The purpose of this study is to examine how television series can function as a resource for existential reflection in peoples’ lives and thus, be a tool in the creation of a personal view on life. Furthermore, the study aims to investigate how television series can answer existential matters such as life, death, conflicts and finding peace.   The study was based on a survey which was answered by 82 informants and contained 42 questions in which 38 out of these concerned television series explicitly. 25 questions were closed multiple choice questions and 13 were open ended qualitative questions in which the informants were given the opportunity to give examples of different television series and reflect on these. Furthermore, the analysis was based on the reception theory which states that we as viewers are not apathetic to what we see, but reflect on it, both consciously and subconsciously. The results were analyzed from a theoretical framework which categorized the answers into seven different ways a viewer can relate to television series. The dimensions were the following: the contemplative dimension, the problem-solving dimension, the utopian dimension, the senso-motoric dimension, the ethical dimension, the philosophical-existential dimension and the self-reflexive dimension.   The results show that television series do function as a resource for existential reflection in the informants’ lives and can also be a resource for the construction of the informants’ personal view on life. Additionally, the results show that television series, although not always as explicitly, illustrate and provide answers for existential matters.

In 1973 the famous Swedish children’s author Astrid Lindgren wrote the story about the brothers Lionheart. A story about the love between two brothers, bravery and death. Ever since, there have been a widely discussion whether the story is suitable for the young readers. Although the voices heard in the discussion mostly comes from grown-ups, but what does the children actually think? The aim of this study was to display the children’s interpretations in terms of the metaphors, the semiotics and the sequence of events the film Brothers Lionheart which was screened in the first time 1977. To answer the issues we watched the movie and implemented semi-structured interviews with seven 10-11 year old children. The children in this study gave us both different and interesting interpretations in terms of the metaphors and semiotics which could depend on different experiences in life and backgrounds. This study also shows that the children’s perception of the narrative structure in the movie varies which could mean that their story scheme sometimes is more or less developed in this age.

Studiens syfte är att lyfta fram mottagarnas tolkningar om reklamens budskap inom fältet TV-reklam, och dess inkludering av regionala stereotyper. Genom tillämpning av receptionsstudie, där både en semiotisk analys och respondentintervjuer får rum, bidrar studien till fortsatt diskussion inom mottagarstudier. Materialet för den semiotiska analysen är två reklamfilmer från Elons reklamfilmsserie som publicerades 2012, de titulerades Elon Norrland och Elon Småland. Filmerna används även som material för intervjuerna för att kunna framställa det empiriska materialet från respondenterna. Olika teorier används för att styra uppsatsen i rätt riktning, däribland semiotiken med de relevanta begreppen denotation, konnotation och myt. Här återfinns också begreppet stereotyp som är en bärande del i uppsatsen. Bland teorierna finns även polysemin som också är av vikt för studiens resultat. Tillsammans med Halls koder dominant, förhandlande och oppositionell delas svaren från intervjuerna tematiskt in i kategorier. Den semiotiska analysen resulterade i en upptäckt av sammanlänkande kedjor som tillsammans bidrar till en föreställning om och ett skapande av regionala stereotyperna Norrland och Småland. I receptionsstudiens andra del, respondentintervjuerna, framkom resultatet att flertalet respondenter såg reklamerna som humoristiska och många har även uppfattat de regionala stereotyperna, vilket kan tolkas som den dominanta synen. Vidare framgick det att alla inte väljer att fullt ut acceptera de budskap som visas, utan förhandlar snarare med budskapet och det reklamen vill förmedla. Sedan framkom det även att några respondenter satt sig i opposition till dessa stereotyper och förkastade dem. Vi kan konstatera att det finns en polysemisk bild av publikens tolkning. / The purpose of this study is to highlight the recipients' interpretations of the advertising message in the field of TV advertising, and its inclusion of regional stereotypes. Through the application of a reception study, where both a semiotic analysis and respondent interviews are presented, contributes the study to continued discussion within recipient studies. The material for the semiotic analysis is two commercials from Elon's commercial series published in 2012, named Elon Norrland and Elon Småland. These are used as material for the interviews in order to be able to produce the empirical material from the respondents. Different theories were used to steer the essay in the right direction, including semiotics with the relevant concepts of denotation, connotation and myth. The concept of stereotype is also of great importance to the thesis. Polysemy is also included as a theory and together with Hall's three codes; dominant, negotiating and oppositional, the answers from the interviews are divided thematically into several categories. The semiotic analysis resulted in a discovery of interconnecting chains that together contribute to a notion of and the creation of the regional stereotypes Norrland and Småland. In the second part of the reception study, the respondent interviews, the result showed that most respondents saw the advertisements as humorous and many also recognized the regional stereotypes, this can be interpreted as the dominant view. Furthermore, it appeared that everyone does not choose to fully accept the messages that were displayed, but rather negotiate with the message and what the advertisement wants to convey. And lastly some respondents emerged to oppose to these stereotypes and rejected them. We can state that there is a polysemic picture of the audience's interpretation.

The purpose of this reception study is to increase the understanding of how perceptions correspond between communicators and recipients regarding which feeling is perceived to engage the most in the context of sustainability communication. The theoretical frame stretches from Sara Ahmed's theory about how actions are reactions of feelings, the green gap, living in denial, Tim Jensen’s theory about environmental guilt and theories in politics that include subactivism and Chantal Mouffe's theory about the importance of an “us and them” in opposition political movements. The study also includes theories within semiotic analysis, reception analysis and Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding model. The reception study is divided into two methods. The first method is a visual semiotic analysis that made it possible to find the preferred reading of the commercials. The second method is qualitative interviews which made it possible to analyse the way recipients interpret the message of the commercials. Analysing tools within reception analysis were applied to the material from the interviews with the recipients. The study also utilized a comparative analysis of interview responses between the communicators and recipients to locate possible differences in perceptions of sustainability communication.   The study's results show that positive emotions encourage recipients to maintain the already sustainable lifestyle they consider themselves to have but it also make them feel skeptical to the message. The negative emotions encourage them to make a behavior change but it also makes the recipients feel hopeless. The analysis however shows that the target group do not believe that they will make any further changes as they already believe that they are acting sustainably. The study has also identified some of the challenges that communicators face when it comes to sustainability communication. One is that the recipients respond best to the communication that they tend to avoid and another challenge is to find the balance between positive and negative emotions so that the recipient feels that the message is trustworthy. The study has also shown the importance of giving the recipients sustainable tools they feel they can act on. Dissonance between recipients and communicators regarding the sense of community has been located.

This thesis is a reception study of Susanne Ostens book, theatre play and children’s film Flickan, mamman och demonerna. The study aims to examine how proffesional crituiqe, published in daily press and journals, handles the crituiqes genre conventions with the theorie that if the cirtic averts from the crituiqes genre conventions that their/societys doxa on what we expect from children’s art will become more visible, and the inescapable follow up question: does this ecpectation mirror how we perceive children and their capabilities?  The theorie is an investigation of the professor and litterary scholar Anders Johansson’s essay Slitas itu publisched Critica Obscura: Litteraturkritiska essäer, where Johansson makes the claim that socitys doxa will become visible if the ciric does not follow the crituiqes genre conventions and that this will lead to an erosion of the crituiqes porpose. Johanssons theory is acompanied by, amongst others, Jaquline Rose’s The Case of Peter Pan, Or, The Impossibility of Children's Fiction, and Perry Nodelmans article “The Other: Orientalism, Colonialism, and Children’s Literature” pulished in Children’s Literature Association Quarterly17, no, chosen since the thesis as a whole practices a post colonial reading of the chosen crituiqe. The result of the investigation is that: where the critic averts from the crituiques genre conventions, and involves their own oppinions without porper motivation (E.g. where affective failures has occurred) in the text, a clear pattern of our conteporary doxa of how we perceive children and how the art made for them should behave/be. The pattern/tendancy found is that children’s art is expected to have a didactic value, that the piece of art should mirror the childs “reality”, have an indisputable and understandable point, and not evoke too many negative feelings. The thesis is woven, in a esseyistic style, with hard-to-grasp memories of the authors childhood and the academic form.