracy can strengthen the citizens right to freedom of information. As an instrument for analysis we use an article by Jan van Dijk, professor of communication science.

In this study, I have examined the previous Social Democratic government?s communication with the voters, focusing on its promises during election campaigns, and the presentation of achieved results. The theories used are the mandate- and sanction theory; the first focuses on voters comparing manifestos to find the most agreeable, whilst the latter concentrates on voters evaluation the work of the previous government, to either discharge or support it. For the sanction theory to work, voters must have the necessary information to evaluate the government in progress. The question is; did the previous government provide the voters with such information?This has been done through scrutinizing the Social Democrats? election manifestos that was used between 1994 and 2006, to examine what the party promised to achieve in economics and the labor market.

Detta examensarbete handlar om social fostran i skolan ur ett elevperspektiv. Syftet med studien har varit att förstå elevers uppfattningar om social fostran i skolan. Vi har genom kvalitativa intervjuer frågat fem gymnasieelever om vilka upplevelser de har av social fostran i skolan, vilken form av social fostran de önskar att skolan använder sig av samt hur de upplever relationen mellan social fostran och en god arbetsmiljö. Elevernas upplevelser visade att läraren har en central roll och att relationen mellan lärare och elever är grundläggande för elevernas moraliska utveckling. Likaså önskar eleverna att lärarna ska vara goda förebilder och med ett tydligt förhållningssätt visa vad som är ett acceptabelt beteende.

The objective of this study was investigating social worker?s perspective of how alcohol consumption can affect, and what elements in the social environment that may be of significance for, alcohol consumption and development of identity. The questions at issue were: Do social workers experience any positive effects from alcohol consumption in 16-17 year-old girls with problematic alcohol consumption and what influence do the effects have on self esteem, self image and development of identity? What do social workers experience are the negative effects from alcohol consumption on self esteem, self image and development of identity? How important do social workers find the social environment and how do they believe the social environment affect the alcohol consumption and development of identity? This was investigated with a qualitative approach from a social worker?s perspective, hence social workers were interviewed. The study?s theoretical basis was Symbolic Interactionism and Erikson?s theory of Psychosocial Development.

 The main purpose is to investigate the main fea-tures of the discourse in the social medias about the legal view on cimes and criminals.                                                The special questions that are investigated are:1)    What specific features characterize the discourse in the social medias?2)    What are the legal restrictions for the freedom of speech on the Internet?3)    What attitudes can you find among lawyers towards the discourse in the social medias?4)    Are there grounds for presuming that the discourse in the social medias can effect the judgement in a special case?         .

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine the information needs of gay, lesbian and bisexual adolescents? when they are coming out. I also examine what kind of information they seek and where they might find this information. The purpose is also to examine what role the public or school library plays. The study is conducted through qualitative interviews with gay, lesbian and bisexual adolescents?.

This essay is about persons who have had social assistance and the individual?s experiences of social assistance. The focus is on how the individual develops in a new life situation and if and how they are motivated to get out of it. The essay has an individual perspective where the relation between society and the individual is important. The result is based on four qualitative interviews with a hermeneutic perspective.

The aim of this Masters thesis is, partly, to examine the information needs of lesbians: what discernable information needs they have, how they seek information and which information sources they use. The purpose is also to examine what part fiction plays regarding the information needs mentioned above and how fiction indexing could improve retrieval. The study is conducted through ten qualitative interviews with lesbians as well as through textual analysis. The theoretical framework includes queer theory and theory concerning information needs and uses. The results indicate that lesbians have evident information needs that mostly concern identity.

The purpose of this research was to examine what motivates and influences an individual to invest in a project or company through equity-based crowdfunding. The intention was therefore to identify internal and external motivation factors and examine how external social factors such as the Internet, other individuals? investment decisions and interaction in social groups affect an individual when he or she invests through equity-based crowdfunding. The results showed that both internal and external motivation factors are important components of an investment through equity-based crowdfunding. External motivators proved to be for example yields and helping entrepreneurs.

The power of the meeting is a qualitative study primarily examining how homeless men and women and social workers experience the meeting between them. The homeless are the more vulnerable part in these meetings so their experience of these meetings is my focus in this study. I have in this paper also examined and analyzed how and whether homeless women and men tends to be treated and ad-dressed differently with basis on their gender. The main results I have found is that the homeless but also social welfare officers actually feel that there is com-municative problems when the parts meet and cooperates which often results in conflicts and lack of trust. I have chosen to highlight a number of factors that have been claimed as the main reasons for the experience of a poor meeting.

The thesis ?Vi fixar och trixar oss fram till att hjälpa människor? focuses on social work in the field of prostitution and human trafficking in Sweden. Through semi-structured interviews with social workers in the municipalities of Stockholm, Göteborg and Malmö working with persons selling and buying sex, and through discourse analysis, the author analyses the perceptions among these social workers of the relation between human rights, prostitution and human trafficking, and the social work which they conduct.The thesis concludes that although the social workers perceive prostitution and human trafficking and social work in this field as human rights related, they are not explicitly using a human rights based approach in their work.The thesis concludes that the social workers identify several aspects that infringe on the rights of their clients in relation to the human rights principles of Universality, Non-discrimination, Accountability and Rule of law and the principle of Participation and Inclusion. They portray the human rights situation of street based sellers, especially those not being Swedish citizens and those affected by human trafficking, as severe.The thesis concludes that the social workers find several obstacles (legal as well as structural) that diminish their ability to strengthen their clients? human rights situation.

Undersökningen handlar om bemötande inom hemtjänstarbete. Centrala begrepp i uppsatsen är bemötande, kommunikation och social interaktion. Uppsatsen bygger på kvalitativa intervjuer samt deltagande observationer där resultatet grundar sig på information från personal och personliga tolkningar. Informationen innefattar egna tankaroch erfarenheter från personalen om hemtjänstarbetet och om de centrala begreppen. Syftet med uppsatsen är att se hur de olika möten mellan personla och omsorgstagare fungerar och hur man går tillväga för att få en fungerande kommunikation.

The aim of this research is to evaluate whether the social environment of Swedish high school students affects their views on the multicultural society. The research material was collected through the use of two focus groups containing high school students from two different schools, one group is used to a multicultural social environment while the other group is used to a less multicultural social environment. With the researcher acting as a moderator in the focus groups, the students discussed different questions regarding multiculturalism, gender equality and religion. The theory that this research is based on suggests that the social environment and the social capital affects the students views on the multicultural society. The results of the research were evaluated and connected to the theory.

This essay deals with risk management and social risks, which have received increased attentionin recent years. Methods for dealing with social risks, for example within local Risk andvulnerability assessment (RSA), are currently under development. The purpose of this paper is toexamine if and how social risk can be quantitatively assessed and mapped using GeographicInformation Systems (GIS). The definition of social risk that the essay is based on states: "Theprobability of unwanted events, behaviors or conditions originating in the social conditions thathave a negative impact on the objects that are worth to preserve.? A number of social riskindicators that can be used for a spatial analysis have been operationalized based on thisdefinition.

The aim of this essey was to find out what kind of help problem gamblers can get at social service offices in the region Västra Götaland in Sweden. We also examined the knowledge regarding gambling problems at social sevice offices and who the head of the social service offices regarded having the responsibility for the question of helping problem gamblers. As a last question we wanted to know if the size of the population in the community had an impact on these questions. Central questions in our essey asked are:How much help does the social service offices in the region Väsra Götaland offer problem gamblers? Who has the responsabilety to help problem gamblers according to social service offices?What knowledge does the social service offices have concerning problem gambling?Does the population of the community have an impact on theese questions?This is a quantitative study made as a webbservey to the head of the social service offices in the region Västra Götaland.