The aim with this study was to analyze and understand how begging is constructed as a social problem in Sweden between September of 2010 and the end of February in 2014 in debate articles in Dagens Nyheter. To do this I have chosen to use a social problems theory and critical discourse analysis to highlight some aspects in the process of defining the social problem. The study's main finding is that the construction of beggars and begging appears to be in a relatively extensive redefinition in the current situation. It is shown by, for example, a shift in focus in the discourse. For this reason, it is relevant for social work to examine how the construction progresses.

There is a lively academic debate concerning US foreign policy in the post-Cold War era and especially after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. Neoconservatism has become a cause celebre in the literature of international relations with a variety of scholars disagreeing as to its supposed impact on Washington's world affairs approach and the Bush administration's decision to remove Saddam Hussein, from power manu militari. This thesis is an analysis of the way this political ideology was interpreted in the European elite media. It will be demonstrated how a significant section of key opinion-forming newspapers of Britain, France, Germany and Italy framed neoconservatism during the administration of Bill Clinton and partly that of George W. Bush. There will be an exploration of whether and how newspapers vary in their coverage. The thesis will outline that the influence of the neoconservatives in US foreign policy can be disputed and will suggest that their ideas can be hardly considered as revolutionary ones. It will then focus on the media coverage and will show that the prominence devoted to neoconservatism by the accessed print sources is a relatively recent phenomenon. The findings indicate that the newspapers differed in their representation of the political ideology only in the period before 9/11 when they mainly discussed it in the context of domestic affairs. By contrast, after the terrorist atrocities and especially since 2003 they linked neoconservatism to US foreign policy and largely focused on it - as opposed to competing international relations theories -, representing it in a remarkably similar way. With the exception of The Times, which followed a comparatively balanced approach, they constructed it as a driving force behind George W. Bush's international politics approach and the war on Iraq. The media emphasis on neoconservatism will be attributed to different factors - such the scapegoat theory - which maybe influenced the journalistic work. The general consensus as to their understanding of neoconservatism and its supposed impact will not support the claim of a European public sphere but will be considered as a positive step towards its possible creation.

In an effort to better understand the motivations behind perceived biases in the US cable news industry, 72 hours of CNN, FOX, and MSNBC during the week preceding the 2006 congressional election were analyzed. First- and second-level agenda-setting theories are used to examine how long and in what way federal politicians are portrayed. The results indicate distinct differences in political presentations between the three networks.

What topics are discussed within the female genital mutilation debate? And who gets to speak out? Are there any prominent patterns able to detect? This thesis tries to elaborate these thoughts examining the journalistic coverage of FGM in Swedish newspapers during the year of 2016. A content analysis of all published newspapers during the year of interest sets the empirical basis, and is supported by interviews with journalists covering the issue. The dissertation holds a constructionist approach meaning that the perception of reality is constructed, and thereof differs. This approach also clarifies that there is no constant truth, but several. Findings within the empirical data are mainly discussed connected to feminist theory as well as the concept of agenda-setting, eventually involving discussions about human rights issue as a value for journalism. What is clear here is that women are overrepresented within the debate, and are depicted as strong individuals, are seldom victimized or depicted in stereotyped gender roles as opposed by scholars. Meanwhile, participating journalists are somewhat semi-aware about their own portrayals since they opine that they are focusing on representing female characters in their articles. This might indicate that the FGM debate is unilaterally represented in some ways. The result also shows a clear pattern in representing FGM in media as a global issue treating the prevalence of FGM around the world, even when a domestic perspective is used. The issue of interest is also perceived as a procedure aiming to control women and/or their sexuality in a quite vast extent, scholarly as well as empirically

This study tested theoretical propositions concerning agenda-setting by minority political groups in the United States to see if they had the scope to be applicable to American Indian tribes or if there were alternative explanations for how this group places its agenda items on the formal agenda and resolves them. Indian tribes were chosen as the case study because they are of significantly different legal and political status than other minority groups upon which much of the previous research has been done. The study showed that many of the theoretical propositions regarding agenda-setting by minority groups were explanatory for agenda-setting by Indian tribes. The analyses seemed to demonstrate that Indian tribes use a closed policy subsystem to place tribal agenda items on the formal agenda. The analyses demonstrated that most tribal agenda items resolved by Congress involve no major policy changes but rather incremental changes in existing policies. The analyses also demonstrated that most federal court decisions involving Indian tribes have no broad impact or significance to all Indian tribes. The analyses showed that both Congress and the federal courts significantly influence the tribal agenda but the relationship between the courts and Congress in agenda-setting in this area of policy are unclear. Another finding of the study was that tribal leaders have no significant influence in setting the formal agendas of either Congress or the federal courts. However, they do have some success in the resolution of significant tribal agenda items as a result of their unique legal and political status. This study also contributed to the literature concerning agenda-setting by Indian tribes and tribal politics and study results have many practical implications for tribal leaders.

Depuis le milieu des années 1980, la construction européenne est entrée dans une phase d’accélération quivoit l’affirmation de l’Union européenne comme un espace de décision politique à part entière, dont lesprérogatives et les interventions deviennent toujours plus palpables au niveau domestique. Cette thèseexplore les conséquences de ce processus sur la compétition électorale. Le questionnement de ladistinction populaire entre effets « directs » et « indirects » nourrit une réflexion sur les mécanismes parlesquels les partis sont affectés et nous conduit à conceptualiser l’intégration européenne comme unealtération de l’environnement et de la structure d’opportunités des partis, à travers l’européanisation despolitiques publiques et la mise sur agenda de nouveaux enjeux. Cette perspective permet à la fois de mieuxintégrer dans l’étude des partis le tournant interactionniste des recherches sur l’européanisation, etd’enrichir l’analyse en l’inscrivant dans des cadres théoriques depuis longtemps éprouvés pour étudier lespartis et la compétition politique. L’européanisation de la compétition électorale en France, en Allemagneet au Royaume-Uni entre 1986 et 2009 est étudiée au prisme des opportunités et des contraintes découlantde l’intégration, puis des réponses apportées par les acteurs partisans à différents niveaux. Notre enquêtes’appuie pour cela sur l’analyse d’un vaste corpus de documents, de données et de littérature, notammentsur la couverture médiatique des questions européennes, les orientations européennes discernables dansl’opinion publique des trois pays, l’européanisation des politiques publiques, les discours tenus lors descongrès des partis sociaux-démocrates et les programmes électoraux des différents partis. Nous observonsune européanisation différenciée, mais significative, de la structure d’opportunités des partis. En raison desrésistances déployées par les acteurs partisans qui dominent la compétition inter- et intra-partisane, cettetendance n’affecte les dynamiques de compétition électorale qu’à la marge. / European Union to establish itself as a full-fledged political space whose prerogatives and interventionsbecome more and more palpable at the domestic level. This thesis explores the consequences of thisprocess on party competition. The questioning of the popular distinction between « direct » and« indirect » effects nourishes a reflection about the mechanisms by which parties are affected and leads usto conceptualize European integration as an alteration of parties’ environment and structure ofopportunities, through the europeanisation of public policies and the agenda-setting of new issues. Thisperspective allows both to better integrate in the study of parties the « interactionnist » turn of research oneuropeanisation and to enrich the analysis by anchoring it within ordinary frameworks of parties andelectoral competition. The europeanisation of party competition in France, Germany and the United-Kingdom between 1986 and 2009 is studied from the perspective of opportunities and constraintsgenerated by European integration and, then, from the perspective of partisan actors’ reponses at severallevels. Our inquiry relies on the analysis of a vast corpus of documents, data and literature, notably on themedia coverage of European issues, European orientations in the public opinion of the three countries,europeanization of public policies, discourses held at the congresses of social-democratic parties andelectoral manifestos of the different parties. We observe a differentiated, but significative, europeanisationof parties’ structure of opportunities. Due to the resistances of the actors who dominate inter- and intrapartycompetition, this tendency affects the dynamics of party competition only marginally.

The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the shift of media picture of violent sexual techniques in years 1990-2011 in Czech Republic during the media and society liberalization of new liberal state. Theoretical part of the document is based on the theory of social construction based reality and the media messages construction (gatekeeping, agenda setting, news values). Analysis is based on the Newton Media Search data resource → electronic database collecting publishing material from major media in Czech. 937 articles published between 1998 and 2011 containing keywords were analysed. Quantitative analysis was based on the development of frequency of publication articles with the keywords from BDSM area. Qualitative analysis based on semiotic a discourse analysis was also made to prove the shift of theme media presentation. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

6 Abstract This thesis deals with the presentation of the Czech far-right in mass media and in connection with selected chapters of public opinion in 2011-2013. The theoretical part of the thesis consists of three parts, a part that presents the far-right in Czech and international context, a part representing the relationship of the far-right and mass media, and a part describing the situation of research of far-right in the Czech Republic. The second part of the thesis analyses the profile of the far-right in the media through content analysis and the reflection of far-right in public opinion using secondary data analysis. The results indicate far-right gains entry into the media content through the use of protest activities. Strong themes of the far-right agenda resonate in the Czech public opinion, but at the same time the Czech public opinion perceives the far-right as a serious security risk and a threat to democracy, which makes it an unacceptable alternative.

The French President Nicolas Sarkozy is presented in the long term as the head of state with a strong media influence and strong media manipulation ability. This tendency is moreover not rare in the field of politics, and it can have a strong impact on society. That is why it seems appropriate to devote attention to this topic within media studies. The aim of this thesis is to find out, based on the content-study of three Czech national newspapers, how Czech journalists deal with the topic of the French presidency - do they have their specific sources, how do they cope with information from the Élysée Palace, do they use the same sources, do they create stereotypes about Nicolas Sarkozy etc. Qualitative analysis of the articles is supplemented by findings from interviews with the journalists themselves. The thesis has two main parts. In the first one, the overview of the available research in the field of agenda-setting and news coverage sociology is offered, literature is also presented, which deals with the influence of President Sarkozy and the issues affecting French journalists' work. The second part presents the analysis of the daily newspapers' material, which makes it possible to see the current trends in journalists' work with sources. The findings are supplemented by information from the...

The theme of this thesis is a conceptualization of media discourse of social inadaptability on example of news reporting on the internet portal iDNES.cz. I am analysing various ideological resources and social conditions which may influence the existence and prevailing of this discourse type. My goal was also to answer the question which social groups and individuals are associated with this label and what characteristics are attributed to them by journalists. The survey examined media texts from 2006 to 2009 within theoretical and methodological framework of the critical discourse analysis by Norman Fairclough.