The aim of this study is to gain a greater understanding of how companies use the social media platform Instagram to represent and promote a place. More precisely, it is of interest to analyze the media production of luxury tourism and how communication tools are applied in order to affect the consumers’ perceptions and increase tourism. In this study we examine the city Dubai’s official tourism account Visit Dubai on Instagram. We focus our research on how the social actors are represented in both image and text, but also the environments in which they are located. In order to investigate how the marketing company Visit Dubai uses semiotic tools to portray its city as a luxury city, we apply a multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA). The theoretical framework is therefore based on research regarding social semiotics and place branding. To achieve the aim of the study, the following questions are formulated: In what ways are social actors and the environments in which they are visually represented? In what ways are social actors and the environments they are placed represented linguistically? In what ways are visual and linguistic resources combined to create performances of Dubai as a tourist destination in the material? What discourses are articulated in Visit Dubai´s material and which relevant discourses are excluded? The result of the analysis shows that all 18 images examined can be related to either luxury, power or status. It is clear that Visit Dubai via their Instagram account, encourages and reinforces the need to achieve high social status, financial status and also to promote luxury consumption.

The aim of this study is to analyze the functional beverage NOCCO’s Instagram account. The purpose is to expose how they use discourses of health and fitness in their marketing. In particular we analyze the social actors in the pictures. The theories in this study is based on a social semiotic theory of communication and an assumption that we live in The new public health era. The method applied is a qualitative multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA). The study examines how the social actors are used for marketing purposes, how they are represented in the pictures and in which settings they are placed in. The results shows that NOCCO uses discourses of health and exercise in their marketing on Instagram. NOCCO appears as a healthy product due to its association with exercise and fit social actors.

The aim of this study is to analyze how homosexuality is represented in the modern tv-series Riverdale (2016-). Two confirmed homosexual characters from the show, Kevin Keller and Cheryl Blossom have been used to examine this. To showcase how their homosexuality is represented a multimodal discourse analysis was conducted. The method was used to analyze 34 scenes from varying episodes of the currently available three seasons. Queer theory was used as a theoretical point of departure in the study of the characters sexuality. Findings of the analysis shows that Kevin often withers down to stereotype of being a feminine and comedic gay best friend. Cheryl on the other hand is shown being more than just a stereotype but however noticeably lacking in sexual relations with her same-sex partner. Comparisons with previous studies was further used to see how homosexuality is constructed in the show. Through the comparison similar representation could be found from previous gay characters in terms of stereotypes and roles. The study showed however that Cheryl and Kevin’s depiction in the show was noticeably more positive.

Healthy eating has become an important subject in society, particularly in the media. Food has always been a complex area but in recent years it has become even more distinct. Based on a critical discourse analysis, the purpose of this study is to examine and disclose what discourses that appear in articles regarding dietary counselling in three swedish health magazines, ToppHälsa, MåBra and Womens Health & Wellness. Analyzing three articles in each magazine we identified several discourses. The most prominent is the discourse about wellbeing. The majority of the articles reproduce this discourse by associating healthy eating with wellbeing. As the research field is limited, this study contributes with findings in a area that still needs further research.

The purpose of this study is to see how gender is produced in one music video, chosen by a stratified, purposive sampling. This is done partly by studying the visual and linguistic dimensions of the text, partly by defining its discourse. The analysis is conducted by using MCDA (Multimodal critical discourse analysis). To study the material, the video was segmented into smaller sections based on the parts of the song (chours, verse etcetera). The semiotic resources that is considered in this analysis is participants, gaze and poses. The result of this study shows that, in this particular music video, gender is portrayed in similar ways through the resources. The gender of the dominant and strong woman is mostly portrayed through hands placed in the waist, legs placed wide and a neutral face combined with eye contact or hidden eyes/gaze. The innocent, emotional woman is portrayed through a including gaze towards the viewer. The gender man on the other hand is portrayed as dominant and strong through a intense, observing gaze and a relaxed body in combination with a broad-legged position. It also became clear that women were more sexualized that men in the video, even though they both established dominance through the same use of the resources in the bigger part of the video. The discourse for the material was connotated to be mostly a sexual discourse with a hint of and emotionaland/ or love discourse.

The objective of this study is to observe how women and their bodies are being objectified and sexualized through famous designer companies’ Instagram accounts. More specifically, this study is interested in defining which certain aspects of an image contribute to a dehumanizing and degrading view of the female sex, but also how women are being cognitively affected by this. To be able to specify which parts of an image confirm this specific viewpoint the study used a multimodal critical discourse analysis (MDCA) in combination with elements of a feminist critical discourse analysis. The two methods are considered useful for these types of studies due to their semiotic and feministic approaches that focus on depicting which connotative characteristics are present in images. In order to confirm the problematic aspects of the material in this study, results from previous scientific articles and theories were used in order to confirm or contradict this study’s research questions. In the end the analytical results confirm that the women present in the images that were selected for this study were being objectified and sexualized. The women in the pictures often wore tightly fitting clothes, underwear or were naked, which presented their bodies in a way which made them easily objectified by the observer and/or the male gaze, which means that the observer in fact could gain a sexual satisfaction through watching the women that were being portrayed. The results of this demonstrates the problematic aspects of female portrayal in media and why it could potentially be harmful

This critical study examines how TikTok content from body positive trends may influence power relations and reinforce female body negative discourses. The study takes its departure primarily in Michel Foucault. However, additional researchers were brought in to expand on Foucault’s ideas by e.g., introducing gender to Foucauldian theory. 30 TikTok videos belonging to two different body positive trends have been collected and undergone a Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis according to Foucauldian principals. Findings from the analysis illustrated how users acknowledged and heavily depended on societal body negative discourses to create body positive content. More specifically, this was illustrated when users self-categorised as plus size and pointed out body parts e.g., stomach rolls, that are seen as less desirable in society. Users furthermore directly engaged in behaviour, which was found to be body negative e.g., implying the existence of abnormal and imperfect bodies. Effectively, this behaviour was identified as performative and rooted in a fear of being seen as non-progressive and body negativeThe conclusive results of this thesis thus suggest that users inevitably produce and reproduce body negative discourses by relying heavily on the very same discourses in their TikTok communication. Essentially, the users are then contributing to the social and feminist problem of weight-based discrimination and marginalisation.

Visual images produce a version of the world, films do so by several images per minute. Films have power to choose who and what is represented and how. This can lead to misrepresentations and the reenforcing of stereotypes. From the outside, Sweden as a country is usually associated with health, safety and equality. However within Sweden another image is produced regarding its peripheral areas. A rural area which is seen mainly as an opposite of the urban city.    This study aims to use a multimodal critical discourse analysis to explore de reproduction of the Swedish in two selected horror films. The study also explores the concept of place importance in relation to the films stories and setting. The films are produced outside of Sweden but uses Swedish peripheries as its setting and Swedish culture as means of telling a story. The results found that although the films differ in their use and reconstruction of the peripheral of Sweden some similarities were found. Nordic mythology, sects and human sacrifices are just a small part of the mutual display of Sweden between the two horror films.

This thesis explores the Danish public discourse about biological reproduction by focusing on how three fertility campaigns, issued by public agencies, produce and reproduce gendered identities and contribute to shape a national identity. The theoretical framework is built on insights from feminist research in international relations, sociology and gender studies and highlights how ideas about femininity and masculinity are central regarding both biological reproduction and national identity. The method used in this thesis is a Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis. The results show that traditional gendered identities in many ways are reproduced in these campaigns. However, the results also show that the campaigns give masculinity and men more space in the discourse of biological reproduction and the campaigns somewhat challenge traditional notions of masculinity. In the campaigns it is acknowledged that it takes both eggs and sperm to create a baby, but the results show that women still are ascribed the main responsibility for biological reproduction. The results also show that the construction of Denmark as a nation can be connected to the myth of “common origin” which creates a homogenous and exclusionary vision of the nation. Further, since these campaigns in many ways reproduce traditional gendered identities, Denmark is argued to be constructed as a traditional and conventional nation.

The following thesis aims to examine the social media use of the Weight Watchers, during a limited amount of time. The interest of losing weight seems to increase every year, after Christmas and New Years celebrations. This year, the Weight Watchers have been very active in advertising themselves during this period of time. In a time where a large portion of the world’s population is overweight or obese, health and healthy lifestyles are becoming more important, and the Weight Watchers could potentially be one small part in the solution for this problem. Through a multimodal critical discourse analysis, six social media posts have been analysed to see how the Weight Watchers are communicating with their followers and to examine whether or not the Weight Watchers are communicating any sort of ideology to their followers.