Tidigare forskning har visat att det existerar en vidspridd oro för de miljöproblem vi idag står inför. Trots detta agerar de flesta människor inte i linje med sin oro, vilket skapar en diskrepans mellan en attityd och konkret handlande, där det även existerar stora variationer mellan länder. Med bivariata korrelationsanalyser ämnar denna uppsats att finna den eller de samhällsfaktorer som till högst grad kan förklara detta gap. Resultaten visar att den sociala tilliten inom ett land till högst grad förklarar varför vissa länders oro inte resulterar i konkret miljövänligt handlande. Sociala utgifter, BNP per capita, institutionell kvalitét är även betydelsefulla faktorer för att förklara detta gap. Denna uppsats fann inget stöd för att politisk tillit påverkar styrkan i sambandet mellan miljöoro och miljövänligt beteende.

This thesis interrogates my and others?? creative praxis using the tools of the Internet, webcam, blogging and digital video, to elucidate possibilities for communication. I examine whether these tools are productive for my creativity and others?? in increasing communicative spaces and building social networks amongst the complexities of globalised culture. Many cultural commentators consider the Internet as a new kind of public sphere, developing community, strengthening the lifeworld and providing ethical discourse. The Internet, however, is a context not without problems. Still, less that one quarter of the world??s population has access, and computer illiteracy and governance (to name only a few) contribute to its limitations ?? this dichotomy is central to my investigation. I demonstrate that information communication technologies (ICTs) such as the Internet are radically altering our everyday lives and mediation is increasingly pervasive. I argue, therefore, that our globalised context demands alternative communicative spaces to mainstream media that allow diversity, plurality, intersubjectivity and new forms of interrogation. I ask whether the Internet can assist in the development of social networks and newest social movements (NSMs) by increasing civic bonds and communities. I posit communicative action, reflexivity and praxis as productive tools for a critical practice. I suggest that these theories are influential in researching the Internet??s potential in generating social awareness. I argue that the Internet can be used to construct social spaces and, in conjunction with creativity, can increase its productive capacity in developing diverse and ethical communicative contexts.

This thesis investigates the potential for radio on the Internet to enhance processes of communication and media practice in the form of new a public sphere. Drawing on the work of Marshall McLuhan, the early stages of this thesis present an enquiry into the unique positive qualities of both radio and the Internet. The argument that follows contends that radio presented on the Internet can draw from the perceived technological benefits of each individual medium, combining as a potential site for public spheres. Both Habermas’s liberal public sphere and contemporary critiques of the concept are examined to define a range of principles that could be tested against relevant examples. The increasing commercialisation of the Internet is presented as a challenge to the normative ideals of a public sphere and counter-balances the optimism of a technologically determinist approach. A series of thematic codes are developed from the relevant theory and combined with qualitative interviews. This forms the framework for a thematic analysis of three individual case studies: Unwelcome Guests, an anti-corporate radio programme, SW Radio Africa, “the independent voice of Zimbabwe,” and NH Making Waves, the radio arm of a community peace activist group. The study investigates opportunities for these three individual case studies to act as public spheres, by examining the interplay that occurs between both Internet and radio practices. As the thematic analysis will demonstrate, placing radio content on the Internet presents new opportunities to diversify content and audiences through collaborative production and improved distribution. Recommendations for further research emphasise the need to pursue the Internet’s role in the public sphere potential of radio.

<p>In this thesis we analyze the phase of the heavy symmetric top and the tippe top. These tops are two examples of physical systems for which the usefulness of integrals of motion and invariant manifolds, in phase space picture analysis, can be illustrated</p><p>In the case of the heavy symmetric top, simplified proofs of stability of the vertical rotation have been perpetuated by successive textbooks during the last century. In these proofs correct perturbations of integrals of motion are missing. This may seem harmless since the deduced threshold value for stability is correct. However, perturbations of first integrals are essential in rigorous proofs of stability of motions for both tops.</p><p>The tippe top is a toy that has the form of a truncated sphere equipped with a little peg. When spun fast on the spherical bottom its center of mass rises above its geometrical center and after a few seconds the top is spinning vertically on the peg. We study the tippe top through a sequence of embedded invariant manifolds to unveil the structure of the top's phase space. The last manifold, consisting of the asymptotic trajectories, is analyzed completely. We prove that trajectories in this manifold attract solutions in contact with the plane of support at all times and we give a complete description of their stability/instability properties for all admissible choices of model parameters and of the initial conditions.</p> / Report code: LiU-TEK-LIC-2004:35.

<p>This paper deals with the development of scientific geography during Antiquity from its mythical background before the seventh century BC to Claudius Ptolemy during the second century AD. The main focus is on questions concerning the shape of the earth, its place in the universe, size and mapping of the earth. Already before 400 BC, the idea of the earth as a globe was firmly estabished. During classical time, Aristotle used empirical and rational arguments to prove that the earth was a sphere and that it was situated motionless in the center of the universe. In the third century BC, the first reasonably correct measurements of the circumference of the earth was carried out by Eratosthenes. Later, a lower, incorrect measurement of the circumference of the earth was made by Poseidonius. His measurement was for some reason accepted by later geographers.The first map of the earth that we know of is on a clay tablet from Mesopotamia from c. 600 BC. The first useful maps were constructed during the Roman era.</p>

<p>Abstract</p><p>Title Blogging.se – a study on the swedish blogosphere from a Habermasian public sphere-perspective (Bloggning.se – en studie av den svenska bloggsfären utifrån Habermas offentlighetsteori)</p><p>Author Anders Larsson</p><p>Aim To see whether or not weblogs (blogs) could be said to rejuvenate the public sphere, as it was first described and later re-evaluated by Jürgen Habermas.</p><p>Method A quantitative analysis of 733 randomly selected swedish weblogs has been done. This analysis set out to see what different categories of bloggers (difference in f.e. gender and age) wrote about, and whether or not these subject categories could be said to play a part in constituting and/or rejuvenating a public sphere.</p><p>Main results The main results of the quantitative study was that even though most blogs write about ‘private’ subjects, the most popular blogs, i.e. those who received the most comments or trackbacks, where the ones concerning society-centered subjects. Also, a significant effect of gender was discovered regarding what type of subject one tends to blog about. Women in general wrote about private matters, whereas men tended to write about society-centered subjects. This essay argues that the most important feature of the blogosphere is not that posts are written on society-centered subjects, subjects that might be considered “more important”. Instead, the focus should be on the fact that bloggers do produce media texts themselves, instead of being a passive recipient. The essay takes into account three key features of the public sphere, as described by Habermas:</p><p>inclusivity, the disregard of social status and that any issue can be raised for rational debate. It is found that although the blogosphere is not without its problems, one could very well argue that it better meets these key features than the original concept of the public sphere.</p><p>Length 55 pages</p><p>Course Media and communication studies D</p><p>Period Fall semester 2006</p><p>Tutor Lowe Hedman</p><p>Keywords Weblog, Blog, Jürgen Habermas, Quantitative method, Public sphere</p>

References: p.71. / Contract DA36-039-AMC-03200(E). Grant DA-SIG-36-039-61-G14.

The idea of accounting as a constitutive means, making people think and act in particular ways, is well established in the social strand of accounting literature. In professional organisations, for example, accounting is claimed to be critical to processes of turning people into rational and responsible economic actors. However, this thesis refocuses the empirical attention away from the organisation and into the private sphere of people’s everyday financial lives. As this is a field partly inhabited by people who for various reasons are believed to have difficulty in making sense of financial accounts, a dilemma arises regarding how to influence people’s way of managing their own finances by means of accounting information. How this dilemma is assumed to be resolved in order to make accounting matter is the query of this thesis. Through a study of four cases, the thesis investigates the practices of public authorities, a television makeover show, and a pension insurance company – here referred to as accounting framers – whose task it is to construct accounting in such a way so as to make it come across as important, relevant and useful to various groups of the general public. By examining how people’s accounting interpretations are elaborated in order to make them responsive to financial accounts, the thesis contributes to problematising the constitutive role of accounting and the conditions believed to enable it to turn people into financially responsible actors.

This study concerns school-development and the political public sphere in a Swedish context. It draws on an earlier study in which school-leaders expressed political signals in relation to school-development as being ambiguous and contradictive. On one hand they saw a political support for openness and dialogue in school. On the other hand they perceived control and competition. Another point of departure for the study is what tentatively was suggested as a shift in focus for the state government of schools during the 1990:s, from decentralization as such to an increased emphasis on control of its consequences. The overriding aim of the study was to illuminate how this shift could be understood regarding the relation between school-development and the political public sphere. The study was conducted within a larger, national project where almost 900 schools worked without the national time table. Policy texts behind the governments’ decision on starting the project were used in order to describe and analyse school policy. School-leaders´ accounts on school-work and school-development in the project was used for analysis and description of school practice. Habermas’ theory of communicative action, particularly his notions on “the welfare-state crisis” as an opening for a revitalized political public sphere grounded upon communicative action, was used as a theoretical frame for the study. The results support the assumption that school policy, as formulated in the studied documents, did shift over time from a focus on decentralization to an emphasis on control of its consequences. The school-leaders, however, gave voice to a school practice where the importance of a communicative direction was emphasized. The overall conclusion is that while a vital political public sphere in Habermas´ terms is supported in school practice, school policy seems to direct school development in the opposite direction, thereby closing the opportunity for school to support a revitalized public sphere.

Abstract Title Blogging.se – a study on the swedish blogosphere from a Habermasian public sphere-perspective (Bloggning.se – en studie av den svenska bloggsfären utifrån Habermas offentlighetsteori) Author Anders Larsson Aim To see whether or not weblogs (blogs) could be said to rejuvenate the public sphere, as it was first described and later re-evaluated by Jürgen Habermas. Method A quantitative analysis of 733 randomly selected swedish weblogs has been done. This analysis set out to see what different categories of bloggers (difference in f.e. gender and age) wrote about, and whether or not these subject categories could be said to play a part in constituting and/or rejuvenating a public sphere. Main results The main results of the quantitative study was that even though most blogs write about ‘private’ subjects, the most popular blogs, i.e. those who received the most comments or trackbacks, where the ones concerning society-centered subjects. Also, a significant effect of gender was discovered regarding what type of subject one tends to blog about. Women in general wrote about private matters, whereas men tended to write about society-centered subjects. This essay argues that the most important feature of the blogosphere is not that posts are written on society-centered subjects, subjects that might be considered “more important”. Instead, the focus should be on the fact that bloggers do produce media texts themselves, instead of being a passive recipient. The essay takes into account three key features of the public sphere, as described by Habermas: inclusivity, the disregard of social status and that any issue can be raised for rational debate. It is found that although the blogosphere is not without its problems, one could very well argue that it better meets these key features than the original concept of the public sphere. Length 55 pages Course Media and communication studies D Period Fall semester 2006 Tutor Lowe Hedman Keywords Weblog, Blog, Jürgen Habermas, Quantitative method, Public sphere