My diploma thesis, How to recognize an apple "farm"?, examine the way of creating farmers market at Holešovice. I come from Actor-network theory which sees as actor not only people but the objects and organizations too. This theory does not distinguish human and non-human actors. The data required for analysis, I obtained mainly through participant observation, interviews and analysis of material culture. My work is focused on the discovery of meanings which visitors attribute to "farmers". Further, the ways of communication of this meanings. Finally I reveal the actors who construct the ideas about farmers and the real market. On the creating of market participate not only organizers, vendors and visitors. I show that the time and context of the market, holding the tradition of vegetable markets, the place of performance, the size of hall, weather, seasonality and the possibility of electronic communication play the important role too.

Intresset för effektivisering av underhåll på järnvägen i Sverige växer, järnvägsinfrastrukturen utsätts för högre belastning på grund av den ökade trafiken vilket innebär mer slitage och kortare tidsfönster för inspektion och underhåll. Digitalisering av underhåll på järnvägen bidrar med att säkerställa kontinuerlig drift, effektivt underhåll, planering och minskar olyckor. Realtidsöverföring av data är teknik som är centralt för att mäta tillståndet på järnvägen. Tekniken har visats effektivisera det förebyggande underhållet av järnvägen med enheter som mäter tillståndet på räls och lok i realtid, tekniken benämns som tillståndsbaserade underhållssystem. Syftet med denna studie är att identifiera de problemfaktorer som påverkar användningen av tillståndsbaserat underhåll med utgångspunkt från inblandade aktörer. Studiens använder sig av aktörs-nätverksteorin för att identifiera hur problemfaktorerna förhåller sig till inblandade aktörer och hur användningen av tillståndsbaserat underhåll påverkas av faktorerna. Data samlades in via semistrukturerade intervjuer och tolkades med en innehållsanalys. Resultatet indikerar att komplexitet, samverkan, datahantering, juridiska aspekter, ekonomiska aspekter, underhållsaspekter och kompetensnivå är kategorier över de identifierade problemfaktorer som kan bidra med problem kring användningen av tillståndsbaserat underhåll. / Interest in efficientmaintenance on the railway in Sweden is growing, the railway infrastructure is exposed to higher loads due to the increased traffic, which leads to increased tear on the railway infrastructure and shorter time windows for inspection and maintenance. Digitalization of maintenance on the railway helps to ensure continuous operation, efficient maintenance, planning and reduces accidents. Real-time data transmission is technology that is central to measuring the condition of the railway. The technology has been proven to improve the preventive maintenance of the railway with units that measure the condition of rails and locomotives in real time, the technology is referred to as condition-based maintenance. The purpose of this study is to identify the problem factors that have an influencing effect on the use of condition-based maintenance systems based on the actors involved. The study uses the Actor Network Theory to identify how the problem factors relate to the actors involved and how the use of condition-based maintenance is affected by the factors. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews and interpreted with a content analysis. The results indicate that complexity, collaboration, data management, legal aspects, financial aspects, maintenance aspects and competence level are categories over factors that can contribute to problems around the use of condition-based maintenance.

The increasingly ubiquitous role of smartphones in our everyday lives causes concerns regarding our relationship with the devices. While some raise the question whether smartphones are addictive (Alter 2017; Lopez-Fernandez 2019), others regard this concern as the most recent manifestation of moral panics (Cashmore, Cleland & Dixon 2018; Leick 2019). Meanwhile advocates of the attention economy argument claim that the problem is the design of technology occupying users’ attention (CHT 2019a-d). Somewhere in between, media and communication studies search for empirical evidence. From this vantage point of ideas this study explores the role of Screen Time, shaping and being shaped by this discourse. As a feature of Apple’s iOS software it is supposed to support users in regulating their smartphone use. Applying the walkthrough method as proposed by Light, Burgess & Duguay (2018) combined with an analysis of user experiences, shows how the technology company shapes a concept of self-regulation for users to adopt to. A concept, which first and foremost follows corporate and not the users’ best interest. This thesis poses the the question whether we are slaves to our screens, but arrives at the conclusion that we carry chains of self-regulation. The question remains, how we can create more sustainable and meaningful environments for protecting our attention.

The motivation for this research comes from the belief that an over reliance on a social constructivist perspective has caused development studies in general, and post-development in particular, to under-theorize the role of discourse in development. A key issue in post-development studies concerns whether or not development organizations depoliticize their interventions. The notion of depoliticization provides a perfect occasion for examining more deeply the role of discourse in development. This research uses the actor-network theory constructivist framework to analyze a USAID funded development program in Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan): Mercy Corps' Peaceful Communities Initiative (PCI). The research approach used in this study involved both traditional ethnographic methods and document analysis. The ethnographic case material comes from multiple field visits to PCI offices in Central Asia and multiple visits to a variety of PCI community sites. The documentary evidence comes from a variety of organization and project specific documents. The embedded case studies demonstrate that materiality cannot be easily separated from sociality and that indeed the two are inseparable. Thus development discourse cannot be solely understood as a social phenomenon but could instead be understood as an assemblage of material elements through which both power and sociality flow.

This study addresses the issue of consumers’ wish to shop more sustainable fashion butinstead turning to fast fashion (Islam et al., 2021; Silva et al. 2020; Wang et al., 2022). With that said, this study discusses and examines how marketing benefits the second-hand clothes market in Sweden. Entrenched in market studies of market-shaping, market devices and actor network theory (ANT) (Nenonen et al., 2019; Muniesa et al., 2007; Sayes, 2013), this study depicts the use of market devices in the process of shaping the second-hand clothes market in Sweden. The methodology of the thesis consists of online and offline observations throughout Arkivet’s four market devices: in-store, digital media, website and e-commerce. The results show that Arkivet’s market devices reframe the market, the products within it and the interactions between buyers and sellers, which ties in with the factors necessary for market-shaping (discovering value potential and mobilizing resources) (Nenonen et al. 2019). Based on previous market studies and the observations conducted, this study assembles a newly created model representing the role market devices assume in the process of shaping an existing market.

No description available.

Syftet med föreliggande studie är att med utgångspunkt i aktör-nätverksteori undersöka relationerna genom vilka de forskningstexter (som används i kompetensutvecklingsinsatsen Läslyftet) tillsammans med andra aktörer producerar översättningsprocesser med förmågan att förändra och påverka pedagogernas sätt att tänka och prata om det vardagliga arbetet med läsning i förskolan. Tidigare studier om hur forskning och vetenskaplig kunskap används i utbildningspraktiker efterfrågar ytterligare kunskap som begreppsliggör forskningsanvändning i praktiken. Med utgångspunkt i aktör-nätverksteori undersöks i föreliggande studie i vilka relationer som forskningstexter och forskningsbaserade begrepp tillsammans med andra aktörer producerar en skillnad för pedagogers tankar och utsagor om det praktiska förskolearbetet. Genom observationer av planerings- och utvärderingsmöten samt en fokusgruppsintervju av och med deltagande pedagoger undersöks de relationer som upprättas mellan olika aktörer i praktiker inom Läslyftet. En spårande analys genomförs för att undersöka vilka relationer som upprättas och förändrar och påverkar varandra. Genom att följa fyra olika spår i det empiriska materialet synliggör studien att forskningstexterna deltar i relationer med andra aktörer så som specifika begrepp, barnböcker och dokumentationer som producerar översättningsprocesser som förändrar hur pedagogerna pratar om sin praktik. De huvudsakliga resultaten av studien visar att texternas (i egenskap av forskning) aktörskap uppstår och är beroende av de idéer, tankar och ord som pedagogerna uttrycker och som också förändras i sina sammankopplingar med varandra och andra aktörer. Resultatet synliggör ett nätverk som uppstår i och genom dessa relationer med förmågan att producera kraft och ge effekter för pedagogernas förändrade tal om förskolans praktik / The aim of this study is to examine the relations through which the research texts (used in Läslyftet) together with other actors produce translation processes with the ability to change and affect the educator’s way to think and talk about the everyday work of reading in preschool. Previous studies on how research and scientific knowledge is applied in educational practices inquire for additional knowledge that conceptualizes research used in practice. Based on actor-network theory this study examines the relations that research texts and research-based concept together with other actors produce a difference for educator’s thoughts and statements about the practical preschool work. Through observations of planning and evaluation meetings along with a focus group interview of participating educators, the study examines the relations established between different actors in practices within Läslyftet. A tracking analysis was performed to examine the relations established and transform and affect each other. By following four different traces in the empirical material, the study makes visible that the research texts participate in relations with other actors such as specific concepts, children books and documentations which produces translation processes that changes how the educators talks about their practice. The main results of the study show that the texts (in the capacity of research) ability to act occurs and is dependent on the ideas, thoughts and words that the educators express and that also changes in their interconnections with each other and other actors. The result highlights a network that is emerging in and through these relations with the ability to produce a force and give effects for the educators´ changed talk about preschool practice

This study documents the problematic translator-publisher relationship in the case of the English translation of Simone de Beauvoir’s Le deuxième sexe. The socio-historical investigation of the case study demonstrates that the 1953 translation was complicated by several factors: the translator’s lack of philosophical knowledge, the editor’s demands to cut and simplify the text, the publisher’s intention to emphasize the book’s scientific cachet, and Beauvoir’s lack of cooperation. The investigation focuses on two aspects: the translator’s subservience and the involvement of multiple actors. Primarily concerned with the interaction between the translator and other actors, this study seeks answers that require investigation into historical documents and the work of other scholars critical of The Second Sex. In this enquiry, more than one hundred letters between the translator, H. M. Parshley, and the publisher, Knopf, are thoroughly analyzed. The study combines Bruno Latour’s and Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological concepts in order to provide a more detailed and encompassing examination within the context of Translation Studies. The letter correspondence is the primary evidence on which the study’s conclusions are based. / Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada

<p>  </p> <p>This dissertation explores multimodal composing strategies enacted by technical and professional communication (TPC) writers during and post-COVID-19 period. The researcher presents an investigation into a course unit project and pedagogical approach framed around the idea of multimodal composition in an upper-division professional writing class with transnational students majoring in management, economics, health science, aviation technology, mathematics, computer engineering, accounting, consumer science, biology, and agronomy in a large research university in the Midwest. This study advocates a multimodal approach to teaching writing in its expanded sense with multimodal career unit project assignments in multiple media and modes, including resumes/CVs, personal statements, LinkedIn profiles, video profiles/resumes, job position analyses, and rhetorical and mode analyses. This project presents implications for instructors of technical and professional communicators who are aiming to develop and update their curricula and teaching pedagogies situated in multiple modes across global audiences, for multiple purposes, and in a variety of media.</p>

The use of big data in urban transport planning is unstoppably gaining momentum and with the help of strategic business partnerships and technological advancements (e.g. transport apps, mobile device location tracking, data processing) the new mobility models are evolving towards an integrated and multimodal urban mobility: Mobility as a Service (MaaS). From the generation of data by Telecom companies to transport end users, a broad range of stakeholders are involved in the data market. This tighter with the call for sustainable alternatives in passenger traffic highlights that business relations are complex, and that businesses in this data market also have long-range transport objectives. This Master Thesis develops a stakeholder analysis of the network of actors related to mobile data and users. It explores the city of Stockholm as case study to identify who are the market players (i.e. companies) and what are their respective roles and business models. Based on sectoral expertise interviews and literature and website review, a three-cluster organization of data suppliers, data facilitators and data end users set the structure to evaluate stakeholder relationships. Data trading opens a debate on which Telecoms not only address raw data processing methods but also reach less accurate mobility outcomes (e.g. trips per person, OD matrices, travel distance, average speed), or, on the other hand, which delegate the added-value service to third parties. The analyzed actor network outstands frictions between the public and private sector and, certainly, when processed data steps on the transport industry (e.g. PT operators, infrastructure managers, private service operators (Uber), passengers). This is an institutional barrier that prevents a full MaaS implementation in the Stockholm region. The challenge resides on revising actor network gaps (i.e. new roles of MaaS Operators or Collecting Agents) and easy flow data transactions to encourage integrated modal choice in transport apps offerings. Despite exiting MaaS initiatives (e.g. UbiGo) in Stockholm and little research in data-based stakeholders, this is a first approximation of a stakeholder map to an immature and innovative research area with great potential in the future. / Införandet av Big Data i stadsplanering har oundvikligen börjat ta fart. Med hjälp av strategiska affärspartnerskap och tekniska framsteg (t.ex. transportappar, spårning av mobila enheter, databehandling) har nya mobilitetsmodeller utvecklats i strävan efter en integrerad och multimodal mobilitet i städerna: Mobilitet som tjänst (MaaS). Från ny datagenerering till att transportera slutanvändare deltar ett brett spektrum av intressenter på en marknad som styrs av tillgång till data. Uppmaningen till hållbara alternativ i passagerartrafik uppmärksammar också komplexa aktörsrelationer som relaterar datahantering till långsiktiga transportmål. Denna uppsats består av en intressentanalys av aktörsnätverket inom mobilitetsdata och undersöker Stockholms stad som en fallstudie för att identifiera vilka som är marknadsaktörer (företag) och respektive roller och affärsmodeller. Baserat på intervjuer av experter inom branschen, litteratur- och webbplatssökning skapas tre kluster av organisationer, för att utvärdera intressentrelationer. Dessa är datalämnare, datatillämpare och slutanvändare. Datahandel öppnar upp en debatt om hur telekomföretag använder nya databehandlingsmetoder men når mindre exakta mobilitetsresultat (t.ex. resor per person, OD-matriser, reseavstånd, genomsnittlig hastighet) eller, å andra sidan, som delegerar mervärdestjänsten till tredje part. Det analyserade aktörsnätverket utestänger friktion mellan den offentliga och privata sektorn, och denna barriär förhindrar en fullständig MaaS-implementering när det gäller bearbetade datasteg inom transportbranschen (t.ex. PT-operatörer, infrastrukturförvaltare, privata serviceoperatörer) i Stockholmsregionen. Utmaningen ligger i att omarbeta luckor mellan aktörsnätverk (MaaS Operator eller Collecting Agent) och förenkla dataflödestransaktioner för att uppmuntra integrerat modalval i transportapps-erbjudanden. Trots existerande MaaS-initiativ (t.ex. UbiGo) och en mindre databaserad intressentforskning är detta en första approximation till ett omoget och innovativt forskningsområde med stor potential inför framtiden. / El uso de big data en la planificación del transporte urbano está ganando un impulso imparable, y de la mano de asociaciones empresariales estratégicas y avances tecnológicos (aplicaciones de transporte, seguimiento de ubicación en dispositivos móviles, procesamiento de datos), los nuevos modelos de movilidad están evolucionando hacia una movilidad urbana integrada y multimodal: Mobility as a Service (MaaS). Desde la generación de datos (empresas de telefonía) hasta un sector transporte como usuario, muchas son las partes interesadas que participan en el mercado de datos. Esto, unido a la llamada de nuevas alternativas sostenibles en el tráfico de pasajeros, hace destacar que las relaciones empresariales son complejas y que los negocios en este mercado de datos también tienen objetivos en un transporte de largo alcance. Esta tesis desarrolla un stakeholder analysis de la red de actores relacionados con los datos móviles y utiliza Estocolmo como caso de estudio para identificar a estos agentes (empresas) y sus respectivos roles y modelos de negocios. Basado ​​en entrevistas a expertos y trabajos de investigación, el análisis organiza los actores en tres grupos proveedores de datos, facilitadores de datos y usuarios finales de datos, siendo esta la estructura base para estudiar sus relaciones. Así mismo, este intercambio de datos abre un debate alrededor de si las empresas de telefonía desarrollan métodos para procesar los datos, aunque los resultados de movilidad sean menos precisos (viajes por persona, matrices OD, distancia de viaje, velocidad promedio) o, por otro lado, si el servicio de dar valor añadido se delega a terceros. Ciertamente, el análisis de la red de actores destaca fricciones entre el sector público y el privado y, en el momento que la industria del transporte ya maneja estos datos procesados (operadores de transporte, gestores de la infraestructura, empresas tipo Uber, etc), esta barrera institucional es la que mayormente impide una implementación total de MaaS en Estocolmo. El desafío está revisar posibles “huecos” en la red de actores (Operador MaaS o un Agente Cobrador) así como un fácil flujo en las transacciones de datos para alentar una elección modal integrada en la oferta de las aplicaciones de transporte. Así, a pesar de la escasa investigación en quienes son los actores que hacen negocio con datos telefónicos, y las de pocas iniciativas (efectivas) en MaaS ( UbiGo) hacen de este proyecto una primera aproximación a un área de investigación que aún es inmadura e innovadora, pero con un gran potencial en el futuro.