The aim of this paper is to analyze the influence that aristocrats in Sweden had on the Swedish movement for the prevention of cruelty to animals, and why especially aristocrats started it. The sources I have been using are speeches and texts written by persons who were involved in the movement. I have also studied rapports from the three largest societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals. In the sources I looked for terms, expressions and opinions that can be paralleled whit the aristocratic ideal and opinion. Things that can relate to aristocratic urban people. I also searched for a class-consciousness and a negative view on other groups of people. Research questions: 1) Why was it especially the aristocrats that started to make a stand for the animals and what imprint did this make in the movement? 2) What issues was driven by the societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals? Which was regarded as the most important? 3) Which persons could be seen and heard pursuing the animal protection policy? 4) What kind of arguments for animal protection are the movement’s representatives presenting? The aristocratic people became committed to the animal protection movement because of the role they had in society, their ideal and because they had the time and money. They had the possibilities to take in the new ideas that during this time were presented in different kinds of areas. The upper class was regarded to have obligations because of their privileged way of life and their idealistic work was regarded as a matter of course. The societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals worked hard on educating the lower classes and the people in the countryside. The aristocrats brought philosophy, science and the urban view on animals.

<p>The aim of this paper is to analyze the influence that aristocrats in Sweden had on the Swedish movement for the prevention of cruelty to animals, and why especially aristocrats started it. The sources I have been using are speeches and texts written by persons who were involved in the movement. I have also studied rapports from the three largest societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals. In the sources I looked for terms, expressions and opinions that can be paralleled whit the aristocratic ideal and opinion. Things that can relate to aristocratic urban people. I also searched for a class-consciousness and a negative view on other groups of people.</p><p>Research questions: 1) Why was it especially the aristocrats that started to make a stand for the animals and what imprint did this make in the movement? 2) What issues was driven by the societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals? Which was regarded as the most important? 3) Which persons could be seen and heard pursuing the animal protection policy? 4) What kind of arguments for animal protection are the movement’s representatives presenting?</p><p>The aristocratic people became committed to the animal protection movement because of the role they had in society, their ideal and because they had the time and money. They had the possibilities to take in the new ideas that during this time were presented in different kinds of areas. The upper class was regarded to have obligations because of their privileged way of life and their idealistic work was regarded as a matter of course. The societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals worked hard on educating the lower classes and the people in the countryside. The aristocrats brought philosophy, science and the urban view on animals.</p>

Mediumskapet förefaller ha varit en kulturellt beständig roll som kvinnor i olika tider, på olika platser och på olika sätt kunnat inta. Under mitten 1800-talet uppstod den spiritistiska rörelsen. Genom seanser ledda av ett oftast kvinnligt medium menade spiritisterna att det var möjligt att kontakta de döda i andevärlden. I Sverige härrörde de kvinnliga medierna, till skillnad från i USA och England, oftast från överklassen. Spiritismen uppkom i en tid då samhället präglades av en ökande modernisering och sekularisering. I denna studie undersöks mediumskap med avseende på svenska kvinnliga medier ur överklassen i tiden kring sekelskiftet 1900. Syftet med studien är att undersöka varför svenska kvinnor ur överklassen sökte sig till mediumskapet vid denna historiska tidpunkt, samt hur deras situation präglade detta mediumskaps möjligheter och begränsningar. Studiens material består i huvudsak av efterlämnade texter författade av två överklasskvinnor- och medium, men också av dessa kvinnors biografier samt tidigare studiers empiriska bidrag rörande den aktuella tidens köns- och klasskodningar. Studien visade att mediumskapet på många sätt vidgade överklasskvinnors levnadsutrymme; deras syn på den egna existensen, deras rörelseutrymme, deras möjligheter att verka som kunskapare. I vissa avseenden riskerade dock utrymmet att bli snävare då deras mediala praktiker av den samtida medicinen kunde tolkas som symptom på kvinnlig galenskap. Genom mediumskapet fanns en möjlighet för överklasskvinnorna att genom ’förtrollning’ utöva motstånd mot den moderna ’avförtrollade’ värld i vilken de kommit att reduceras till sin immanens.

Within media and communications studies, questions of taste have often been associated with the dichotomy of high versus popular culture. The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has also used mass media products in his studies of class determined tastes and dispositions. In this paper the author uses the theoretical framwork of Bourdieu to examine aspects of social class and legitimate taste in the interior design magazine "Sköna Hem", a market leading magazine within it's genre of lifestyle magazines in Sweden. A specific type of feature article, where a real-life home is portrayed, is studied using the critical discourse analysis of Norman Fairclough. The homes portrayed are predominantly affluent and display elements of conspicuous consumtion as mediated through legitimate taste and cultural capital. Common traits are identified in writing style as well as the furnishings of the homes portrayed. Deviations from the norm are also discussed. The author also discusses text production with an emphasis on the impact of informal chriteria of quality on the selection of homes portrayed. The results show that the aesthetic ideals represented in the magazine correlate well to the "aesthetic disposition" described by Bourdieu as closely tied to haute bourgeois habitus. Shared discoursive elements include an emphasis on form as a characteristic of quality, an attitude of detachment as a way of relating to the objects of culture and a distancing from questions of economic neccessity. These elements are projected rhetorically through modality markers of high affinity, leaving the impression of a general defintion of style and beauty. Given that these results are representative of lifestyle journalism as a whole, the author interprets this as a hegemonizing process wherein a subjective defintion of taste typical of the haute bourgeois comes to represent an absolute. She proposes that this contributes to a pathologizing of powerless groups in society.