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AbstractTitle: The Debate on Google Books: a critical discourse analysis of newspapers and blogs.(Debatten om Google Books. En kritisk diskursanalys av dagspress och bloggar.)Number of pages: 44 (47)Author: Karin EngströmTutor: Martin FredrikssonCourse: Media and Communication Studies CPeriod: Autumn 2009University: Institution of Informatics and Media, Uppsala UniversityAim: The aim of this study is to survey the debate on Google Books in Swedish newspapers andblogs and to see if the arguments and opinions differ depending on media type and writer.Furthermore, the aim of this study is to put the debate in a bigger perspective, with the copyrightlaw, and the future of copyright law, in focus.Material/Method: 15 articles on Google Books from the two biggest Swedish newspapers, Dagensnyheter and Svenska dagbladet, and blogs discussing the articles were studied. The theoretical andmethodological scope of the study is critical discourse analysis inspired by Norman Fairclough'sthree-dimensional model.Main Results: The results of this study suggest that most authors and IT workers, as well as libraryrepresentatives, were overwhelmingly positive to Google Books, while publishers and somejournalists expressed a more skeptical point of view. The newspapers studied publishedcontributions from all sides – authors, journalists, representatives from publishing houses andlibraries, as well as workers in the IT sector. The arguments of the publishers' representatives wereallowed slightly more space in newspapers, while the blogs analyzed featured debate contributionsfrom authors and journalists. In addition to publishing representatives, also influental in the debatewere those who fall under the category of "academic discourse", such as the Royal Library'sresearch director Pelle Snickars. The arguments of the various media did not differ significantly,but as the majority of blogs were written by professional authors, there was a greater tendencytowards positive views of Google Books. The debate on Google Books in Sweden has also largelybeen about copyright, and many of the debaters are also arguing for a change in copyright thatbetter fits with today's IT society.Keywords: Google Books, Copyright, Newspapers, Blogs, Discourse

This essay is based on Edward Saids magnum opus, Orientalism. Orientalism is the notion on the division between the Occident (west) and the Orient (east) stemming primarily from the colonial age. Said states that the great colonial powers of the 19th and 18th century, through various science projects, created a view of the east as its own opposite, I.e. as everything opposite to modernization and so called enlightenment, two components affiliated with the west. According to Said these moral and intellectual standards, to this day, penetrate all aspects of western society and are observed in all kinds of institutions, for example the academic world and the media. The essay observes several rapports in two of Sweden leading papers, Expressen and Aftonbladet, concerning the terrorist attacks in London 2005 and analyzes them through a discourse analysis. The purpose of the essay is to find out whether the rapports show any signs of what Said defines as orientalism. The main focus is on the power structures which make up the language used in the rapports and analyzing them through the lens of Orientalism. The analysis show that the rapports in Expressen clearly express a view which verifies Saids theory. The division between”we” I.e. the west and ”them”, the east, is sharp in this case. However the rapports in Aftonbladet show no clear signs of Orientalism and are quite different from the ones presented in Expressen.

The study investigates the social stratification of albinos in Tanzania. This is done by conducting a case study in Babati and decoding and generalising the attitudes in a national context. This is combined with a litterateur study which has been made analysing the attitudes towards albinos in the media. The study has used a critical as well as continental discourse analysis and decoded the data by using the theories of social constructivism and of stigma. Semi-structured interviews as well as a litterateur study was conducted. The result proved that the albinos in Tanzania are stigmatised in the society and that people treat them based on myths and preconceptions. This stratification sometimes goes as far as to murders and mutations of albinos. The respondents as well as the media and government refer to the lack of education as the main cause behind the killings of albinos. A combination of the myths about albinos and the lack of education is the reasons that are accurate when analysing the reasons behind the ongoing murders.

Purposes The present paper employs public discourses, in the form of policy documents from the OECD, EU and the UN, news and popular media, to explore how economic and political subjectivities simultaneously emerge and are obfuscated in the ubiquitous discourses on education that are dominated by neoliberal ideas (Ball, 2006; Buras & Apple, 2005).  Perspectives and theoretical framework One point of departure are the notions of “interdiscursivity” and “medialization of politics,” which point to how discourses are rearticulated in different contexts, drawing on each other, and thereby both affirming and displacing each other, and to how politics is made intelligible in public media (Fairclough, 1995; 2000). Another point of departure is the notions of assemblages and flight lines (Deleuze & Guattari, 2004). These concepts enable us to understand the neoliberal education discourse as an open, ambiguous and undecided assemblage, and to explore how this assemblage makes possible differing educational aims and subject positions.  Methods The argument is based on discourse analysis of transnational policy documents and news and popular media from different nations. The aim of the analysis is to explore what economic and political subject positions are made possible in these different data sets.  Results and Arguments Although the tenants of neoliberalism are dominant, they are not totally hegemonic. In both the policy documents and the public media data, there are simultaneous articulations of a neoliberal educational discourse and a discourse of education as a tool to enhance democracy and create social justice. Furthermore, these discourses inform and are often intertwined with each other.   The transnational policy documents predominantly articulate education as possibilities. There are, however, salient differences between the OECD and EU documents, and the UN documents. Although all emphasize what education can do for the nations, the former stress education as a prerequisite for economic progress, whereas the latter stress eliminating poverty, fostering democracy, and empowering individuals and subordinated groups. In this way, the OECD and EU documents constitute subjectivities in relation to a market focused on how learners can contribute to a growing economy, whereas the UN documents constitute political subjects who can contribute to society through political interventions.  News and public media are dominated by articulations of an education system in a state of “crisis”. The arguments for these representations and the solutions brought forward are drawn from a neoliberal discourse focused on competition, marketization, free choice, and private initiatives, but there is also a parallel and intersecting discourse of education as a means to give subordinated subjects opportunities for a better life. However, these discourses mainly point to economic rather than to political subjectivities, who hold their future in their own hands by making the right choices and working hard. This is not completely unambiguous, as media representations, especially in the popular media, also depict resistance and constitute subjectivities who subvert the neoliberal hegemony and who insist on the political (Mouffe, 2005). These subversions open the door to notions of education as practices that not only stabilize, but also destabilize and change society. / Class in neoliberal education discourses

This thesis offers an overview of the new rhetorical strategies of persuasion being implemented by the contemporary English Canadian anti-abortion movement. This thesis analyzes the main arguments, philosophical principles, narratives and other important rhetorical strategies used by the contemporary anti-abortion movement in English-speaking Canada. It seeks, in other words, to explain how the anti-abortion movement talks to Canadians and how it attempts to persuade them of anti-abortion views.

With the knowledge that risk has become an omnipresent concept used to understand various social problems, this study aims to fill a perceived gap in literature by investigating the way in which risk discourse is applied to understand different categories of crime, namely traditional crime and corporate crime. It is hypothesized that risk logic is heavily applied to the understanding of traditional crime, with minimal attribution to conversations surrounding corporate crime. The pervasiveness of risk as a technique or tactic of government renders the study of its application to different types of crime an important addition to the existing risk literature. Using the method of a comparative content analysis, the parallels and discrepancies between the ways in which risk is used to discuss traditional and corporate crime by Canadian federal criminal justice organizations are explored. The results indicate a lack of focus on risk logic with respect to corporate crime, but demonstrate that risk discourse is perhaps not altogether absent from corporate crime discussions.

This dissertation examines: (a) the discourses of femininity circulating on a female skateboarding blog produced by the Skirtboarders (a group of women skateboarders based in Montréal, Canada); (b) the ways in which the Skirtboarders use Internet blogging (which I label “community media”) to contest (sexist) dominant discursive constructions of sportswomen deployed in mainstream and alternative media; and (c) the ways in which users read and make sense of the Skirtboarders’ blog. For this project, I collected 262 blog posts, including 1128 associated comments, conducted semi-structured interviews with eight Skirtboarders and four users of the blog and incorporated some observational notes. This information was then subjected to discourse analysis informed by the theoretical perspectives of Michel Foucault. This research makes a significant contribution to a growing body of literature in the sociology of sport exploring media (re)presentations of bodies, especially women’s bodies, and lifestyle sports because it is one of the rare studies that goes beyond doing an analysis of media texts – it also uncovers the intentions of the producers of the texts and, in addition, examines the effects of the media discourses for audiences (herein referred to as users). My findings reveal that the Skirtboarders offer something different than mainstream and alternative skateboarding media (re)presentations (i.e., I examined what narratives the Skirtboarders produce about themselves to understand how they appropriate, accommodate or resist gender discourses). The women who produced the blog consciously and purposely challenged dominant discursive fragments. Although users considered the blog inspirational for promoting female skateboarding, they had diverse readings of the Skirtboarders’ attempts to reflexively start a “movement” and, in doing so, construct and circulate a collective identity. I therefore suggest that the Skirtboarders’ blog is one of many political tools and strategies required to change the landscape of the global female skateboarding world. Ultimately, I argue that the Internet is a space where women can have access to predominantly masculine sport and create more fluid definitions of sporting femininity. It provides women with opportunities to control their own (re)presentations, which will challenge male dominated institutions such as mainstream and alternative media organizations. / Cette dissertation étudie : a) les discours sur la féminité qui circulent sur le blogue des Skirtboarders (un groupe de femmes planchistes de Montréal, Canada); b) comment les Skirtboarders utilisent le blogue (que je nomme « média communautaire ») pour contester les discours dominants (sexistes) sur le corps sportif féminin déployées dans le mass média et les média alternatifs; et c) comment les utilisatrices interprètent et accordent un sens au blogue des Skirtboarders. Pour ce projet : j’ai recueillis 262 articles de forum sur le blogue, incluant les 1128 commentaires; effectué des entrevues semi-dirigées avec huit Skirtboarders et quatre utilisatrices du blogue; incorporé des notes d’observation. Ces informations ont ensuite été soumises à une analyse du discours inspirée de la perspective théorique de Michel Foucault. Cette recherche apporte une contribution importante à une littérature croissante en sociologie du sport explorant les (re)présentations du corps, spécialement les corps féminins, et les sports alternatifs; car il s’agit d’une des rares études qui s’aventure au-delà de l’analyse des textes médiatiques. Elle porte aussi sur les intentions des productrices des textes et examine en plus les effets des discours médiatiques sur l’auditoire (c’est-à-dire les utilisatrices). Mes résultats révèlent que les Skirtboarders offrent un contenu qui diffère des (re)présentations du skateboarding dans le mass média et les média alternatifs (par ex., j’ai examiné quels récits les Skirtboarders produisent à propos d’elles-mêmes pour comprendre comment elles s’approprient, s’accommodent ou résistent aux discours sur le genre). Les femmes qui produisent le blogue contestent consciemment et délibérément les fragments discursifs dominants. Quoique les utilisatrices considèrent le blogue inspirant pour la promotion du skateboarding auprès des femmes, elles offrent diverses lectures de la tentative réflexive des Skirtboarders d’initier un «mouvement » et, en ce faisant, de construire et de propager une identité collective. Je suggère donc que le blogue des Skirtboarders est un parmi plusieurs outils politiques et stratégiques requis pour changer le paysage de la scène mondiale des femmes planchistes. Ultimement, j’avance que l’Internet est un espace où les femmes peuvent avoir accès au sport dominé par les hommes et créer des définitions fluides de la féminité sportive. L’Internet offre des occasions aux femmes de contrôler leurs propres (re)présentations, lesquelles contesteront les institutions majoritairement masculines telles que les organisations de mass média et de média alternatifs.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the ways in which the primary Discourse and school experiences inform the literate identity of a male teacher, as well as his professional practice. The research looks at the various influences and relationships that come to bear on male literate identity from childhood to professional practice. As well, it responds to the contention of the popular media that boys lagging literacies might be remediated through the presence of more male literacy role models in the classroom. This study suggests that although role models may be influential under particular circumstances, the development of literate identity is far more complex and nuanced.<p> This study focuses on six male teachers and describes their experiences of literacy, particularly reading, from childhood into professional practice. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and informal observations. The interviews revealed that male literate identity is a product not only of parental attitudes toward literacy, but it is also determined by the individuals sense of competence and purpose, as well as sometimes serendipitous encounters with other readers.

This thesis explores the coalescence of Japanese and Anglo-American colonial discourses in the Seoul Press. Between the Protectorate Treaty of 1905 and the Annexation Treaty of 1910, Korea was dominated not only territorially but also discursively. Under the guise of the “civilizing mission,” the Japanese Residency General sought to legitimize its colonial project in Korea. To accomplish its goals of silencing foreign opposition to Japanese colonialism and of dictating international opinion about Korea, the Residency General established an English language newspaper, the Seoul Press. In the pages of this daily paper, the views of Japanese colonial officials as well as Anglo-American observers found expression. Through an analysis of articles from the Seoul Press, this thesis will reveal the existence of a dual-layered gaze of colonialism, the rhetorical threads of which made up the tapestry of colonial communication.