Purpose/Aim: This study is an analysis of the view on masculinity, male sexuality and creation of identity with the television series Queer as folk as a base. The analysis is partly based on a Semiotic analysis of the representation of masculinity and male sexuality from an episode of the chosen television series Queer as folk, and partly based on a thematic analysis of focus group discussions with young men with different sexualities.Material/Method: This study is based on focus group interviews and a semiotic and thematic analysis. The focus groups consisted of three men in three different groups and were chosen on the criteria of gender and sexuality. All groups were presented with an episode of the television series Queer as folk to see how they perceived masculinity and male sexuality. Their discussions were analyzed with a thematic analysis and the television series Queer as folk with a Semiotic analysis.Main results: The three analyzed characters in Queer as folk showed different representations of masculinity and male sexuality.

Purpose/Aim: The aim with my study is to reveal changes in the construction of gender in weekly press over time. To do so I study the picture of the woman on front pages of the Swedish magazine Veckorevyn.Material/Method: Qualitative research method, semiotic picture analysis.Main results: There have been a lot of changes in the picture of the woman in Veckorevyn over the years and the results points to a more objectifying picture. The woman has gone from doing something and actually having a role, to simply being there to be looked at, all passive..

ABSTRACTTitle: Elle & Café ? a study of fashion magazines cover pages.Number of pages: 38Author: Greta SimonssonTutor: Amelie HössjerCourse: Media and Communication Studies DPeriod: Spring Semester 2008University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala UniversityAim: The purpose of this essay is to:? Analyze the cover images from the 2007 editions of the magazines Elles and Café, using Semiotic analysis.? Analyzes eventual resemblances or differences between the two magazine's cover images based upon the result of the Semiotic analysis.Material and methods: The study of Elles's and Café's cover pages has been done using a model built upon Semiotic analysis, developed with the purpose of suiting observation and examination of cover pages of fashion magazines. The cover pages were analyzed from the categories character, context, and environment.Main results: The main results include the observation that both Elles and Café chooses well-known figures from women's fashion industry as prime characters on their covers. In Elles, all main characters are famous women emerging from the music, television and fashion industries. The women in Café are known for similar professions.

Title: I saw it on Facebook ? Youth presentation of self on FacebookAuthors: Nicole Dreher & Anders SkoglundPresented: 01.06.2010Purpose: The purpose of this thesis was to examine how the, in the study, participating youths make their presentation of self on their Facebook profiles.Methodology: The method used in the thesis was a social Semiotic analysis focusing on the social semiotic concepts: semiotic resource, semiotic potential, affordance, denotation and connotation. A social Semiotic analysis of composition was also used with the purpose to gain a deeper knowledge of the social semiotic affordances of Facebook?s composition.Theoretical perspectives: The theoretical base of this thesis consists mainly of Erving Goffman?s theory on presentation of self in everyday life as well as relevant theories to youth culture in sociology and identity in social psychology.Conclusions: The results show that the youth?s presentations of selves mostly takes place in their profile picture, status updates, groups, fan pages and through their communication with other users on their wall. The borders between front and back stage on Facebook entirely depends on the norms that the reader expects the profile owner to uphold.

Today, we live in a consumption society. We buy products to soothe our needs and desires. Thru material things we can express our own personal identity and shopping is seen more as a pleasure than a need to survive. With the background media- and communication studies, the reason of this study was to explore how blogs as a social medium can influence the consumption ideal in society. With dialogical analysis and Semiotic analysis we wanted to see if we could find a specific consumption culture in the content of six blogs we did our studies on. We found that the blogs showed us that there is normal to have everyday luxury and spoil oneself with expensive things.

This paper sets out to investigate how companies can create advertisement that focus not only on selling but also on entertainment. The research is based on seven TV-commercials produced by the Swedish food chain ICA. The commercials were analyzed according to the methods of discourse analysis, Semiotic analysis and rhetorical analysis. Furthermore, the research compares the analysis made with the thoughts and ideas of Tobias Karlsson, Head of marketing and communications development at ICA to find out how the comprehension of the commercials correlate with the original intentions made by the company.The study shows that ICA creates a commercial that contains the perfect mix of rhetorical approaches, communication strategies and entertainment mixed with gravity. The study also shows that ICA fails with its primary goal which is to sell selected products; however, by producing the entertaining commercials, they manage to strengthen their brand.

The first ad was published in Sweden 1645. Advertising itself is not a new phenomenon, it's just the conditions that has been changed. Today, advertising is a matter of course in our daily lives, every day we are exposed to thousands of messages that wants to persuade and convince us to consume. In this paper, we have looked into the semiotic and rhetorical tricks that are used for this particular persuasion, and we have investigated whether they have changed in the last 60 years or if the same tricks are still being used today. Our two hypotheses is: A) the rhetorical and semiotic basis of an ad looks the same today as 60 years ago.

This study examined by content analysis and semiotic picture analysis how gender equal the UK newspaper The Times, the U.S/Iranian nespaper Iran Times International and Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet were May 1st 2009 and May 8th 2009. The study had a foundation of feminist theory about patriarchy and gender theory with a contribution of research about race and its impact on patriarchy.None of the three papers were fully gender equal. Even though Svenska Dagbladet was found to be the most gender equal when it came to the number of women represented all of the newspapers examined showed patriachal structures since women more often than men were described as victimes, trivialized, incompetent and inferior.  People with a race other than white were in minority but patriarchy seems to be a stronger form of oppression than racism. White men were in majority and were less opressed than other groups and were because of that most in favour of the newspapers symbolic powers..

The purpose of this paper has been to examine various ethnic stereotypes in two Swedish film adaptations of Astrid Lindgren?s character Pippi Longstocking. I have used a semiotic content analysis and postcolonial theory to investigate: 1) how the ethnic groups are represented in the different materials, 2) if there is a hegemonic relationship between the foreign group and one?s own group, 3) whether there has been a "decolonization" during the twenty years that separate the two films. This study has shown that, in the 1949 adaptation, primarily Africans were produced in a negative light and as biologically inferior in relation to the whites.

Modern societies are generally becoming increasingly capitalist in nature and economies of these societies are thus likely to become more focused on consumer consumption. Advertising plays a vital role in contemporary society where we, as consumers and citizens, are surrounded by it everywhere we look and everywhere we go. This puts pressure on advertisers to become more creative and to explore new ways of marketing their products and services in an already saturated environment. We believe that the added pressure and the already established role of marketing in society make advertisements an interesting and telling object for analysis. This is particularly the case with regards to the concept of selling and marketing products that have qualities that are known to be less than beneficial for our health.This paper analyzes four commercial advertisements marketing beer; a product that we argue has qualities that can be seen as potentially bad for the health of individuals and for societies.

The purpose of this essay was to analyze rhetorical features of Swedish drug advertising and see if drug advertising could be misleading or not. The study was primarily concentrated on how pills were described and that was the overall picture of pills created in commercials. The essay uses theories of narrative, semiotic, argumentation and theories concerning social communication in advertising. In this study fife TV-ads were analyzed: Alvedon, Ibumetin, Treo, Bamyl, and Ipren. The analysis showed that drug advertising has the potential to be misleading mostly because the overall picture of pills which creates in commercials is strong and kind heroes. .

The purpose with this thesis is to analyse images in the confirmationbook Via Mystica from a gender perspective. By using two different ways to analyse the pictures, a content analysis and a semiotic picture analysis, the result was as follows: The pictures of men an women fortifies the construction of gender. The girls in the pictures are represented as caregivers and comforters, while the boys are represented as strong and tough. The four pictures from the semiotic picture analyses showed how easy it was to categorise the men and the women in the photos in opposing stereotypes. The women are percieved as weak and submissive while the men were either strong criminals or a strong hero.

The purpose of this study is to see how men, women and children are made ??in the Ikea 2014 catalog, this from a gender perspective. It will also examine if gender stereotypes are seen and how equal the people in the images is produced.This essay is studied on the basis of gender theory and theories about stereotypes and how men, women and children are prepared in advertising and commercials. The method that was used during the analysis process was a qualitative semiotic method. The analysis tool that was used from the semiotic method was denotation, connotation and metonymy.The result of the study shows that the major part of the pictures that was analyzed was gender stereotypical and that a few of the pictures showed some kind of equality between men and women, both between grow ups and children.

Title: The representation of gender: A semiotic study of Tom Ford's Gucci campaign 2003 and Frida Gianninis Gucci Campaign 2013.Number of pages: 73 (79 including enclosures)Author: Sara AndréassonTutor: Anne-Marie Morhed Course: Media and Communication Studies D (2IV091) Period: VT 2013 University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Informatics and Media, Uppsala University.Purpose/ Aim: The aim of this study was to examine the representation of gender in advertising that has both men and women as the primary audience. The aim of the study was to investigate how Gucci has chosen to represent men and women in their advertising campaigns 2003 and 2013.Material/ Method: A Semiotic analysis was performed by using three images from Gucci's spring/ summer campaign for Tom Ford in 2003, and three images from Gucci's spring/ summer campaign for Frida Giannini in 2013.Main result: The results showed that there was a clear difference between Ford and Gianninis ways of representing women and men in the two advertising campaigns. The women in Fords campaign 2003 are presented as sexual objects and represented by the male pornographic imagination and portrayed as sexual eye-catchers while the men are portrayed as addicted to sex. Frida Gianninis advertising images is a contrast of Ford pornographic portrayal of women. Giannini presents women as confident individuals while the man is represented as feminized and androgynous in his appearance. .

The purpose of this thesis was to examine if users of digital music games may acquire skills from the games that may be of use in learning to play a real instrument, that is a non-digitally simulated instrument like an acoustic piano. We have used Gee?s theory regarding a possible interconnection between different semiotic domains, and how this connection may enable a transfer of skills between related domains. In this thesis we examine possible skill transfer between the domains ?digital games? and ?non-digital instruments?. To examine our question formulation we chose to conduct a pilot study from which we collected both quantitative and qualitative data.