<p>Abstract</p><p>Title: “Fashion be in fashion” – a qualitative study of the phenomen fashion blogs (“Mode är på modet” – en kvalitativ studie av fenomenet modebloggar)</p><p>Number of Pages: 46 (54 including enclosures)</p><p>Author: Maria Rydström</p><p>Tutor: Else Nygren</p><p>Course: Media and communication studies D</p><p>Period: Spring semester 2007</p><p>University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science,Uppsala university</p><p>Aim: Contribute to the understanding of a yet unexplored domain, fashion blogs. And contribute to a discussion of the roll of fashion blogs in the swedish fashionindustry.</p><p>Method: Qualitive textual analysis of three fashion blogs and interviews with the authors to the three fashion blogs. Completed with six interviews with experts from the fashionindustry and the blogworld.</p><p>Main results: The authors behind the fashion blogs are young women living in big cities.They write about fashionnews, runway trends, fashion items and style outfits worn by them selves. Fashion blogs provide a new way to follow trends and spread them to the society. Theauthors behind the fashion blogs are opinionleaders with high credibility who uses their personal language to create a bond to their readers. The readers of fashion blogs are firstyoung women between 16-23 years old and second older women between 30-40 years old, some men are also readers. Fashion blogs can be used as strategic tools in marketing.</p><p>Key Words: fashion blogs, opinionleader, credibility, Lasswells communicationmodel, fashionindustry, consumption</p>

Purpose/Aim: To examine whether or not there is such a thing as bloggbullying, and if so, how this manifests itself among female bloggers. Material/Method: To analyze the material, which consists of comments made on a total of 75 posts made on three different blogs, a quantitative method as well as a qualitative critical discourse analysis was used. Main result: Several similarities between Anatol Pikas definition of bullying and the results were found, and the conclusion is that there is such a thing as bloggbullying.

Abstract Title: “Fashion be in fashion” – a qualitative study of the phenomen fashion blogs (“Mode är på modet” – en kvalitativ studie av fenomenet modebloggar) Number of Pages: 46 (54 including enclosures) Author: Maria Rydström Tutor: Else Nygren Course: Media and communication studies D Period: Spring semester 2007 University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science,Uppsala university Aim: Contribute to the understanding of a yet unexplored domain, fashion blogs. And contribute to a discussion of the roll of fashion blogs in the swedish fashionindustry. Method: Qualitive textual analysis of three fashion blogs and interviews with the authors to the three fashion blogs. Completed with six interviews with experts from the fashionindustry and the blogworld. Main results: The authors behind the fashion blogs are young women living in big cities.They write about fashionnews, runway trends, fashion items and style outfits worn by them selves. Fashion blogs provide a new way to follow trends and spread them to the society. Theauthors behind the fashion blogs are opinionleaders with high credibility who uses their personal language to create a bond to their readers. The readers of fashion blogs are firstyoung women between 16-23 years old and second older women between 30-40 years old, some men are also readers. Fashion blogs can be used as strategic tools in marketing. Key Words: fashion blogs, opinionleader, credibility, Lasswells communicationmodel, fashionindustry, consumption

Bakgrund och problem: Bloggen som marknadskommunikationsverktyg har ökat de senaste åren. Företag har börjat kommunicerar budskap via bloggtexter med förhoppning om att öka dess trovärdighet och därmed effekt, vilket väckt en debatt angående produktplacering och smygreklam. Hur kan företag tillämpa bloggen som marknadskommunikationsverktyg utan att gå emot svensk lag och vad finns det egentligen för risker och möjligheter med detta? Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är att kartlägga företags tillvägagångssätt att avsiktligt använda privata bloggar i sin marknadskommunikation samt identifiera eventuella risker och möjligheter med detta. Metod: Vår studie bygger på en kvalitativ metod där vi genomfört blogganalys av Sveriges tio största privata bloggar. Vi har vidare intervjuat 15 företag som är verksamma med marknadskommunikation via dessa bloggar. Sekundärdata har samlats in genom litteratur, artiklar och elektroniska källor. Slutsats: Företag använder bloggen som ett komplement till traditionell media. Marknadskommunikationen via dessa tillämpas i form av banners, tävlingar och sponsring av olika aktiviteter. Produktsponsring har på senare tid blivit populärt för att på så sätt hamna i bloggens text, vilket ses som det mest trovärdiga budskapet. De möjligheter som företag ser med detta kommunikationsverktyg är att budskapet blir trovärdigt och mer personligt då bloggaren ses som en inflytelserik person som många ser upp till. Det är även ett mätbart och relativt billigt verktyg att tillämpa för att nå en specifik målgrupp. Risker som företag reflekterat över är främst att bloggen är ett okontrollerat forum där företagen lämnar ut varumärket till konsument och därmed tappar kontrollen över vad som kommuniceras till marknaden. Bloggen som kommunikationsverktyg kommer fortsätta växa så länge bloggarna har många läsare och företag därmed kan nå ut till specifika målgrupper. Nya trender och förändringar på marknaden kommer medföra att bloggen utvecklas eller tar ny form för fortsatt interaktiv aktivitet på internet. Förslag till vidare forskning: Det som vi funderat över under studien gång är hur konsumenter ser på att företag samarbetar med bloggare. Att tillämpa en kvantitativ metod för att genomföra en sådan studie skulle vara intressant för kunna applicera resultatet på en större population och därmed utläsa mer djupgående effekt av kommunikationen. / Background and problem: The blog as a marketing tool has increased in recent years. Companies have started to communicate messages through blog texts with the hope to increase their credibility and thus power, this has raised a debate on product placement and hidden advertising. How can companies apply blog communication as a marketing tool without violating the law and what are the risks and opportunities of this approach? Objective: The aim of this paper is to map and identify companies’ ways of deliberately using private blogs in their marketing strategy and how to deal with potential risks and opportunities sprung from this form of marketing. Method: Our study is based on a qualitative approach in which we implemented an analysis of the ten largest private blogs in Sweden. We also interviewed 15 companies who are active in communicating through these blogs. Secondary data were collected through literature, articles and electronic sources. Conclusion: Companies are using blogs as a complement to traditional media. Commercial communications through these blogs are applied in the form of banners, contests and sponsorships of various activities. Product sponsorship has recently become a popular way for companies to end up in the blog text, which is seen as a more credible medium. The opportunities companies see with this communication tool is that the message is credible and more personal because bloggers are seen as influential people who many look up to. It is also a measurable and relatively inexpensive tool to use to reach a specific audience. Risks that companies are aware of are the fact that a blog is an uncontrolled forum where company brand care is outsourced to the blogger and then viewed by the end consumer. This creates a loss of control over what is communicated to the market. The blog as a communication tool will continue to grow as long as blogs have many readers and therefore can reach out to specific target groups. New trends and market changes provide incentive for continued evolution and development of the blog, or will make the blog shift shape into a new form for further interactive activity on the Internet. Proposal for further research: What we thought about during our research is how consumers look at the companies’ collaboration with bloggers. To implement a quantitative research study would be interesting. By doing so we would be able to better understand the profound effect blog marketing has on the population.

This thesis uses our lived experience of speech online to analyse the most common justification for freedom of speech: the "marketplace of ideas" metaphor. It opens with an account of a conversation in the feminist blogosphere that explicitly addressed the operation of social power in discussion. The lessons of that conversation is compared to accounts of the marketplace of ideas metaphor offered by theorists like Sunstein, Fiss, and Boyd White, as well as more internet-oriented theorists like Lessig, Benkler and Balkin. From that, and building on the insights of critics like Fraser and Mansbridge, the thesis argues that we ought to reject the "liberal-economic" paradigm of the function of speech and deliberation in a democracy, and proposes that we replace the "marketplace of ideas" metaphor with that of a "critical democratic culture." The thesis concludes by illustrating the usefulness of that new metaphor through the example of hate speech.

This thesis uses our lived experience of speech online to analyse the most common justification for freedom of speech: the "marketplace of ideas" metaphor. It opens with an account of a conversation in the feminist blogosphere that explicitly addressed the operation of social power in discussion. The lessons of that conversation is compared to accounts of the marketplace of ideas metaphor offered by theorists like Sunstein, Fiss, and Boyd White, as well as more internet-oriented theorists like Lessig, Benkler and Balkin. From that, and building on the insights of critics like Fraser and Mansbridge, the thesis argues that we ought to reject the "liberal-economic" paradigm of the function of speech and deliberation in a democracy, and proposes that we replace the "marketplace of ideas" metaphor with that of a "critical democratic culture." The thesis concludes by illustrating the usefulness of that new metaphor through the example of hate speech.

MP3 blogs and their aggregators, which have risen to prominence over the past four years, are presenting an alternative way of promoting and discovering new music. I will argue that MP3 files greatly affect MP3 blogs in terms of shaping them as: a genre separate from general weblogs and music blogs without MP3s, especially due to the impact of MP3 blog aggregators such as The Hype Machine and Elbows; a particular form of rhetoric illuminated by Kenneth Burke's dramatistic ratios of agency-purpose, purpose-act and scene-act; and as a potentially subversive subculture, which like other subcultures, exists in a symbiotic relationship with the traditional media it defines itself against. Using excerpts from multiple MP3 blogs and their forums, interviews with MP3 bloggers and Anthony Volodkin (creator of The Hype Machine), references to MP3 blogs in traditional press, and Burke's theory of dramatism and Hodge and Kress's theories of social semiotics, I will demonstrate that the MP3 file is not only changing the way music is consumed and circulated, but also the way music is promoted and discussed.

This study examines how Asian Americans articulate their marginalization and identity, as well as other issues related to race, through the use of blogs. Specifically, I look at discourse surrounding the Deadly Viper Character Assassins publication controversy on three different blogs. I draw upon critical discourse analysis (CDA) to compile patterns, themes, and anomalies from the online discussions. This paper highlights key findings, given the scarceness of Asian American voices in public culture, that prompt ongoing discussions about identity and the use of blogs as a platform to speak and conceptualize Asian American identity.

The role of web 2.0 technologies has become windfall for knowledge building in higher education in the entire modern world. Web 2.0 technologies (Podcasts, Wikis, and Blogs) are being explored for collaboration, innovation, and creative purposes in digital literacy. The ICT based system (Learning Management System, Student Portal, Web mail) of Växjö University lacks web 2.0 technologies (Podcasts, Blogs, and Wikis) that are important for classroom learning for knowledge building. This research intends to investigate and describe the educational importance of web 2.0 (Podcasts, Wikis, and Blogs) as a possible source to facilitate class room learning in higher education in Sweden. In this regard, role of web 2.0 in its current usage in the teaching and learning have been identified and, thereby, possible measures for more improvements have been suggested in this research. Keeping in view the potential of web 2.0 as content development and management technologies and incorporating their role in formative evaluation of students, peer assessment, collaborative content creation, and individual as well as group reflection on learning experiences, the researcher conducted a survey by asking very simple and short questions as to how far has this potential been exploited in Sweden. Based on the findings and the empirical evidences thereof a model has been proposed for maximum utility of web 2.0 technologies.

Bakgrund: Amyotrofisk lateralskleros (ALS) är en motorneuron sjukdom som bryter ner kroppens muskler. Detta försvagar de kroppsliga funktionerna. För att klara av sin vardag ökar då beroendet av hjälp från både hjälpmedel och människor. Syfte: Syftet var att belysa personers upplevelser av att vara beroende av hjälp vid sjukdomen ALS. Metod: En kvalitativ innehållsanalys har använts och materialet hämtats från bloggar och biografier som beskriver personers liv med ALS. Resultat: I resultatet beskrivs följande kategorier: Att vara beroende av hjälp från hjälpmedel, att vara beroende av hjälp från närstående, att vara beroende av hjälp från utomstående och att vara beroende av hjälp från samhället. Diskussion: Det huvudsakliga fyndet var upplevelsen av att inte längre vara delaktig i sitt eget liv. En stor rädsla fanns över att någon främmande skulle ta hand om ens behov och en känsla av underlägsenhet kunde uppstå. Missnöje med samhällets hjälp och känslan av att vara ifrågasatt förekom. / Background: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a motor neuron disease that breaks down the muscles of the body. This debilitates the functions of the body. In order to get through everyday life the dependence on help from both aids and people increases. Aim: The aim is to elucidate experiences of being dependent on help because of ALS. Method: A qualitative content analysis was used and the data was gathered from blogs and biographies describing persons living with ALS. Results: The result describes following categories: Being dependent on help from aids, relatives, formal helpers and the community. Discussion: The main findings were that persons could feel powerlessness and as if they no longer were involved in their own lives. There was a fear that strangers would involve and take care of the personal needs and because of that feelings of inferiority could occur. Several persons were dissatisfied with the lack of help from the community and the feeling of being questioned often came up.