Nature still plays a prominent role in shaping social expectations about the tasks of parents, especially mothers. The transition from the previous model of mothering and the contemporary one in Italy is definitely characterized by a revival of what is perceived as the ancient way of childrearing. At the same time, nature is also used to establish ideas about women and motherhood that are socially constructed. The gender inequality that characterizes maternity is somehow justified as part of an inevitable process where it is only or mainly the mother who has to stay home and provide care for children. The belief is well-established in Italian society and many women embrace it without any questioning. This research seeks to understand the appeal that the concept of the natural mother exercises today on many women. Empirically, the focus is on the Italian context. Departing from questions coming from the personal experience of motherhood, the author carried out an investigation of a Facebook group that provides support and information about a natural approach to motherhood. Ecofeminist and intersectional theory have been used in order to address the thorny relationship between women and nature. With the aid of discourse analysis and online ethnography methods, the author tried to disclose contemporary use of nature in the cultural representation of maternity. The study reveals the role that breastfeeding plays in present-day Italy in modeling a natural approach to motherhood. More precisely, breastfeeding is the core for understanding the idea of the natural mother. The significance of the research is that it highlights how breastfeeding raises the contradiction of the natural motherhood approach: on the one hand, it claims a stronger voice for women’s needs and expectations of their pregnancy and maternity experiences; on the other, it supports a conservative rhetoric about gender roles.

The main objective with this Master's thesis is to better understand the preferences and attitudes of audiobook users in Sweden who are also members of Swedish Facebook audiobook groups. In recent years audiobooks have risen to prominence, although their previously inferior status is still evident in the lack of available research. Development of digital technology together with our busy modern lives have facilitated this rapid growth. The data gathering method used was a self-completion questionnaire distributed via Swedish audiobook Facebook groups. I endeavored to answer the following research questions: Why, how and to what extent do members of Swedish Facebook audiobook groups consume audiobooks? What attitudes do these users exhibit towards audiobooks’ affordances? Uses and gratifications theory and McLuhan's laws of media were used as a theoretical framework. The study both supports and challenges previous findings. Users primarily audio read because they can do other things at the same time; thriller/suspense/mystery are the most popular genres; many listen to podcasts and read print books, but a substantial number also exclusively listen. The study also found that most audio read quite a lot and prefer to do it at home, while the car is not such a common location. The narrator is overall important, but not when one chooses an audiobook. Though most subscribe to a streaming service, a substantial number of users borrow from a local library.

In times of the pandemic, Facebook has become a virtual space that through e.g.“coronavirus support groups” (Harris, 2020), partially substitutes social interactions and allows its users to better cope with the isolation and social distancing. A public Facebook group “Lappis” established in 2006 is a space facilitating communication for the local community of the biggest student housing in Stockholm “Stora Lappkärrsberget”. Since the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020, Covid-related postings started to emerge in the group’s forum. The study examines Covid-related content in order to define the function of the group through describing the forms of communication around the pandemic, i.e. the themes, the scope and the ways the content is conveyed. In doing so, the model combining the uses and gratifications theory and the theory of affordances is applied, allowing to investigate the motivations and interactivity of the members through Facebook group affordances. In order to encompass the puzzle from multiple angles, an adaptive approach of mixed methods is used by combining: qualitative content analysis and survey. Key finding of the research is that the Covid-related content is a minor part of the content shared in the group, yet that it provokes extensive discussions among the members with both “aggressive” and “unaggressive” responses. Furthermore, it is argued that the group has potential to be a coronavirus support group (Harris, 2020) and a substitute for interpersonal communication (Papacharissi & Mendelson, 2011). Finally, the study identifies possibilities for future research in the further examination of local Facebook groups in the context of pandemic, in order to map the possible changes in Facebook affordances that would lead to higher reliability of those groups as spaces for sharing Covid-related content.