This thesis aims to contribute to the existing literacy of how mental health is portrayed in news media. The topic has been of interest to many scholars, mostly focusing on depression, schizophrenia, and mental health in general. In the past couple of years, a new phenomenon has gained attention and space in media: burnout, that is, a state of mental and physical exhaustion caused by chronic, usually work-related, stress. However, burnout has so far only been included in media studies as one aspect among many, thus arguing for its worth as a specific subject of a study. Using the method of critical narrative analysis, this thesis delves into news articles published in Swedish and Finnish mainstream media, investigating the personal stories of individuals who had experienced burnout and asking whose stories are getting told in media as well as how these influence the public image of burnout. Three common narratives and two core discourses were identified in the data: ‘the narrative of a lesson learned’, ‘the narrative as an exemplum’, ‘the conversion narrative’, ‘discourse of shame and stigma’, and ‘discourse of the individual in charge of their own destiny’. These portray burnout as a life-altering experience, where it is the individual who is expected to make the necessary changes in their life, rather than critiquing the working culture. Furthermore, the narratives exclusively portray the burnout experiencers as white and middle-class, thus raising a question of relatability. Since burnout has not been extensively studied as a topic of its own before, this thesis provides a starting point, but further research with different geographical focus and with different methods is needed to form a more complete picture of how burnout narratives are constructed in media.

This study conducts a narrative analysis of the film Turist, in order to explore how its portrayal of a contemporary Scandinavian family could provide insight into how gender roles are constructed. Drawing on classical feminist theory, film theory and giving special focus to explore how masculinity and the father’s role is portrayed in relation to femininity this essay uses a theoretical angle that is less explored than others. In the methodology, this study examines both the film’s characters and the many technical aspects that a film is constructed from. When relevant to the analysis in its entirety the study will consider parameters such as dialogue, editing, camera movement, framing of scenes and music. The results of the research show that the film is self-aware when constructing stereotypical gender roles that aligns itself with classical feminist theories. In the end the film implies that the family is comfortable to return to the traditional family hierarchy, because this is something they believe is expected from them.

This thesis is based on a qualitative study on how newly arrived citizens from Syria that livein Norrköping experience their exercise of civil rights and obligations during the integrationprocesses. The study is based on 12 qualitative interviews that were conducted between Mayand early June 2020 and which are examined using narrative analysis. It focuses on the theoryof citizenship based on its three complementary concepts; integration, empowerment andsocial capital. A structural analysis of this data focuses on rights and obligations in theintegration process; empowerment in the form of authority and participation, as well as socialcapital, which has to do with trusting others, reciprocity, as well as interpersonal trust.All informants have shown that they have knowledge that contributes to an understanding ofcitizenship theory. Newly arrived informants say that they are not able to exercise their civilrights and obligations fully, and they say that they have previously experienced a differenttreatment compared to ethnics Swedes. From this study, I conclude that Swedish citizenshipmeans all citizens are equal rights before the law, but from the experiences of citizens ofSyrian origin, citizenship can be experienced differently depending on where you are from.

The juridical reforms proposed by the Polish government have brought the attention of European institutions. The conflict concerns the matter of sovereignty, as the reforms conducts changes on domestic level. The paper discusses how national identity of states can shape the understanding of sovereignty. The paper aims to understand how sovereignty can be used as a political tool in relation between Poland and the European Union. The research question asks, “How Polish national identity constitutes the EU as a threat to sovereignty?”. To answer this question, the thesis applies poststructuralist’s concepts to the narrative analysis on speeches of the Polish President Andrzej Duda. The results of the thesis indicate that sovereignty can be understood subjectively, thus can be used as a political tool that can legitimise and justify policies as well as construct relations with others.

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When the coronavirus disease COVID-19 spread through the world’s countries in early 2020 and dominated the news media, a contrast between how Sweden was combatting the virus compared to other countries who used stricter restrictions quickly became apparent and frequently discussed in media. Through a comparative content analysis, this study aims to investigate how narratives concerning the coronavirus have been presented in Swedish public news medium SVT compared to its Danish equivalent, DR. Any differences in such news reporting could indicate the possibility of media influence behind why one country implemented and adhered to stricter restrictions than the other did.Utilizing a quantitative as well as a quantitative approach, 245 articles from Danish and Swedish sources were coded and analysed through theory grounded in situational crisis communication (SCCT). The findings however revealed similar results, identifying the same four key SCCT-narratives in both countries: anxiety, blame, flattery and care. The theoretical contribution of this study is centred on the reflection of how these similar results may relate to one another on a societal and sensemaking level. The study ultimately also emphasises the flexibility of SCCT strategies as useful narrative tools for further research.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / In this study, narrative analysis, informed by the perspective of standpoint feminism, is applied to movies featuring female protagonists throughout the past five decades of the “rape and revenge” genre of filmmaking to understand the extent to which probability and fidelity function in these five films to create empathy for the victims of sexual violence. Narrative criticism is used to assess motives behind stories told in media texts, while standpoint feminism illuminates epistemological implications to cultivate intersectional viewpoints. This study provides a narrative analysis through standpoint feminism of five films that each consider female portrayals of violence as a central part of its plot. Each film represents their respective time frames over the past five decades, falls under the criteria of what constitutes a “rape and revenge” film, have been viewed overall by mainstream audiences as films that are relatively well known, and portrays women as protagonists in the plot lines. Using the theoretical insights of narrative criticism, this study investigates the common themes observed in the films that fit these specific criteria to illuminate violent female portrayals in film and identify the extent to which probability and fidelity function in these five films to create empathy for the victims of sexual violence. Standpoint feminism provides the framework to reveal the broader cultural implications of violent rhetoric in gendered media portrayals of films from the past five decades featuring female protagonists.

Competitive video gaming has become one of the fastest-growing sporting disciplines. Aspiring esporters face many challenges that can threaten their prospective career timespan, and lead to post-career difficulties. The objectives was to explore the career narratives of Swedish esports athletes. Three professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players were interviewed. Two of the participants were no longer active competitors yet still worked fulltime within the esports community. Narrative analysis was applied with the holistic-form structural analysis used. The analysis resulted in three types of narratives that are represented within the sink or swim typology: risk and gain, descent and gain, and slowly ascending. The findings revealed that all participants had, at times, disregarded important aspects of life, such as school, social relationships, and physical activity, to further their esporting careers. The esporters also indicated that they were, to an extent, cognizant of these inactions and sacrifices. The participants periodically used gaming to break away from stressors that took place in real-life, and they had all navigated through their careers unsupervised. Although the career pathways were unique to the individuals, it was possible to relate them to traditional sports career frameworks. Even though the three esporters endured many hardships throughout their careers, they were all happy as to how their lives developed and found their esporting careers to be meaningful life experiences.

Community energy projects have such a fire burning inside of them. This often originates from or is at least fueled by the people in charge - let us call them driving spirits. We wondered what makes these inspiring persons so unique, which led us to our research question: What characteristics does a person need to become the driving spirit of a community energy project? We searched for existing driving spirits of European energy communities to let them tell their stories and have their voices be heard. In order to inspire others to realize their potential and possibly take action also outside of the academic world, we wrote our entire thesis in a storytelling approach. We set the scene by looking at the environment of energy communities and the role of the driving spirit. We analyzed the conducted semi-structured interviews and simultaneous observations using the theory of entrepreneurial leaders, to see whether their unique characteristics match the ones of our driving spirits. Overall, we found that their core characteristics are passion, vision, integrity, ability to motivate and the newly-identified aspect of team. These are complemented by resilience, self-confidence as well as being decisive, sociable, intuitive and flexible. Moreover, there exist interdependencies between the characteristics that have not been discussed in theory before. Going through this entire story of a thesis helped us analyze these people behind community energy projects, brought them closer to us and made us see how we - and maybe you - could potentially start our own story, following their example.

The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to examine how identity manifests itself in night workers narrations of their experiences with night work. Through examining this we aim to find a greater understanding of how night work might influence identity formation. To achieve this narrative analysis was applied to seven semi-structured interviews conducted with night workers. The analysis was based on a theoretical framework consisting of symbolic interactionism as well as theory related to both individual and collective identity. The analysis showed that the participants had many positive experiences with night work, including health benefits and better working conditions in comparison to both their own previous experiences with daytime work and their colleagues working daytime. It also revealed that their night work at times was perceived as being called into question by their surroundings, for example by the general discourse regarding night work, labor unions, employers and day time colleagues. This sometimes caused a need to defend both oneself and one’s decisions but also night workers as a group. Identity as a night worker manifested itself both as a sense of community among night workers and a distance between night workers and different non-night workers. Also, identity formation as a night worker appeared to be dependent on contextual factors such as the general discourse surrounding night work, research and norms.