Purpose/Aim: To study the existence and level of bias in British press coverage of the 2008 US presidential election. Material/Method: A rhetorical analysis of 20 newspaper articles dealing with the election taken from The Guardian (liberal) and The Daily Telegraph (conservative) newspapers over a fiveday period up to and including the election. Main Results: Bias was found to be present, although the level of bias proved significantly higher in the material selected from the liberal newspaper. The conservative newspaper selected exhibited significantly lower levels of bias. This trend was true of both news and opinion articles

Purpose/Aim: This essay explores the framing and representation of pensioners in Swedish press during the period of 2002-2008. The aim was to investigate what meaning news give elderly people on the manifest level, and also what meaning the media texts construct on the latent level. Material/Method: For this paper I have investigated framing of pensioners using quantitative analysis of 100 news articles, followed by a qualitative hermeneutic analysis applied on the most frequent frames discovered in the quantitative study. Main results: Four frames were identified concerning pensioners: crime victims, heroes in daily dues, economically advantaged and economically disadvantaged. The dualistic result in the economy frame was investigated in the qualitative research. The study revealed that pensioners as a group may have good economic standards, although there are individual differences. Three stereotypes were discovered in the articles: “kind granny”, “fragile and miserable” and “look what I can do”.

Purpose/Aim: To study the rhetorical changes in the speeches of Barack Obama from being a presidential candidate to being the President. Material/Method: A rhetorical analysis of two defining speeches using logos, pathos and ethos in conjunction with framing and identity. Main Results: The main result of the essay was that the rhetoric used by Barack Obama did indeed change as his position as a politician changed. This change, however, was the result of how language is affected by circumstance, audience, the context in which the language is sent and received and the current identity being used by the speaker. Rhetoric is not purely about the language used.

The Nord Stream natural gas pipeline has been a controversial project. The debate was primarily escalated by Poland's strong negative reaction to the project in the spring of 2006 over safety and security and then alternated back and forth in Europe until the approval by the nations most concerned in the Baltic region during the autumn of 2009.In the case study an approach is used that primarily maps out the media image of the various viewpoints that deal with the pipeline and how these viewpoints position themselves, primarily through political and environmental dimensions. Simultaneously there’s an attempt to map out the spatial spread of the media image views as to the proximity and distance to the pipeline in Sweden, Poland and Germany. A key question is whether distance or proximity to a large facility can affect people's attitudes.A parallel focus of the study is to explore the role of the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline in the cross-border hinterland region of Szczecin-Świnoujście. The complex cross-border relationship between Germany and Poland is characterized by the opportunities and obstacles to mobility & the potential of conflict between the needs of the individual vs. the state, partly due to an unbalanced hierarchy between the two nations.An understanding of the pipeline's impact on the border region is shown in part by an analysis of the city of Szczecin's theoretical potential in its hinterland, with special reference to the impact of the state boundary before and after Poland's entry into the European Union and the Schengen regime.Other contributions to the outline of this thesis deal partly with Medialisation and Framing, as the media-investigation in the study handles concerns, arguments and opinions about the pipeline-project, highlighted by the media. Another subject deals with risk assessment, as no one can be certain what will happen in case of an accident to the pipeline.A general concluding comment to the results of the media-investigation is that they are too parsimonious. However there are some assumptions to be made: In the resulting discussion it is argued, among other things, that from the political aspect both Poland and Sweden share a negative opinion towards the pipeline, while the opinion of German people appears positive to the project, according to the media viewpoints. From the environmentalaspect the over-all picture is that the opinions of the whole of Poland and the local levels of Germany and Sweden respectively (i.e. people living near the Nord Stream pipeline) are negative also – feel unsafe according to the project, due to the media viewpoints.A second assumption is that the media location does not play a major role in the way media coverage highlights the views of those for the pipeline or those against the pipeline.The overall impression is that the media coverage largely follows state affinities, in the sense that the relative openness of the argument that every state seems to represent, seems also to be reflected through media coverage in each state.The Nord Stream natural gas pipeline has been a controversial project. The debate was primarily escalated by Poland's strong negative reaction to the project in the spring of 2006 over safety and security and then alternated back and forth in Europe until the approval by the nations most concerned in the Baltic region during the autumn of 2009.In the case study an approach is used that primarily maps out the media image of the various viewpoints that deal with the pipeline and how these viewpoints position themselves, primarily through political and environmental dimensions. Simultaneously there’s an attempt to map out the spatial spread of the media image views as to the proximity and distance to the pipeline in Sweden, Poland and Germany. A key question is whether distance or proximity to a large facility can affect people's attitudes.A parallel focus of the study is to explore the role of the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline in the cross-border hinterland region of Szczecin-Świnoujście. The complex cross-border relationship between Germany and Poland is characterized by the opportunities and obstacles to mobility & the potential of conflict between the needs of the individual vs. the state, partly due to an unbalanced hierarchy between the two nations.An understanding of the pipeline's impact on the border region is shown in part by an analysis of the city of Szczecin's theoretical potential in its hinterland, with special reference to the impact of the state boundary before and after Poland's entry into the European Union and the Schengen regime.Other contributions to the outline of this thesis deal partly with Medialisation and Framing, as the media-investigation in the study handles concerns, arguments and opinions about the pipeline-project, highlighted by the media. Another subject deals with risk assessment, as no one can be certain what will happen in case of an accident to the pipeline.A general concluding comment to the results of the media-investigation is that they are too parsimonious. However there are some assumptions to be made: In the resulting discussion it is argued, among other things, that from the political aspect both Poland and Sweden share a negative opinion towards the pipeline, while the opinion of German people appears positive to the project, according to the media viewpoints. From the environmentalaspect the over-all picture is that the opinions of the whole of Poland and the local levels of Germany and Sweden respectively (i.e. people living near the Nord Stream pipeline) are negative also – feel unsafe according to the project, due to the media viewpoints.A second assumption is that the media location does not play a major role in the way media coverage highlights the views of those for the pipeline or those against the pipeline.The overall impression is that the media coverage largely follows state affinities, in the sense that the relative openness of the argument that every state seems to represent, seems also to be reflected through media coverage in each state.

World Social Forum, and the worldwide appearance of regional, national and local Social Forums (SF), is an important part of the movement for global justice. The aim of this thesis is to explore how the SF as a global phenomenon is interpreted and staged locally in Sweden. Central questions are: What local meanings are given to the SF phenomenon when it is introduced and organized in a local context? What relations are created between the various actors in this organizational process in terms of coalitions and power relations? How do the SFs relate to the Swedish institutionalized popular adult education? These questions are explored in the four articles on which this thesis rests. Ethnographic field studies of local organizational processes constitute the empirical basis of theoretically informed hermeneutic interpretations. A neo-gramscian perspective is used to analyze the SF as a potentially counter-hegemonic popular education phenomenon. This perspective has been complemented by mainly two theoretical concepts, that is, framing and symbolic capital. Results demonstrate how the emergence of SFs in Sweden is characterized by a widespread desire among various activists and organizations to build coalitions. In the establishment of SFs the institutionalized popular adult education play both the role of a source of economic and material resources and of being a link between various organizations. However, in the wide and formally open organizational process, specific distinctions and hierarchies arise that might neutralize the SF’s ideological impact and its potential for counter-hegemonic coalition construction. Finally, a Swedish academic debate on the concept of “folkbildning” (popular adult education) is addressed. It is argued that there is a need to widen the scope of this debate to more frequently focus on global (popular) educational phenomena (such as the social forums) in research on “folkbildning”, and not only pay attention to “typical” national or Nordic institutions and traditions.

Purpose/Aim: The comprehensive purpose is to study how the political journalism is framed, and how the party leaders, with focus on the authority, are constructed in the press. Material/Method: Firstly 84 articles articles printed in the swedish newspapers Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet have been analysed. Secondly, a textual analysis by means of a critical discourse analysis. Main results: Media are inclined to frame politics as a game or a strategic race. The partyleaders are ascribed authority in different ways. This ascribed authority can also be deconstructed. Key words: Media and politics, party leader, discourse, democracy, framing theory

Aim: The study's aim and run-up are to investigate how journalists frame texts, during impact of those standards and values that they have, combined with the organization and in the nation where they work. Method/Material: The study looks on how the authors of articles at the Swedish newspaper "Dagens Nyheter" and the Norwegian newspaper "Dagbladet", uses the concept al-Qaida, in their news rapport, during the period 19:th of mars – 24:th of august 2003. Two hundred articles were collected and divided into two groups, 1) the explicit group, there the text actu ally treated al-Qaida, 2) the implicit group, there the text e.g. linked to the name al-Qaida and the article itself treated another subject. Is it possible to see differences or resemblances, in the way that journa lists frame their texts? The main theoretical run-up is framing accor- ding to R. Entman (1993). The study works with an overall hypothesis: that it advises differences between these two countries and newspapers framing of al-Qaida. Main results: Among the explicit articles, the newspaper "Dagbladet" distinguihes themselves most, both in the number of articles and how many times they used the concept al-Qaida. Among the implicit articles, it is the newspaper "Dagens Nyheter" that have the largest amount of articles, but it is the "Dagbladet" that mentions the concept al-Qaida more times. I therefore draw the conclusion that "Dagbladet" "refers/ mentions" al-Qaida considerable more times in their articles than "Dagens Nyheter". The reason to this is probably the cultural, indivi dual, organizational and national differences that are between the countries. And probably that Norway were a part of the Iraq coalition force's 2003.

The purpose of this dissertation is critically to illustrate discursive recontextualization between sociocultural production and reproduction, with respect to both relations within and relations to music education in Swedish upper-secondary school. The starting point for the study is the Swedish upper-secondary school reform, Gy 2011, which has involved a marked reformulation of the agenda for music education in upper-secondary school. The general Artistic Activities disappeared, at the same time as the significance of a specialising education in the field was strengthened. This dissertation is driven by the desire to understand the results of the upper-secondary school reform by explaining the processes and principles involved. But, in a wider perspective, the dissertation deals not only with a single reform, but encompasses a search for the underlying principles that have had, and are having, a regulating effect on the design and positioning of music in publicly regulated education. The results show that structuring of the subject of music takes place primarily through the classification and framing of social relationships in general, and of interactional relationships in particular. The focus of these relationships has shifted from time to time, and varies from context to context, but has always been in relation to something that has been regarded as sacred. In recent times, the framing within music-oriented knowledge practices has become weaker. At the same time, such knowledge practices have shown an increasing need for the drawing of boundaries in relation to other knowledge practices. The latter also has a value in explaining why general music content was removed from the upper-secondary school curriculum, whereas a special and specialising educational programme was able to gain legitimacy.

Despite the vast research on the effects of gaming, little is know how the phenomenon of e-sports and it’s followers is portrayed. While media can have significant impact on what and how e-sport is portrayed, no studies have been done in a Swedish context. This thesis aims at filling that gap with investigations of the two major Swedish newspapers. Six articles was analyzed with critical discourse analysis with a theoretical base of journalism.The result of which indicated that between the period of 2005 and 2012 e-sport and players was considered to be professional, committed and more in a sense that reminded much of the view on more traditional sport such as soccer and hockey. However the players was often treated as minor kids or teenagers, for e-sports seems only to be held by these groups according to the journalist’s. The implications of this finding should be viewed as a socially critical perspective on a phenomenon that is more than often the subject of leisure.

Globalization has among other tendencies led to the emergence of new ways of doing business. One of the ways for organizations to meet the demands of a new competitive landscape has been through management accounting change, a field which has become increasingly popular in research. This paper builds on that research and seeks to investigate the case of the implementation of a new management accounting system in a Swedish company which was triggered by strategic change. Commonality through the interactive approach is by some researchers seen as a key to successful change. This approach is contrasted to the importance of symbolic constructs and change recipients’ cognitive effort to understand the meaning of change for which Framing theory is applied. The paper comes to the conclusion that both approaches are necessary in a change process, and shows further that their usage will depend on the process’ timeframe and change recipients’ position in the organization.