The popular photo sharing app, Instagram, was founded six years ago and is now one of the largest and fastest growing social media-apps in Sweden. A few years ago a health trend blossomed on Instagram and almost everyone wants to share and show their healthy lifestyle today. Previous studies show that a lot of people feel stressed over this constant exposure to other peoples health-related topics. But what is health? What does it mean to be healthy? Who decides that? The purpose of this thesis is to explore Instagram messages (picture and text) with hashtag (#)hälsa (health) to see which topics that dominate and the norms that govern what these messages should look like to be accepted. The study builds on social constructionism and proceeds into the world of discourse analysis with Faircloughs critical discourse analysis as main focus. It is also supplemented with Foucault's theories of power and self-control, and Goffman's theory of the presentation of self. At first a quantitative content analysis where made so the material would be easier to handle and overview. Then a critical discourse analysis where made to gain a deeper knowledge and understanding of the material. The main results of the study concluded that there is no single definition of health, the definition depends on the context. Further the analysis revealed four dominant discourses with #hälsa: food, fitness, body change and well-being, and all these discourses produced different meanings of health. The study also discovered norms that influence the content with #hälsa on Instagram and shows how users, based on these norms, shape and create there identity. Finally the study revealed that it does not really matter if users are healthy, as long as they produce an image of them self of being healthy, they will be healthy in the eyes of others. / Bildmediet Instagram har funnits i sex år och är ett av de största och snabbast växande sociala mediet i Sverige. För några år sedan började en hälsotrend att växa fram på Instagram och nu vill de flesta dela med sig av och visa upp sin hälsosamma livsstil. Tidigare studier visar att många svenskar känner sig stressade över denna ständiga exponering för andras hälsorelaterade inlägg. Men vad är hälsa? Vad innebär det egentligen att vara hälsosam? Vem bestämmer det? Uppsatsens syfte är att undersöka Instagram-inlägg (bild och text) under #hälsa för att se vilka ämnen som dominerar och vilka normer som styr hur dessa inlägg ska se ut för att accepteras. Studien tar avstamp i socialkonstruktionismen och går vidare in i diskursanalysen med Faircloughs kritiska diskursanalys som huvudfokus. Den kompletteras även med Foucaults teorier om makt och självstyrning samt Goffmans teori om framställningen av jaget. Till en början genomfördes en kvantitativ innehållsanalys för att lättare kunna hantera och överblicka materialet. Därefter gjordes en kritisk diskursanalys för att få en djupare förståelse av materialet. De huvudresultat som studien kom fram till var att det inte finns någon entydig definition på hälsa utan det är sammanhanget som avgör. I analysen framkom det fyra dominerande diskurser under #hälsa: mat, träning, kroppsförändring och välmående, och inom dessa diskurser framställs hälsa på olika sätt. Studiens resultat visar även på vilka normer som präglar innehållet under #hälsa på Instagram och hur aktörerna formar och skapar sin identitet utifrån dessa. Slutligen konstateras att det spelar egentligen ingen roll om aktörerna är hälsosamma, bara de visar upp en fasad av att vara det så blir de hälsosamma i andras ögon.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate in what way Swedish universities regulates its internal and external communication by the use of policy documents. The purpose has led to three research questions: what scope of communication is given to the documents user, if the document is challenging or redefining the current means of power, and how questions regarding trademark is taken into consideration. In order to achieve the purpose a discourse analysis is used as both underlining theory and comprehensive method. The underlining theory is based around social constructionism, structuralism, poststructuralism and critical discourse analysis. The analysis have taken emphasis from Norman Faircloughs three-dimensional model in which the documents have been studied on three separate levels. The material the research has been built upon is documents regarding communication policy from ten of Swedens fourteen universities. The results indicated that three central groups of participants where given authority in the policy document. The first group consists of different types of managers whom, in the policy document, where given the highest freedom of their own communication. The second group consist of colleagues and employees and are by the policy document viewed as both goals and actors with limited freedom and power over their own communication. The third group consists of students, whom much a like the second group, were viewed as both goals and actors. The last group where however given less influences over their own communication and there was a clear distinction between universities whom looked upon their students as part of the organisation and those who placed the students outside the university organisation. The results furthermore indicated that the policy document are used and works as reproduced documents for the current means of power and that questions regarding trademark are present. The term trademark were used in the majority of the documents and it was also possible to distinguish and read that the universities are very conscious about, and want to influence what image of them that is corresponded through media, employees and students.

Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur konstruktionen av ett nationellt identitetsideal sker inom den diskursiva praktik som artiklar och användarkommentarer tillsammans skapar på de invandrings- och mediekritiska nyhetsplattformarna Avpixlat och Nyheter Idag. Vårt huvudsakliga fokus har varit genus och kultursyn, eftersom dessa aspekter utgör en grundläggande del av identitetskonstruktionen. Kathryn Woodward (1997) menar att all identitetskonstruktion sker genom simultana processer av inkludering och exkludering. Genom att exkludera ‘de Andra’ från ett föreställt ‘vi’ erbjuds möjligheten att avgränsa vad ‘vi’ inte är och på så sätt undvika att uttryckligen fastslå vad ‘vi’ är. På detta sätt kan inre motsättningar eller självmotsägelser döljas och ignoreras. Detta blir särskilt aktuellt då den rådande flyktingkrisen medför att människor tvingas lämna sina hemländer för att på obestämd tid befinna sig inom andra nationella gemenskaper. Vilket i sin tur aktualiserar frågan kring medborgarskap samt vem som betraktas som svensk och inte. Vi kommer därför att använda oss av teorier kring hur nationalism och nationell identitet skapas, vilken roll genus fyller i denna process samt hur vi kan förstå den kultursyn som uttrycks av artiklar och i användarkommentarerna. I analysen har vi använt oss av en kritisk diskursanalys enligt Faircloughs modell. Han menar att språket är simultant konstruerat och konstruerande, men även att språket innehåller möjligheter att skapa omedvetna maktstrukturer i den språkliga praktiken, vilka kan dölja ideologiska förtecken samt rådande maktförhållanden. Metoden avser därför att avtäcka dessa strukturer. Detta sker genom analys av texter på tre nivåer: text, diskursiv praktik samt social praktik.Utifrån vår analys menar vi därför att användarkommentarerna använder sig av en kultursyn från globaliseringsparadigmet clash of civilizations i kombination med ett orientalistiskt synsätt, för att konstruera ett imaginärt nationellt identitetsideal. Genom att producera de binära oppositionerna 'vi svenskar' och 'de Andra' möjliggörs en identifikation i negation till 'de Andras' tillskrivna och oönskade egenskaper. Genus fyller vidare en tveeggad roll i denna konstruktion. Å ena sidan gestaltas kvinnor enbart som objekt för kvinnosyn: 'vår' jämställdhet och 'våra' goda jämställda män i konstrast mot 'Andras' förlegade och förtryckande kvinnosyn. 'Deras' kvinnosyn riskerar även att gå ut över 'våra' kvinnor och placera dem under samma förtryck som 'Andra' kvinnor upplever. Å andra sidan möjliggörs genuskonstruktionen av mannen som nationens beskyddare, där kvinnor 'är' nationen medan män 'gör' nationen. Mannen framställs här som det aktiva subjektet, vars ansvar är att beskydda nationen från såväl inre som yttre hot. Vidare menar vi att det finns ett tydligt maskulinitetsideal, där jämställdhet utgör den främsta markören för 'svenska män’ samtidigt som artiklar och användarkommentarer etablerar en negation av ‘de ojämställda Andra’, där män från ‘Andra’ kulturer anses representera en patriarkal och förtryckande struktur.

I denna uppsats redogörs för en kritisk diskursanalytisk studie om konstruktionen av stress, vars syfte är att undersöka hur stress språkligt konstrueras i olika dokument om arbetsmiljöarbete. Vid analysförfarandet användes diskursanalytikern Norman Faircloughs tredimensionella analysmodell för lingvistisk och sociologisk forskning. Dennes kritiskt diskursanalytiska tankar utgör även studiens teoretiska referensram. Det analyserade materialet består av dokument om arbetsmiljöarbete mot stress, som Arbetsmiljöverket och Prevent har producerat. Uppsatsen innefattar en kartläggning över fältet för arbetsmiljöarbete och fenomenet stress, samt en presentation kring den tidigare forskning som studerats i studiens initierande fas. Denna forskning framställs genom de tre temana diskursiv påverkan, den normaliserande diskursen och individuella faktorer. Studiens resultat presenteras i de två delarna text och diskursiv praktik från Faircloughs analysmodell. Sammantaget innefattar den första resultatdelen text de fyra temana typ av text, modalitet, hyponymer och antonymer samt transitivitet. Under den andra resultatdelen diskursiv praktik återfinns de fyra diskurserna den utbildande diskursen, den arbetsrättsliga diskursen, den ohälsosamma diskursen och den vetenskapliga diskursen.

In 2011 the Swedish translation of Jonathan Franzen's novel Freedom was published in Sweden. The novel tells the story of a middle class family, their relatives and friends, set within a context of political events. As well as in the US, the novel was soon praised by Swedish critics as a generation novel, that illustrates "the way we live now". Around that time a debate about family ideals rose in Sweden. The debate pointed towards discourses about family norms, related to motherhood and divorce. Because of the reception of Freedom as depicting a 'typical' family in contemporary culture, Freedom is used as material in this thesis, to study the construction of family ideals. In this study the family ideal is defined as white, middle class and heterosexual, and an intersectional approach as well as Critical Discourse Analysis is used. The aim of this thesis is to study the family ideal as it is reproduced in Freedom, and compare the results to Social Sciences of Gender, Class and Critical Whiteness Studies. The thesis also studies both the American and the Swedish reception of Freedom, in relation to its content. The study found that a traditional family ideal is constructed, through different discourses. The study also found that subject positions in different social categories are constructed in opposition to each other according to gender, class and whiteness norms.

This study contributes to the expanding critical range of discourse analysis by analyzing texts used to market Viagra and other "sexual enhancement medication," pharmaceuticals that treat "erectile dysfunction". Applying elements of Norman Fairclough's critical discourse analysis framework, this study examines as cultural artifacts Viagra, Levitra, and Cialis print advertisements and television commercials and it offers insight into the institutional discourse of "sexual enhancement medication" and how this discourse constructs male identity and subjectivity.

How is women positioned in conflict? A critical discourse analysis of UN resolution 1325 UN resolution 1325 was adopted in the year of 2000 with the purpose to raise awareness regarding the impact that armed conflict has on women and the importance of their participation in conflict resolution and peace-building operations. This thesis aims to analyze UN resolution 1325 and deconstruct the language in it in order to make visible how power structures affect women. Furthermore, with postcolonial feministic theory, this thesis examines the colonial power structures that are maintained within the resolution. Using a modified version of Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis (CDA), this study examines which subject positions are given to women within the realm of the resolution and furthermore how it affects their agency. This paper has framed three subject positions that make available; women as victims, women as or with children and women as a means for peace. The result show that these affect women's political agency as they are reduced to homogeneous oppressed, as peaceful by nature and as non-political beings, which partly upholds colonial power structures and partly consolidates female gender roles.

The subject of this master thesis concerns the area of change in libraries, with special orientation towards privatisation. Its aim is to investigate how privatisation is portrayed in one of Sweden’s largest library magazines, Biblioteksbladet, in order to gain insight into why these portrayals are what they are, and what consequences they might get. Three theoretical viewpoints create the general base of the thesis; first, Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis (CDA) theory on the relations between text and society; second, Audunsson’s theory concerning how change is dealt with in public libraries; and third, a conceptual framework on privatisation consisting of definitions and perspectives of the phenomenon. Fairclough’s CDA is also used as the methodological approach for this study. The analysis has evolved around four analytical strategies, namely wordmeanings, modality, metaphors and interactional control. These strategies have unveiled different sides of the depiction of privatisation, where four dominating portrayals could be seen. These portrayals were named as follows: privatisation as leaving the past, as a matter of basic values, as a matter of economy and as a debate. The material also showed a division in different perspectives, where the advocating and the questioning perspective dominated. These perspectives could be seen in the various portrayals of privatisation, where privatisation as leaving the past was exclusively advocating while privatisation as a matter of basic values was strictly questioning. This emphasized the importance of library values when it comes to the attitude towards change.

This master’s thesis aims to study the practice of separating popular genres of fiction from the rest of the fiction stock, often seen at public libraries. The method being used is critical discourse analysis according to Norman Fairclough’s three-dimensional conception of discourse. The textual dimension of this analysis is the book shelf itself and the sociocultural practice is the everyday practice at a public library of supplying and mediating books to the visitors. The main research question is: In what ways do the alternative shelf arrangements affect the sociocultural practice of mediating fiction to library visitors and to what degree has this practice, with its non-discoursive elements, cleared the path for shelf arrangements to become a natural part of the libraries? The question is answered by the analysis of the text and its different modalities, and the analysis of the discoursive practice where the interest has been the production and the consumption of the text. These two aspects of discourse are then contextualized in the sociocultural dimension. The result shows the picture of a public library undergoing major changes. Strained economy and a shift in the habits of reading fiction have forced the libraries to take influence by the commercial book stores, preferably the on-line ones. This thesis shows that the shelf arrangements of fiction are a part of the development for the public libraries in a more individualised, commercial direction.

The subject of this master thesis is to identify discourses regarding children’s literature in one of Sweden’s largest library magazines, Biblioteksbladet. The subject is furthermore to look at how the child is portrayed within these discourses and if the discourses change over time. The theoretical and methodological background is Norman Fairclough´s critical discourse analysis (CDA). A selection of 62 texts, published in Biblioteksbladet between the years of 1945-2009, was analyzed. Three discourses were identified: a pedagogic discourse, a literary discourse and a psychological discourse. The pedagogic discourse looks upon the literature as a means of teaching children valuable knowledge and good values. The literary discourse emphasize the literary qualities of the children’s books and The psychological discourse emphasize the children’s emotional needs and own opinion of the literature. The pedagogic and literary discourses share a similar view of the child, as someone in need of help and guidance, as opposed to The psychological discourse where the power relationship is more equal. The pedagogic discourse and psychological discourse contain distinct changes that can be linked to the surrounding social practices. / Program: Bibliotekarie