Title: When municipalities are keeping upAuthors: Hansson Käll, Ida; Jonasson, MikaelaTutor: Waks, CarolineCourse: Bachelor thesis, 15hp, Department of Business Studies, HT 2010Background: During the recent years social media has evolved into a powerful communicative medium. From an organizational standpoint social media has become a way for organizations to get closer to, and create a dialogue with, their environment. Swedish municipalities have began to use social media in their daily communication with the environment, but a problem has been raised about how public organizations should organize their social media when formal guidelines from the government are missing.Objective: The objective of this thesis is to examine how eight Swedish municipalities have organized their use of social media due to the lack of official guidance from the government, and also what difficulties that have occurred during this process.Method: The method used is qualitative with data collected through interviews with one respondent from each municipality.Results: The result show that the organizational solutions varies through each municipality but also the choice of social media. It has been important for municipalities to have someone in charge of the new communication tool since social media is a fast and communicative channel. Seven out of eight municipalities have already developed or are in process of developing their own formal guidelines on how to use social media.

This essay is about the hostility towards strangers and foreigners within a Swedish historic context, not only towards foreigners coming from another country, but also directed to people within the Swedish society among the ethnic Swedes themselves. From their accounts of the concept I will discuss why and how this hostility towards strangers has developed and been expressed when they were younger, but also how they perceive the phenomena today as it express itself..

Purpose: The purpose of the essay is; to explain and clarify how the company is acting to lead members in social media to achieve valuable external communication. The authors believe that it is important to act with credibility and quality in social media, to accomplish long lasting relationships. When employees communicate with consumers their conduct is relevant to the company's credibility.Methodology: An inductive approach has been used for the empirical data collection since the authors have been studying the reality without existing theories. A qualitative research method has been used for collecting the empirical material. Primary data was collected from telephone interviews with seven companies, active in social media.Conclusions: The study shows that the power of employees? can be used when designing strategies for social media.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att belysa hur vallöftesgivandet ser ut påkommunal nivå. Mer konkret studeras antalet vallöften partier avger,vad för slags vallöften som avges och hur relationen ser ut mellanvallöften utfärdade av olika partier. Jämförelser sker mellan olikakommuner, mellan olika partier och med den nationella nivån.Tidigare vallöftesforskning har i princip uteslutande fokuserat på dennationella nivån men i en svensk kontext har ingen övergripandestudie gjorts på de svenska kommunerna. Genom att appliceramandatmodellen ? den demokratiteori vallöftesforskarna utgår ifrån ?på en ny kontext i form av de svenska kommunerna hoppas dennastudie att bredda diskussionen om representativ demokrati.Valmanifest från kommunala partier i tio kommuner inom VästraGötalandsregionen studeras.

The effects of social media usage in a professional context, specifically the effects on social media usage in relation to leadership have been studied in order to determine weather or not usage can be productive for leadership in general. The study concludes that there are several benefits as well as drawbacks to leadership in using social media, but has yet to conclude weather productive or not. This study gives an overview of a relatively unexplored subject.Leadership in terms of leader, communication and group dynamics have been defined and explained in accordance with existing literature. A  brief review of computer and Internet history attempts to explain the formation and evolution of social media. Risks in terms of risks related to leadership and risks related to IT-security are taken into consideration and have been briefly explained.

Social workers in the Social Services are seen as professionals and they are associatedwith a substantial degree of freedom to carry out their work in order to interpret theSocial Services Act and make decisions. This freedom is referred to as discretion andis a central aspect of the role of the social worker. But the social worker is employedwithin an organisation that exists in an environment influenced of political decisionswhich sets boundaries to how far the freedom stretches. The general aim with thisthesis is to gain insight in how social workers within the Social Services experiencetheir discretion. Secondary this thesis also aims to explore how discretion is shapedand negotiated.

The effects of social media usage in a professional context, specifically the effects on social media usage in relation to leadership have been studied in order to determine weather or not usage can be productive for leadership in general. The study concludes that there are several benefits as well as drawbacks to leadership in using social media, but has yet to conclude weather productive or not. This study gives an overview of a relatively unexplored subject.Leadership in terms of leader, communication and group dynamics have been defined and explained in accordance with existing literature. A  brief review of computer and Internet history attempts to explain the formation and evolution of social media. Risks in terms of risks related to leadership and risks related to IT-security are taken into consideration and have been briefly explained.

Narratives about UFO:s and extraterrestrials can be regarded as part of an everyday religiosity, yet the issue has been poorly studied outside an American context, within the discipline of Religious Studies. In this paper, I therefore seek knowledge about the further development of these narratives within the Swedish UFO-movement from the 1960?s until today. Influenced by social anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss´ discussion about mythems as the smallest components of a myth, I argue that the stories which emerge within the Swedish context differ from the American ones. This difference consists of both loss of certain mythemes and the addition of others to this mythic complex.

When it comes to investigating the motives behind activism, the members of political study have a lot to say. I aimed to critiqually rewiev this in my thesis. I asked the question ?What do the actor themselves claim lay behin their decision to become motivated?? To highlight this complex dilemma, I sought to discuss new social movement theory by comparing it to reality. This includes a literate examination on contemporary political science approaches, and a study of two organisations in the south of Sweden, choosen not to despise any excisting theory, but to give it a sense of reality.

Introduction: The health for individuals with intellectual disabilities is asubject that is prioritized by the Swedish Institute for Public Health. Socialsupport has been proven to be important for health and quality of life. Despitethis fact there is no research available regarding the influence social support hason health and quality of life for people with intellectual disabilities in Sweden.Aim: To describe social support and the consequence of social support forhealth and quality of life for individuals with intellectual disabilities. Method:A litterature review of research in a defined area with a descriptive design.Systematic searches for articles were done in several databases and ultimately16 articles were chosen. Themes and categories were created with respect to theaim of this study during the analysis of the articles.

Autism är ett livslångt handikapp som ställer stora krav på familj, skola, sjukvård samt övriga personer som på olika sätt kommer i kontakt med dessa barn. Pedagoger och vårdare behöver medvetandegöras om sina föreställningar eftersom dessa styr bemötandet. Målet för behandlingen är målmedveten träning eftersom förmåga till social inlevelseförmåga mer eller mindre saknas hos såväl barn som vuxna med autism.Syftet med litteraturstudien var att belysa metoder som fanns för att främja utvecklingen av barn med autism, samt vilken påverkan dessa metoder hade på barn- vårdarrelationen.Litteraturstudien var en granskning och en sammanställning av ett specificerat forskningsområde/ämne. Resultatet visade på att vårdare som använt sig av specialpedagogik i hemmet upplevde att relationen till barnen förbättrades. Genom att familjerna erbjöds undervisning om olika metoder för specialpedagogik påverkades barnen med autism på olika positiva sätt.

The purpose of this thesis is to shed light on the various factors that influence the balancebetween the working lives and family lives of social workers. The research questions posedwere: Do social workers consider there is a conflict between their working lives and familylives? Which factors make maintaining a balance between working life and family life moredifficult and which make it easier to do so? How do social workers describe equality betweenthe sexes in their own family? Regarding methodology, the selection method is strategic andcombines data sources with quantitative and qualitative methodologies. The material collectedand via online survey, targeted to 120 municipal employees social workers in a district councilin a big city, and through interviews with four social workers in a rural community. The studywas performed using gender theory and the demand-support-control model.

Syftet med denna studie är att i tre läromedel analysera hur genus och etnicitet konstrueras och framställs med hjälp av text och bild i olika sociala kontexter. Detta sker genom en visuell textanalys av tre läseböcker skapade för årskurs Fk-3 tryckta mellan 2000- 2007. De böcker som analyseras i studien är Vi läser. Andra boken, Läs med oss. Mer om Ola, Elsa, Leo och de andra samt Kom och läs! Mer om Moa och Mille B.

Denna studie prövar och utvecklar två dominerande teorier om civilsamhällets roll för demokratiutveckling genom att belysa det avvikande fallet Hizbollah i Libanon. Teorierna representeras dels av Robert Putnams teori om civilsamhället som en arena där socialt kapital och tillit skapas mellan medborgare, och dels av Jean Cohen och Andrew Aratos teori som ser civilsamhället som en inflytandekanal mellan medborgare och staten respektive det ekonomiska och politiska samhället. Analysen består i en studie av Hizbollahs verksamhet genom linsen på de två teorikomplexen för att pröva och jämföra dessas förklaringskraft för olika aspekter av Hizbollahs civilsamhällesarbete och dess uttryck för demokratisering. Med hjälp av denna analys avser uppsatsen sedan att dra slutsatser kring styrkorna och svagheterna med de använda teorierna utifrån hur väl de förmår svara mot ett fall i en icke västerländsk och odemokratisk kontext och på så sätt komplettera och utvidga dessa med alternativa förklaringsmodeller.Studien visar att Putnams teori endast har viss begränsad förklaringskraft för fenomenet Hizbollah, och finner istället en mer tillfredställande teori i Cohen & Aratos verk p.g.a. dess syn på civilsamhället som en kanal för sociala rörelser i kraft att framtvinga politisk förändring.

People in Sweden have more and more dogs in their care, and several of these dogs are kept in kennels in back yards for various reasons. According to Swedish animal welfare legislations the need for social contact for dogs has to be met. However, there are few details presented on how to meet the need and when it can be considered satisfied. Does the dog need human contact to fulfill the need, or is the company of other dogs enough? This study aims to specify what can be acceptable when it comes to fulfilling dogs? social needs in accordance with the Swedish animal welfare legislation.