The following thesis is an analysis of the self-narratives of the parties in the Swedish Riksdag and how these are used to construct the identities of the parties. For this purpose, we studied narrative theory and theories about identity in order to build a framework which would allow us to investigate the narratives of these parties. To identify the core narratives of the parties, we chose to focus on their respective party programs. Based on the results of our quantitative investigation, we chose four parties (Socialdemokraterna, Liberalerna, Miljöpartiet, and Sverigedemokraterna) to study in a more in-depth manner. Having selected these four parties, we utilized theories about narrative and identity in order to identify the constituent parts of the various parties' narratives contained in their party programs. The parties were found to adhere to our theoretical assumptions about how parties ought to construct narratives, albeit in different ways from party to party.

Scholarship on politics and popular culture is constantly evolving in the field of media and communications. Analyzing diverse types of mediated texts, especially the ones that are structured as narratives, such works aim to show how the cultural evolves from the political and vice versa. While storytelling in social media has attracted many scholars, it is mostly neglected from the perspective of politics and popular culture. The probable reason for this is that social media for long time have not introduced any new types of popular culture mediated texts, which would be impossible to imagine without the opportunities of Web 2.0. Through examining “1917. Free history” – a project dedicated to the anniversary of the Russian revolution – this study aims to fill the research gap and expand the scholarship on politics and popular culture to the storytelling in social media. It examines the theoretical paradigm of mediated historicity with the help of content analysis, and the concepts of narrative, myth and ideology with the help of narrative analysis. For the former, the results show how remediation in pursuit of immediacy, expressed in implicitly hiding the initial contexts of production of the texts, constructs the mediated historicity of the project. For the latter, the results show that the political narratives of “1917” are constructed as agoras holding different competing myths which make equipollent ideologies appear natural. These practices are mutually beneficial and their interconnections are understood by applying a theory of the Russian identity which corresponds to the notion of identity as a national mythscape. This work could have a potential impact on narrative and discourse methodologies for the popular culture mediated texts in social media. It could also contribute to the theoretical debates on mediated historicity and research on national identity, cosmopolitan identity and nationalism in social media.

How do politician talk about the role of school in society, in an era of changing demands and challenges represented by the knowledge society and globalization? The material underlying the study consists of protocols from the Swedish parliament during a decade characterized by many reforms and with both a conservative government and a social democratic. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the contemporary debate on school policy in the Swedish Parliament between 1991 and 2002.  My research questions are: Which are the dominating narratives about schooling that emerge in the debate? What are the influences from contemporary policies and from educational research? What kind of rhetorical resources underpin the arguments in the plenary debate and are there any shifts, inconsistencies and contradictions that can be heard in the debates?  Inspired by Margaret Somers four dimensions of narratives: ontological narrative, public narrative, metanarrative and conceptual narrative and I am using them to interpret different aspects of school as a political narrative. Methodologically, I worked initially with a content analysis gradually moving to narrative analysis. The educational debates held during the three terms in office are characterised by different political initiatives and different kind of issues. I construct a number of dominating narratives with different plots, problems, solutions and promises of a better future for both the school and the nation. Key concepts seems to “float” depending on who uses them and in what context they are used. Important parts in the narratives are the rhetorical resources that politicians are using to get legitimacy and credibility. Perceptions of schools presented in the debate, may be seen as stories about what is desirable and possible, but also what is unwanted, threatening the progress of school and society. I have highlighted four public narratives in these debates and they are: A School for All, School on the Market, School in the Knowledge Society and A School in Crisis.

5 Abstract This thesis aims to provide an overview of Russia's narratives surrounding the anti-Russian sanctions implemented by the West in the wake of the Ukrainian crisis. Employing the concept of "strategic narratives", the thesis aspires to outline the content and usage variation of Russia's strategic communication regarding the sanctions regime. After exploring what countries can, in theory, do to defend themselves against sanctions, it was predicted that Russia would strive to reach two goals with its strategic narratives, delegitimizing the sanctions regime and downplaying the sanctions' negative economic effects. The qualitative method of thematic analysis was used to explore the statements of Russia's political leaders on the sanctions and found that Russia indeed seeks to delegitimize the sanctions and downplay their effects. When investigating the usage of the two strategic narratives over time with the help of a quantitative Chi-square test, no significant differences could be found between economically turbulent and prosperous times for two out of three politicians, with the third one resorting more often to the delegitimizing strategic narrative in economically prosperous times. Meanwhile, two other external factors were identified as significantly influencing the strategic narratives' usage...