During a political election the public?s interest in politics and political journalism increases significantly. During the American Presidential election in 2012 a big amount of articles on that topic were published in two of Sweden?s largest newspaper, Svenska Dagbladet and Aftonbladet. Political journalism tends to frame politics as sports, game and scandals rather than focusing on the political issues.

The aim of this bachelor thesis is to examine the current situation as regarding the political equality in Iran. The method of this reaserch is based on a single-case studie wich grounds in secondary sources. The analysis of this paper is based on fields that concern political equality which in this study will focus on the right to vote, candidacies in the parliament election 2004 and the Presidential election 2005. A democracy theory by Jack Lively is used to analyze the political equality in Iran´s political system.The Iranian regim is strongly criticized by the goverments in the Western world and NGO´s for the situation of the democracy and the human rights in the country. Despite the criticism, Iran still continues in the same political direction, although the democracy has gained a stronger role in the political sphere.

The purpose of this essay has been to describe and compare the personal qualities that the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN) tried to associate Barack Obama and John McCain with during the American Presidential election campaign 2008. The main question to be answered is: What social and physical characters as well as what personal experiences, interest and resources did DN tried to emphasize regarding John McCain and Barack Obama during the American Presidential election campaign 2008. The theoretical starting-point has been John B Thompson?s theory of the mediated publicity and John Corner´s theory of political persona and spheres of action. Various DN news texts, in all 38 articles, have been examined by content analysis from 25th of august to the 4th of November.

Since the 1970s voting behaviour has changed. Party identification and class voting has declined. As the electorate becomes more volatile, campaign strategy and party image becomes essential. Political communication and mass media now play an important role in election campaigns. Therefore, researchers take an interest in the impact of media on public opinion.

 The 2008 U.S. Presidential elections were in many ways special, where the USA got its first president of Afro-American origin, Barack Obama. The elections will also be historical since the great use of social medias - as the community Facebook, the video sharing site YouTube and web based diaries, blogs - broke through during the campaigns. This study's purpose was to examine how a few members of the Swedish parliament described the result of the Presidential elections in their blogs. The main question - how the election results were described in the blogs - was divided into three themes, created on the basis of the blog's content.

The purpose of this essay is to examine the importance of personal election for candidates of foreign background. I made this, first, by map and comparing the candidates of foreign background in the recent Swedish and Finnish parliamentary election. Second, I analyze what conceptions candidates of foreign background, who was nominated in the 2006 municipal election in Örebro, have about the personal election. The result from the first study shows that personal election had a negative impact on candidates of foreign background in both the Swedish and Finnish parliamentary elections. The result from the second study shows that candidates of foreign background have both positive and negative conceptions about the personal election.

   Did the mass media report in a different way about the real estate tax before the Swedish national election 2006 than they did after the election? If there were differences, what could be the cause?This study aims to answer these questions by using a quantitative analysis of articles about the real estate tax published in the Dagens Nyheter (DN), the biggest morning daily. The summer before the election, the ?Alliance?, (the non-socialist coalition, launched an election promise to abolish the real estate tax. Instead they planned to introduce a low community charge.The Alliance won the election and formed a government to implement their election promise. The analysis was made on all the published articles in DN that covered the real estate tax issue. In total there were 43 such articles. These where all published between the launch of the campaign promise until the electionday and a month before the proposal was launched 19/9 2007, until the proposal was implemented in 2008. The study results in three interesting conclusions.

The number of parties in the Swedish parliament has increased from five to eight during the last twenty years. The political agenda is still based on a two-block system with the consequences that the number of parties in each block has increased. To be represented in the parliament, a party needs at least four per cent of the total votes in the election. If only one party fails to achieve that, the whole block will lose the election to the other block. This could encourage voters to vote tactically for the small parties in the block to ensure that the block wins the election.

Our social lives and where we live shape our choices in life. One of those choices is which party we vote for in the general election. The aim of this thesis is to see if there are any connections between the Swedish general election of 2010, demography, socioeconomic factors and geography. This is done with regression analysis and chosen variables. Another aim is to see where in Sweden the chosen variables aren?t enough to explain the results of the election.

This study examines whether the policy breadth and the alternatives in European politics affect variations in voter turnout between member states in elections to the European Union Parliament.The theoretical approach assumes that; a larger political polarization, an increase in EU-skeptical parties and a greater voting mobilization among groups with less means results in higher voter turnout figures. The study also consider four other variables; whether the election is held on weekends or weekdays, whether elections coincide with other national elections, whether a country has held the presidential of the EU during or the immediate term prior to the election and finally the turnout figures from national elections.The research design is based upon a quantitative analysis using data from EP elections, national elections and databases from the European Elections Studies (EES). Study unit is twelve member-state countries and their four latest EP elections (1994, 1999, 2004 and 2009). The selected member-states origin from the EU-15 excluding Belgium, Greece and Luxembourg due to their compulsory voting laws.The study found relationships between higher turnout figures in EP-elections and increase in EU-skeptical parties, greater mobilization among groups with less means, elections held on weekends, elections coinciding with other, national elections and an increase in voter figures in national elections..

This thesis sets out to investigate three questions, first, how the Belarusian democratization process has progressed since the country?s independence in 1991 to the year of 2006. Second, how the relationship between Russia and Belarus has progressed during this time and third, if and how Russia has affected the democratization process. The study has been conducted through qualitative method, mainly using books and articles as sources of information. It has been found that the democratization process in Belarus has evolved in a negative direction ever since the Presidential election of 1994.

During the 1994 Italian elections many things were new for the voters. A new election system, new parties emerging where old traditional ones were dying out because of long ongoing corruption scandals that were coming up to the surface. In all this one man, Silvio Berlusconi, a famous Italian businessman, stepped in and with his two allied parties Lega Nord and Alleanza Nazionale he swept away the nation in a never before seen election campaign. Many things have been said about the motifs and the way he prosecuted the election campaign for the Forza Italia. But what I try to see for this thesis is the awereness in the Italian print media from this particular period - how and if the debate about an in just electoral campaign existed in the country from the date Silvio Berlusconi entered ?the playing field? as he called it and up to the days of election..

The purpose of this paper is to compare the content and political message in the election posters of the political parties Sverigedemokraterna and Feministiskt Initiativ. This is achieved through a qualitative content analysis combined with text and rhetorical analysis as well as semiotics. Out of all the election posters from Sverigedemokraterna and Feministiskt Initiativ with national spread, eight were analyzed. The conclusions of this analysis are that both political parties prefer posters with high text content with the main purpose of gathering votes, and that persons were used as motives with the objective to present the party representatives and strengthen their perceived ethos..

The current election is causing a debate in the Swedish media. The parties are trying to convince voters by spreading interesting and informative messages through different kind of media. Social media has emerged as a new way of reaching voters. All the current parliamentary parties have implemented this communication channel into their marketing strategy. People have both admired and judged the channel´s applicability in election campaigns.

The aim of this study is to investigate how non-profit engagement influence voting in school election, but also how the school has influenced the pupils to vote and if there are any differences between a big and a small town.The methods which have been used for this study are quantitative and qualitative, both questionnaires and interviews. To be able to see differences between a big and a small town the study was carried out in one school from each category of town.By examine the empirical material and analyse it with theories which are used for this study we have come to the conclusion that there are no obvious differences between pupils in the big town and the small town. Pupils in both schools were pretty engaged in associations, though had the pupils from the small town some higher level of engagement. Moreover, both schools had a high participation for the election. The result of the study showed that there were no noticeable tendencies on if the pupils choose to vote depending on engagement in associations.Furthermore, both schools were very engaged in the school election indeed.