The primary purpose of this thesis is to study how political agents construct and give meaning to the concepts of democracy, representative democracy and referendums. The starting point of the thesis is the pressing issue whether or not Sweden should hold a referendum on the new EU constitution. To analyze this question my choice of method is critical discourse analysis and the topical theories revolve around democracy and responsibility.My study shows that there are three different discourses in this debate: ?the democratic process?, ?the representative democracy? and ?the concept of democracy?. However, the meaning of the concepts in these discourses varies depending on which side the political agents are on.

This research intends to study the media's representation of unaccompanied refugee children on the basis that the media has a power in the construction of society. The focus is on whether children's vulnerability and needs are presented in the media and whether the children?s voices are heard. It is also of interest to study the agents that speak in the media concerning unaccompanied refugee children. The study is based on a theory that social reality is a construction of interaction between individuals and groups. Furthermore the study also incorporate the idea that the media, through its control of language, has power to create discourses which may affect the way different groups in society are looked upon.

The purpose of this paper was that through discourse analysis look at how gender and the equality debate is created between two head debaters and commenter's on a forum. We have used Norbert Elias and John L. Scotson´s (1999) theory about Established and Outsiders to see power struggles between groups in the debate. With Jonathan Potters analysis tools in his book Representing Reality (1996) we were able to analyze the debate texts. Using discourse psychology, we were able to see how people use tactical discourse in their texts to represent themselves and the world in different ways.

The purpose of this study is to examine how participants perceive virtual agents shown on a computer display. In particular, it is explored to what extent participants transfer gender and attraction stereotypes that are commonly applied in the physical world to virtual agents. Previous related studies have often explored only text or voice interfaces, without any visually appearing agents, and here indeed found evidence for a transfer of gender stereotypes. Our hypothesis was that the addition of a visual agent interface would reinforce this effect. The results support our hypothesis that participants transfer human gender and attraction stereotypes onto virtual agents, as well as that these processes are affected by the visual representations of the agents..

The purpose of the thesis Masculinities ? Gender and its Impact on the Social conditions of individuals is to perform a critical study of how gendered norms influence the social conditions of individuals. This has been done by a problematization and the attempt to answer the question of how the hegemonical masculinity can be analyzed as a discourse, and how the structural aspects of this discourse inflict on the social conditions of masculinities.The question was divided into the analytical themes: the boarders of the discourse, the institutionalization of the discourse, the actuation of the discourse and the agents of the discourse. The theoretical frame is constituted by the theory of discourse by Michel Foucault, the theory of the hegemonical masculinity by R.W. Connell and a subversive identity theory by Judith Butler.

This thesis investigates how the optical properties of paperboard influences printing with targets in ISO 12647-2. The targets for optical properties in ISO 12647-2 are defined for paperboard without optical brightening agents and fluorescent brightening agents wich makes it difficult to reach the targets when printing paperboard containing these agents.Seven different types of paperboard, some with and some without the agents, have been printed and instrumentally andvisually measured to see if there is any deviation from the standard targets and if it shows visually.The result shows that paperboard containing optical brightening agents and fluorescent brightening agents can print with targets in ISO 12647-2 but in many measurments the difference between the types of paperboard were to small to assess. The differences between the types of paperboard in the instrumental measurements did not fully correspond with the waythe panel appraised them visually..

Purpose/Aim: The aim of this thesis was to study Sydsvenskans coverage of the police crisis in Skåne 2009.Material/Method: The study is based on 26 articles which has been analysed within the frames of Norman Faircloughs Critical Discourse Analysis..

Large retirement numbers and fierce competition of available labour, results in municipalities have to be more attractive as an employer. One way for the municipalities to fulfil their staffing requirement is partly to increase their recruitment efforts, and partly to educate their existing employees. Discussions about the supply of competence are therefore pressing within municipal activity. The aim of the study was to investigate how the concept of competence is used within a municipal administration. The method that has been used is Norman Fairclough?s critical discourse analysis, a method that allows multi dimensional analysis.

The subject of this thesis is how a suspected criminal has been described in written swedish media. The topic of the articles is the investigation of a man suspected for murder and for dismembering the victim during the winter of 2011. The purpose of this thesis is to try to answer the question of what the newspapers actually write to describe a suspect before he or she has been trialed in court. For the analyse of the articles, published in four of Swedens largest newspapers, critical discourse analysis has been used. The results have been compared with other analyses made on other cases and have been discussed with Pierre Bourdieu?s theory of action.

The Profession of Real Estate Agents has by tradition been a male profession. However during later years the profession has changed. It is now many young women that are pursuing a career as a Real Estate Agent.In the light of this background we have researched how Real Estate Agents employed by Fastighetsbyrån and Svensk Fastighetsförmedling perceive their profession from an equality perspective.The investigation has been limited to include the counties of Värmland and Närke and have been conducted by interviewing Real Estate Agents of different age and sex and the managers of the firms.The study show that the Real Estate Agents perceive their profession in a positive way and that the work is divided equal. However it emerged that there were a division regarding different real estate types in certain agencies. The Real Estate Agents believe that the gender of the manager is of no importance.

The aim of this study is to discuss the diagnosis ADHD as a meaning-making discourse that is something more than just a diagnosis with a set of symptoms. I aim to discuss that the diagnosis is productive and can be seen as a means to control and to comfort individuals. The research was based on a method consisting of an idea analysis and a discourse analysis. I am using both a discourse analysis and a critical ideology analysis as perspectives. These perspectives are also based on a general theory of late modernity.

How do the Swedish police get represented in news media and how does that representation differentiate from other media channels where the police have full control over what is said? Through a discourse analysis of news texts and extracts from the police own webpage and Facebook page, we claim that the discourse in newspapers and the discourse on the webpage and Facebook page is pretty much the same, only packaged differently..

English title: "Motivated system technician wanted" A study of the relationship between two parts in job advertisements". The purpose of this study is to describe the linguistics of job advertisements. The focus is on discursive practice and how the relation between employer and the proposed employee is created through the process of communication in job advertisements. The method concists of two parts: A critical discourse analysis using the three dimensional model for critical discourse analysis by Fairclough and a text analysis inspired by Hellspong & Ledin. 40 job advertisements were examined and the analysis revealed that the majority belongs to the category traditional job advertisement and a minority uses more than one discourse.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine the view of funding and sponsorship of culture within Swedish governmental cultural policy. The main issue is to discover changes in attitude towards funding and sponsorship of culture by comparing the discourse of cultural policy in the 1970s with the discourse of cultural policy in the 1990s. The theoretical and methological starting point is Ernesto Laclaus and Chantal Mouffes discourse theory. Another theoretical starting point is Danish cultural policy reasearcher Dorte Skot-Hansens theories of the development of cultural policy in the Nordic countries, and Norman Faircloughs, of critical discourse analysis, theory of the marketization of discourse. Four governmental cultural policy documents, two from the 1970s and two from the 1990s, are analysed through a model loosely based on Laclaus and Mouffes idea of nodalpoints and elements constituting a discourse.

The purpose of this essay is, using discourse analysis, to define how the Swedish society sees sexuality and how this is conveyed to young people. The questions at issue are; How is the term sexuality defined and delimited? How are the young people described in relation to sexuality? Are young people ascribed to different needs and qualities in relation to sexuality depending on their gender?There is previously a lot of research with great multitude about the sexuality of the youth. The research methods vary but text analysis within the subject area is unusual. The material used in this discourse analysis have been published by normative public institutions.