The purpose of this study has been to examine online travel magazines as an information source and as a virtual service scape. The traditional travel magazines are facing a change due to the technological development and the web has become an important platform for both customers and companies. The virtual service scape opens new opportunities for interaction and we found a great interest in examining which possibilities and limitations travel magazines are facing. This study is based on a qualitative approach because we wanted to gain a deeper understanding and a complete picture of our chosen subject. We have completed six interviews; three of them were consultants, one publishing director, one editor and a research student.

With emphasis on women's magazines and men, this essay will revolve around the image of the ideal woman. Our purpose was to examine whether men have a distinct image regarding the appearance and behaviour of the ideal woman. Next step was to establish whether the women's magazines also presented a specific image to their readers.The answers were found through a qualitative study that included ten men, and through an extensive analysis by women's magazines. The result indicated that both the men questioned and the women's magazines presented a clear view of an ideal woman. The views held by the men, were then compared to the images presented by the women's magazines and were found to be very similar.We used Erving Goffmans sociological theory to describe the actual woman and the ideal images of women that the men questioned and the women's magazines presented.

Our study aims to discover how young men aged 15-19 perceive the image of men in women?s magazines. To do this we let eight young men read the two women?s magazines most read by young women their own age, Vecko Revyn and Cosmopolitan. We want to find whether they consider this image to be representative of their own reality.

The aim of this masters thesis is to examine the supply of magazines and periodicals for young people at the library. We also examine young peoples reading of magazines and periodicals and compare the librarys selection with what young people read. The main questions of this thesis are: What do young people do at the library on their spare time? What weekly magazines and periodicals do young people read? What range of magazines and periodicals do the city- and the school library have? Where is the department located and how is it designed? What kind of relationship is there between young peoples reading and the selection? To answer these questions we have done an interview with a librarian and a questionnaire among 13-16 year old children. We found that it is not often that young people read their magazines and periodicals at the library.

The purpose of this Masters Thesis is to explore the process of selection that librarians face when selecting and acquiring cultural magazines to public libraries. The methods used are qualitative interviews and literary studies. A brief review is given of acquisition policies at public libraries and of cultural magazines and the important role they play in public libraries. Five interviews have been made at five public libraries to find out what factors affect the process of selection when it comes to cultural magazines. Two theories are used as a basis for the analysis of the result of the interviews and literary studies.

I have used a discourse analysis as a method and queertheori for the theoretical. In this paper I have analyzed how different wedding magazines write about partnerships, gender-neutral marriage and wedding between homosexuals. I have for some time been interested in the beliefs wedding magazines have about homosexuality and how newspapers maintain heteronormativity implicitly and explicitly. Bridal magazines are anxious to have the marriage as a design and standard when they write about partnership. When they write about the two different forms of marriage, they glorify the religious marriage and pay no attention to civil marriage.

The overall aim of this study is to examine how Swedish women?s youth- magazines describes women. Through a social constructivist perspective, this essay particularly focuses on how the magazines deals with issues of gender and sexuality and what norms they reproduce. The magazine?s image of the young Swedish woman is a somewhat complex one, although one thing is strikingly clear: she is very different from men.

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.

Our main purpose with this paper was to figure out what makes a magazine successful. We wanted to analyze and examine factors of success for magazines, with a focus on music magazines, from a marketing perspective. Also, we wanted to see specific factors of success for the music magazine Groove. To do this, we interviewed seven people from different areas within the business with different kinds of expertise. We interviewed two people from Groove Magazine, two people from other music magazines and in addition to this, two people from a grand publishing company and also one person from a soccer magazine.

The aim of this study was to categorize and analyze articles in health magazines, how health messages about health is being described. Using a qualitative content analysis the researcher answered the aim by three research questions: What kind of health messages about health factors do the magazines describe? Do the health magazines talk about risk factors for unhealthy behavior? What kind of commercial messages do the magazines provide? The result from the content analysis showed that health magazines presented social support, self-esteem, acceptance, equality and strategies as health factors. They tried to change readers? perceptions to get a healthy lifestyle.

The purpose of this study has been to investigate the virtual world that people are part of on online dating sites. To do this we have investigated two different research questions, which are the following: What functions do the online dating sites provide? Why and how are the online dating sites being used by their members? In order to gather information about these matters, we have used a qualitative method consisting of participating observation, scrutinizing and single person interviews. Our results indicate that people have different goals with their usage of online dating sites; some are looking for love, a long-term relationship while others are looking for sexual contact. There are many different online dating sites to choose from depending on the users? objective.

Ragnarök Online en plats på nätet, ett online-spel, där människor från hela världen möts och samverkar. Det är i detta möte personer emellan som den virtuella miljön Ragnarök Online skapas. Målet med denna uppsats är att visa på hur människor interagerar i, och skapar denna plats på nätet. Varför spenderar folk tid i virtuella miljöer? Är det annorlunda att agera i en virtuell miljö? Dessa är några av de frågor vi kommer att möta i texten.

This study was a qualitative analysis of the covers of six lifestyle magazines, three addressed to women and three addressed to men. We have studied the cover photographs, the teasers and their relations. The purpose of this study was to answer the questions: According to the magazines, what are male interests and what are typical female interests? Who is the ideal man and who is the ideal woman? Is there a certain way you need to look to be able to be on a magazine cover? And how often do the magazines encourage you to consume? The study was based on thirty covers, five from each magazine. The Swedish magazines are VeckoRevyn, Amelia, Damernas Värld, King of Sweden, Café and the American version of GQ. We?ve used semiotics and rhetorical methods to analyze the material.

Purpose/Aim: The aim is to examine the cooperation between the magazine Veckorevyn and its Internet based counterpart, veckorevyn.com. The purpose is also to see if veckorevyn.com is taking advantage of Internet and its possibilities.Material/Method: There are two qualitative methods used for this study: interviews and a three-pieced content analysis. The material analyzed is the magazine Veckorevyn (number 25/2008) and the website www.veckorevyn.com during a two week period.Main results: The study shows that Veckorevyn and veckorevyn.com have several differences, but also some similarities. The result is not unexpected, since we are dealing with two different types of media. There seems to be some cooperation, though on the web it is not very visible.

The purpose of this essay was to examine what consequenses of alcohol and narcotics that youth magazines describe and how the user and addict is described. My porpose was also to examine what situations the magazines claim that alcohol and narcotics are related to.The questions for my studie was:1. How is an alcoholic/drug addict /user described in youth magazines?2. What situations are related to alcohol/narcotics in youth magazines?3.