<p>The purpose of this study is to examine the popular cultural form of television within the field of gender studies. The study focuses on the representation of masculinities in the American television series <em>The O.C. </em>This is done by using textual analysis to gain information from the first and the second season of <em>The O.C. </em>The theoretical framework used is based on Judith Butler and R.W. Connell. The result of the study is that <em>The O.C</em>. can be said to show that alternative masculinities are less worthy and lower in the hierarchy. Another result is that the series is heteronormative.</p>

<p>In this study I will analyze how men who buy sex interact with one another on two different Internet communities: “Sekreterarakademin” and “Flashback”. This analysis is carried out in an attempt to challenge the conventional image of the man who pays for sex.</p><p>The aim is to examine the role of Internet forums for men who buy sexual services related to cross-border, both in terms of standard borders, gender boundaries, boundaries of sexuality and masculinity. I will also attempt to investigate what opportunities that are available to overrun different borders and how these opportunities affect the conditions of the various players. I will evaluate theories such as homosocialtet, hegemonic masculinity and normalization used by KAST (Köpare Av Sexuella Tjänster, the Swedish public support for clients of sexual services) and which are partially consolidated in studies published by KAST concerning issues related to internet based prostitution.</p>

<p>This examination project examines how masculinity and class affect upper secondary school guys relations towards school and education. The purpose of my project is to expand the understanding of why there is a relation between class, sex and results in studies. The examination is made according to the focusgroup method where two groupinterviews where made. One of the group consist of four guys from a practical upper secondary education and the other consist of four guys from a theoretical upper secondary education. As it shows in the resultchapter the groups also have a different class background.</p><p> </p><p>The result is best understood as a cycle where class strengthen masculinities in different ways, different masculinities have different conditions in the schoolcontext, masculinities and school are factors that strengthen the class differences. In the result I show that both groups have similar view on what to consider masculine, but the guys from the theoretical group point out masculinitie as something negative in opposite to the guys from the practical group. The idea that schoolwork is something unmasculine is clear in the answers from the theoretical group but the same idea can not be found in the answers from the practical group. The attitude towards school and education separates the groups most clearly in the attitude towards university studies. The answers indicate that teachers are one factor to why the attitude towards schoolwork differed so widely between the groups.</p><p> </p><p>In the ending a discussion is held about how school helps to maintain the patriarchy and class differences and how to counteract it.</p>

Today’s society is subject to an increased importance of aesthetics and an increasing individualism. New trends are adopted early by young people, which make it interesting to focus on how identity is formed and meanings are constructed in a youth culture context and in relation to ongoing societal processes of change. The purpose of this dissertation is to interpret and analyse the construction of meaning within the skateboard and snowboard communities in the social and cultural contexts. In particular, this dissertation is about the relationship between three levels, cultural, practice and individual. The title “Traces” alludes to four analytical themes taking different tracks in the book; consumption, gender, place and identity that are reflected in different chapters. However, the individual leaves traces in culture as culture does in the individual. Furthermore, skaters and snowboarders leave actual tracks in their local geography. Theoretically the study has a culture analysis approach with a semiotic base where five theories are intertwined. Johan Fornäs contributes with his interpretation on culture as system of signs and signifying practices, Stuart Hall adds the concept of representations, Kirsten Drotner provides her argumentation regarding aesthetic practices whilst Ulf Hannerz enriches the dissertation with his discussion on transnational culture-flows and the social diffusion of culture. Roger Säljö proposes a socio-cultural perspective of learning where learning is about participation in knowledge and skills. The method used is ethnographical. The multifaceted empirical material, from field studies and interviews, Swedish skateboard and snowboard magazines between 1978 to 2002, skateboard and snowboard videos, press articles, and websites, has been triangulated. In addition, there are three personal albums of skateboarder, snowboarder and surfer Ants Neo. The study shows that there are stereotyped notions about what boarding means and what it means to be a boarder. These notions both create and are created by the boarders themselves but are also used by advertisers for products not related to board sports at all. These notions, based as they are on ideas of resistance and radicalism, serve to emphasise that boarding is masculine. Resistance takes concrete form in its attitude to organized sports and to multinational brands and in the unusual use of places in the urban environment. To be a boarder is, apart form the boarding skills required, to be also part and parcel of these attitudes. The study explains how meaning and identity are created through informal learning processes in youth culture contexts. In these group-forming processes, both the individual and the community are formulated in social, cultural and aesthetic terms.

In this study I will analyze how men who buy sex interact with one another on two different Internet communities: “Sekreterarakademin” and “Flashback”. This analysis is carried out in an attempt to challenge the conventional image of the man who pays for sex. The aim is to examine the role of Internet forums for men who buy sexual services related to cross-border, both in terms of standard borders, gender boundaries, boundaries of sexuality and masculinity. I will also attempt to investigate what opportunities that are available to overrun different borders and how these opportunities affect the conditions of the various players. I will evaluate theories such as homosocialtet, hegemonic masculinity and normalization used by KAST (Köpare Av Sexuella Tjänster, the Swedish public support for clients of sexual services) and which are partially consolidated in studies published by KAST concerning issues related to internet based prostitution.

The purpose of this study is to examine the popular cultural form of television within the field of gender studies. The study focuses on the representation of masculinities in the American television series The O.C. This is done by using textual analysis to gain information from the first and the second season of The O.C. The theoretical framework used is based on Judith Butler and R.W. Connell. The result of the study is that The O.C. can be said to show that alternative masculinities are less worthy and lower in the hierarchy. Another result is that the series is heteronormative.

This examination project examines how masculinity and class affect upper secondary school guys relations towards school and education. The purpose of my project is to expand the understanding of why there is a relation between class, sex and results in studies. The examination is made according to the focusgroup method where two groupinterviews where made. One of the group consist of four guys from a practical upper secondary education and the other consist of four guys from a theoretical upper secondary education. As it shows in the resultchapter the groups also have a different class background.   The result is best understood as a cycle where class strengthen masculinities in different ways, different masculinities have different conditions in the schoolcontext, masculinities and school are factors that strengthen the class differences. In the result I show that both groups have similar view on what to consider masculine, but the guys from the theoretical group point out masculinitie as something negative in opposite to the guys from the practical group. The idea that schoolwork is something unmasculine is clear in the answers from the theoretical group but the same idea can not be found in the answers from the practical group. The attitude towards school and education separates the groups most clearly in the attitude towards university studies. The answers indicate that teachers are one factor to why the attitude towards schoolwork differed so widely between the groups.   In the ending a discussion is held about how school helps to maintain the patriarchy and class differences and how to counteract it.

Thesis (Master, Political Studies) -- Queen's University, 2007-10-25 13:31:32.904 / My thesis is an examination of militarized masculinity in Canada’s JTF2 Special Forces and the Private Security Firm Blackwater. I employ a gender analysis to highlight how militarized masculinity impedes women’s participation from Special Forces and private security firms. Feminist scholarship by Cynthia Enloe, Ann Tickner, Sandra Whitworth, and Charlotte Hooper has examined how militarized masculinity is associated within a particular political/situational context and therefore should be understood in its plural—as militarized masculinities. However, there is limited scholarship focusing on how masculinities vary in Special Forces and private security firms. This lack of scholarship results in limited knowledge of the implications militarized masculinity in these units has for women’s security and for women’s participation in these units. The purpose of this thesis is to add to the current literature by exploring, through militarized masculinities, the gender barriers to women’s participation and the consequences of the security produced when these units deploy. To analyze the impact of militarized masculinity in these units I conducted interviews with authorities on these units, applicants interested in participating in these units, and performed a content analysis of Blackwater’s website. I argue based on the information gathered that militarized masculinity, while varied in its application in special units and private security firms, continues to impede women’s participation and in some cases can cause greater insecurity for women where these units are deployed. / Master

The aim of this thesis is to examine representations of masculinity in the activities of a local professional wrestling promotion. After briefly outlining what professional wrestling is, the study draws on a body on feminist and intersectional theory which critiques the notion of gender as a binary and essential category. The material comprises 10 recorded shows and oth- er material published on Sthlm Wrestling’s website between 2010 and 2013, and is analyzed using a qualitative methodology derived from cultural studies. The thesis argues that there are many different types of masculinities in the narrative, which are constructed in relation to different power hierarchies such as ethnicity, class, sex and sexuality. The few female wrestlers are marginalized, but not sexualized as in the U.S. context. The heels (rule-breakers) are found on the borders of social and cultural categories, and there is an explicit SM-narrative present.

While it has explained how power and knowledge directly imply one another, constructivist theories of international relations have shown how knowledge and language are extensively used for legitimizing war, conflict and intervention. It has further been shown how not only news media, but increasingly popular culture is powerful in creating meaning and establishing knowledge about war and conflict. At the same time, media scholars have shown that the development in television production is going towards a blur between information and entertainment, fact and fiction. This blur has been shown to often and effectively de-politicize ideological content. This study is a critical discourse analysis of the TV series Krig för fred (War for peace), broadcast on the Swedish public service television during the spring of 2011. The study has through answering questions in terms of genre and ideology, found that the material is an example of a blur between documentary and reality TV and that the material is exclusively from a Swedish point-of-view, yet presented through a discourse of claiming the real. One of the consequences of the mixed genre seemed to have been that as more space was given to individual characters and exoticising images of the Afghan landscape and people, less space was given to criticism, which made this representation of the war entertaining rather than informative to watch. While the only information given about Afghanistan in the TV series is that it is among the poorest countries in the world, more clues have been given as to how the Swedish military view themselves and have been represented in relation to ‘others’ in the world.