<p>The aim of this study is to find out how the tv-program I Zlatans fotspår (English: In Zlatan's footprints) broadcasted on Swedish public service television represent the participating young players and the Swedish football player Zlatan Ibrahimović. Our question formulation reads as follows:</p><p>–        How is the participating youths being represented in the tv-program I Zlatans fotspår?</p><p>–        How is the football player Zlatan Ibrahimović being represented in the tv-program I Zlatans fotspår?</p><p> </p><p>Our thesis is qualitative and in order to find out how the participants are being represented we used a discourse analysis. We have focused on the theories discourse, identity, representation, stereotypes, discrimination and the perspective social constructionism. We chose to analyze some of the interviews with the young players and with Zlatan Ibrahimović. We also analyzed the voice-over that figured in the program. Worth mentioned is that we had an idea that there would be some discrimination and stereotyping in the program.</p><p> </p><p>The result of our analysis shows that the voice-over uses some discriminating and stereotyping descriptions of the young players. The descriptions made by the voice-over are on the whole very inconsequent, some focus on the players’ qualities on the football pitch whilst others are about their personal qualities. In the interviews with the players these kind of values aren’t shown that explicit as in the voice-over. But the interviewer’s questions are sometimes formulated in a way that creates a distance towards the players. Moreover, there are just longer interviews with five of the nine players.</p><p> </p><p>The result also shows that Zlatan Ibrahimović is being described and represented as the big star, a national hero that the young players look up to and want to be like. He has gone through the journey that awaits many of the young players and he managed to finish at the very top. Although Zlatan is being represented like this he still thinks that he has a lot left to learn and that he is far from being the complete football player.</p>

<p>Our starting point has been to use the football player Zlatan Ibrahimovic as a model person for individualism that seams to break the ordinary socialization pattern in Sweden. The purpose of this study is to examine how the team leaders handle the socialization of more individualistic focused individuals/young persons into groups, since the Swedish School Curriculum is designed to meet each individual on his or hers former experiences. Is the socialization of individuals within team sports affected by their cultural background? And, in that case, should those facts have consequences for the sport subject at school? Those are the questions we want to explore. Besides a survey of documents, we have been seeking answers to our questions through interviews with the team leaders Roland Nilsson and Peter Bergander, the pedagogues/teachers Karin Jutterström and Håkan Jensgård and the professional football player Abgar Barson.</p><p>Our study shows that the leaders and teachers of today have begun to change their view about individualists. Further, our study shows that young persons with other ethnic origin/foreign background that choose their own ways can be disqualified by a national view that is different from the perception of the ethnic Swedish, when they break the unwritten and unspoken rules and standards.</p><p>Our conclusion is that a change seems to be happening in the mentality of the mainstream Swedish society. Zlatan Ibrahimovic has become an object of identification for many young people in Sweden during the last years. It´s our point of view that the concept of “being a Zlatan” stands for a person that dares to be an extreme individualist. We believe that we stand upon a change of paradigm on the notion of individualism in Sweden since the collective thinking in Swedish society seems to be developing towards a higher acceptance for an individualistic behaviour. This is, as we see it, a development within team sports as well as a development in the rest of Swedish society, for instance, within the educational system. </p>

Our starting point has been to use the football player Zlatan Ibrahimovic as a model person for individualism that seams to break the ordinary socialization pattern in Sweden. The purpose of this study is to examine how the team leaders handle the socialization of more individualistic focused individuals/young persons into groups, since the Swedish School Curriculum is designed to meet each individual on his or hers former experiences. Is the socialization of individuals within team sports affected by their cultural background? And, in that case, should those facts have consequences for the sport subject at school? Those are the questions we want to explore. Besides a survey of documents, we have been seeking answers to our questions through interviews with the team leaders Roland Nilsson and Peter Bergander, the pedagogues/teachers Karin Jutterström and Håkan Jensgård and the professional football player Abgar Barson. Our study shows that the leaders and teachers of today have begun to change their view about individualists. Further, our study shows that young persons with other ethnic origin/foreign background that choose their own ways can be disqualified by a national view that is different from the perception of the ethnic Swedish, when they break the unwritten and unspoken rules and standards. Our conclusion is that a change seems to be happening in the mentality of the mainstream Swedish society. Zlatan Ibrahimovic has become an object of identification for many young people in Sweden during the last years. It´s our point of view that the concept of “being a Zlatan” stands for a person that dares to be an extreme individualist. We believe that we stand upon a change of paradigm on the notion of individualism in Sweden since the collective thinking in Swedish society seems to be developing towards a higher acceptance for an individualistic behaviour. This is, as we see it, a development within team sports as well as a development in the rest of Swedish society, for instance, within the educational system.

The aim of this study is to find out how the tv-program I Zlatans fotspår (English: In Zlatan's footprints) broadcasted on Swedish public service television represent the participating young players and the Swedish football player Zlatan Ibrahimović. Our question formulation reads as follows: –        How is the participating youths being represented in the tv-program I Zlatans fotspår? –        How is the football player Zlatan Ibrahimović being represented in the tv-program I Zlatans fotspår?   Our thesis is qualitative and in order to find out how the participants are being represented we used a discourse analysis. We have focused on the theories discourse, identity, representation, stereotypes, discrimination and the perspective social constructionism. We chose to analyze some of the interviews with the young players and with Zlatan Ibrahimović. We also analyzed the voice-over that figured in the program. Worth mentioned is that we had an idea that there would be some discrimination and stereotyping in the program.   The result of our analysis shows that the voice-over uses some discriminating and stereotyping descriptions of the young players. The descriptions made by the voice-over are on the whole very inconsequent, some focus on the players’ qualities on the football pitch whilst others are about their personal qualities. In the interviews with the players these kind of values aren’t shown that explicit as in the voice-over. But the interviewer’s questions are sometimes formulated in a way that creates a distance towards the players. Moreover, there are just longer interviews with five of the nine players.   The result also shows that Zlatan Ibrahimović is being described and represented as the big star, a national hero that the young players look up to and want to be like. He has gone through the journey that awaits many of the young players and he managed to finish at the very top. Although Zlatan is being represented like this he still thinks that he has a lot left to learn and that he is far from being the complete football player.

The rise of digital media has caused transformations and new phenomena in different fields. In the digital age such branches as personal sports branding and nation branding has acquired new opportunities for development. The research focuses on representation of the personal sports brand of Zlatan Ibrahimovic on digital media platforms and its connection to the nation brand of Sweden. Previous research deals with existing studies on personal branding, personal sports branding in digital media, and nation branding. Theoretical framework includes appropriate concepts and perspectives that guide the analysis such as the TOPSTAR model, theory on types and specialization of personal brands, advertising, cultural branding and the nation brand of Sweden. The study combines different research techniques: quantitative content analysis and semiotics. The data is gathered from official accounts of Zlatan Ibrahimovic on social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the mobile application Zlatan Unplugged. Furthermore, the data for analysis is also received from YouTube videos concerning two campaigns: the Volvo XC70 commercial and “805 million names” awareness campaign by World Food Program. The results of the research outline main characteristics of the personal sport brand, show differences in representation of the brand depending on digital media platform and identify the leading attributes of the personal sports brand. The investigation uncovers a connection between the personal sports brand of Zlatan Ibrahimovic and the nation brand of Sweden and shows how the personal sports brand functions on the cultural level. The thesis might be interesting for both researchers and practitioners in the spheres of media and communication studies, personal sports branding and nation branding.

In this essay, we have studied whether the Swedish newspaper Sportbladet reporting on the French football league (Ligue 1) is different from the season before to season after Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s arrival at Paris Saint-Germain FC in the summer of 2012. The teories that we applied were news values, framing and personalization. In order to complete our investigation, we used two different methods: a quantitative content analysis and critical discourse analysis to see if the news valuation and framing are different, but also to see what impact Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s arrival has on the media coverage of the league. The result of the quantitative content analysis and the critical discourse analysis shows huge differences between 2011/12 and 2012/13 seasons. Sportbladet published ten times as many articles during Zlatan’s debut season in the league in comparasion with the previous season. The articles became generally larger, better placed in the newspaper and contained more columns about the subject. We could also note more focus on individuals in the articles. This change is mainly explained by the increased geographical and cultural proximity during the 2012/13 season, which arose in connection with Ibrahimovic’s transfer from Milan to Paris Saint-Germain. The result was pretty much as we had expected. The 2012/13 season was way more covered with a particular focus on Zlatan and his team in the articles. That shows what kind of importance a national super star like Zlatan Ibrahimovic has on the reporting from the French league.

Med utgångspunkt i genusteori, intersektionalitet och litteraturteori analyserar denna studie två elevvalda böcker från ett bokprojekt i en gymnasieskola; Hungerspelen av Suzanne Collins och Jag är Zlatan Ibrahimović: min historia av Zlatan Ibrahimović och David Lagercrantz, varav en bok är flickvald och en är pojkvald. Böckerna analyseras utifrån genusperspektiv i förhållande till traditionella könsstereotyper, såsom hur de kvinnliga och manliga karaktärerna beskrivs, hur de talar, hur de påverkas av andra aspekter såsom klass och etnicitet samt hur fördelningen av män och kvinnor ser ut. Utöver nykritikens närläsning av litteraturen analyseras de sammanställda listorna med boktitlar som eleverna har valt, för att urskilja potentiella mönster i förhållande till genus, vilket ställs mot de böcker som i en intervju med läraren bakom bokprojektet framkommer att hon skulle välja att läsa i sin klass. Genrer och författare för de elevvalda böckerna analyseras utifrån befintlig forskning för att kunna skönja om det överensstämmer med forskningen, samt huruvida den litteratur som presenteras av läraren stämmer överens med de preferensramar som finns för flickor och pojkars läsning. Resultatet av litteraturanalysen är att huvudpersonerna i böckerna ständigt gör genus, feminitet och maskulinitet, för att uppnå olika mål och till och med överleva. Zlatan vill framstå som tuff och imponera på andra män medan Katniss måste följa de kvinnliga skönhetsidealen i huvudstaden för att få sponsorer. I båda böckerna är karaktärerna i majoritet män, vilket i Zlatans fall beror på hans karriär som är mansdominerad och följer mönstret för medelklassmannen som skapar sin manlighet i en homosocial sfär. I Hungerspelen är de viktigaste personerna som omger Katniss män, men den är i övrigt mer uppblandad och traditionella könskodade yrken är inte lika könskodade. Båda böckerna problematiserar klass och det är stor skillnad på män och kvinnor från arbetarklass och överklass. Både Katniss och Zlatan gör en klassresa igenom boken. När det kommer till elevernas läsning är det endast en av fyra lärarvalda böcker som passar pojkars läsning, övriga tre stämmer bättre överens med flickors val av litteratur. De böcker som valts av eleverna har en jämn spridning av kvinnliga och manliga författare. Pojkar föredrar att läsa deckare, biografier och fantasy, medan flickor hellre läser böcker som handlar om kärlek och romantik.

Jag har med hjälp av Norman Faircloughs modell för kritisk diskursanalys bearbetat 60 mediatexter som på något sätt berör fotbollsspelaren Zlatan Ibrahimovic och två särskilda händelser under hösten 2003. Jag har redovisat teorier som diskuterar samband mellan nationalism, rasism, identitet, idrott och media, samt några klassiska sociologiska teorier om identitet och maktstrukturer. Syftet har varit att söka svar på hur den mediala bilden av Zlatan Ibrahimovic tecknas och vilka egenskaper han framställs som bärare av, på om det förekommer några nationalistiska och/eller rasistiska diskurser i materialet, samt på om Zlatan Ibrahimovic representeras som svensk eller som invandrare, en Annan, och vilka orsakerna skulle kunna vara till den representation materialet ger. Jag fann att texterna om Zlatan Ibrahimovic i stort konstruerar en medial bild av honom som en Annan, och att det sätt Zlatan Ibrahimovic omtalas kan jämföras med hur invandraren generellt omtalas i svenska medier. Jag har även funnit att det sportjournalistiska textmaterialet är starkt präglat av nationalistiska diskurser, och även av diskurser som flera av de refererade teoretikerna i detta arbete placerar under en övergripande rubrik av rasism. Jag gör därtill antagandet att Zlatan Ibrahimovic placeras i en invandrarkategori i stor utsträckning på grund av sitt namn och på grund av den svenska dialekt han talar, eftersom både språk och den språkliga aspekten namn, utgör viktiga identitetsbestämmande markörer i den starkt nationalistiska kontext som sport och sportjournalistik kan anses utgöra. Jag finner även att de diskurser som dominerar i textmaterialet stämmer överens med och snarare stärker än försvagar rådande diskursordning kring svenskhet och kring den i den nuvarande diskursiva och samhälleliga praktiken utbredda dikotomin svensk-invandrare, såsom den diskursordningen beskrivs av flera av de i detta arbete refererade teoretikerna.