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The purpose of the study is to analyse the relationship between the capitalist hegemonic order and the mass media, with the latter restricted to two elite newspapers (Swedish DN and Slovenian Delo) and the selection of news materials from three bodies of international media coverage: NATO’s military intervention in former Yugoslavia, 1999, the political demonstrations against the IMF and the World Bank in Prague, 2000, and 9/11, 2001. There are two sub-purposes, one theoretical-methodological and one political-democratic. The first sub-purpose is to accomplish an integrative kind of media analysis (Williams 1977) in which the approaches of political economy (emphasising the economic/material) and cultural studies/discourse analysis (emphasising the symbolic/discursive) are supposed to interact. The hypothesis is that such a ‘third way’ approach is possible to achieve through the qualitative analysis of journalistic modes of writing. The second sub-purpose (the political-democratic one) takes an interest in the modes’ political dimensions. In what manners do the identified modes counter-act, or co-produce, miscellaneous political struggles? In addition, the purpose of the study also includes a more practical dimension. In the light of the results, how should one nowadays imagine an emancipating kind of journalism that tries to explain, unmask, or even counteract the mechanisms of the contemporary global capitalist system? The news media material consists of 438 items (articles, photos etc.), which are analysed by means of a cultural materialist CDA (critical discourse analysis). An identified journalistic mode is analysed as: (1) a practice with certain cognitive, discursive and linguistic characteristics, (2) a structural product (as constituted by underlying social and material structures), and (3) a dialectical force, being a potentially active part of an ongoing mode of production (the capitalist or another mode). The last analytical moment is the central one. Two categories of journalistic modes are identified. To begin with, the modes of de-permanence (The Remote control mode, Differentiation, Semiotic compression), which comprises modes that are part of the ‘new economy’, of reflexivity, individualism, consumption, mobility, and flexibility. The political dimension of these modes is that they counteract radical (leftist) politics by reducing emancipation, freedom, justice etc. to a matter of individualism and privatisation. The second category is the modes of permanence (Disconnection, Cognitive recycling), which involves an opposing structural dimension of the capitalist system: the production of reification, i.e. the repression of the complex nature of reality – how seemingly autonomous ‘things’ (spaces, objects etc.) are de facto interwoven with a ‘complex whole’ of various social, material, cultural, economic relations that are in constant motion. More precisely, the here identified modes reify and eternalise an explanatory structure (the modern division of explanatory labour), a particular power (the US) and a particular territory (the nation state), generating the impression that social reality works ‘as usual’ while repressing the complex network-like development of global capitalism and its impact on our lives. By sustaining these increasingly archaic structures, what is politically counteracted is the emergence of ‘the new’: transnational politics and democracy (Beck 1998). The analysis of modes (in total 8) furthermore demonstrates that Swedish DN is more integrated with the capitalist system than Slovenian Delo. The study emphasises the democratic importance of creating new journalistic modes endowed with a transnational journalistic epistemology that decisively include the reality of global capitalism in everyday (local) news reporting when covering and explaining social, political, cultural etc. issues.

Syftet med denna undersökning är att genom en kritisk diskursanalys av utvalda tidningsartiklar, redogöra för framställningen av Islamiska Staten (IS) i Irak och Syrien. Det avses genomföras i identifiering och analysering av framträdande diskurser i textmaterialet. Undersökningens kritiska ambitioner ligger i ett synliggörande av medias maktposition i samhället med fokus på diskursen om Islam och muslimer. Media tenderar att presentera en bild av IS och tillhörande diskurser utifrån ett västerländskt perspektiv, vilket ger upphov till ett skillnadskapande av ‘vi och dom‘. Västvärlden, i synnerhet Europa och Sverige intar en dominant ställning i textmaterialet och blir på så vis en västerländsk norm. Genom att tilldela aktörer och händelser diverse negativa attribut kan media på så vis ge en orättvis bild av Islam och muslimer, språket är på så vis ett maktredskap. Det är därför viktigt att föra en kritisk diskussion i skolan om hur media påverkar människors förståelse av samhället och religiösa yttringar.  Därav är en undersökning som denna viktig för utbildningsväsendet, för att lyfta hur diskurser har makten att påverka människan och dennes syn på verkligheten och omvärlden.

Students diagnosed with long-term mental health conditions have been the focus of policy development for over a decade. Student mental health is on the increase and universities are legally obliged to make reasonable adjustments for disabled students. Therefore it is crucial that nursing and midwifery education provides an inclusive learning environment, while maintaining fitness to practice standards. The focus of this study was to explore how discourses of mental health, reasonable adjustments and fitness standards influence nursing and midwifery education for students with a mental health condition. Principles of Wodak’s (2001) critical discourse analysis approach, which gives prominence to dominant discourses, their justifications and persuasive nature was utilised. Ten key written texts and 23 semi-structured interviews with students, lecturers and clinical mentors were conducted to acquire the constructions of mental health, reasonable adjustments and fitness requirements. The findings show that the dominant discourses attributed to students experiencing mental ill health were around medicine, difference and blame, all of which reinforced mental health stigma. In addition, mental health discourses within both verbal and written texts were not underpinned by disability discourses, allowing the exclusion of students who disclose mental ill health from accessing reasonable adjustments. In conclusion, students considered to have a mental health label faced discriminatory barriers and legislative and regulatory requirements of equality were not implemented.

A Pragmatic Analysis of Olunyole Idiom examines the functionality of Olunyole idioms in socio-cultural interactional contexts. The study investigates the relationship between the construction and interpretation of Olunyole idioms and the representation of the social reality as reflected in the native speakers’ (Abanyole) world view. The study employs the descriptive qualitative research design and builds on the functional approach to the study of language. The Olunyole idioms are collected from the initial sample of over 240 native speakers through language elicitation tests. The idioms collected are subjected to confirmation through ethnographic observation and questionnaires involving a further 30 native speakers. Interviews and focused discussions with a purposively selected sample of sixteen elderly native speaker informants provide further confirmation and linguistic insight into the functionality of the Olunyole idioms.framework in interrogating the role of language in social structure and organization within contextualised interactional conversations involving Olunyole idioms. The data of idiomatic expressions is analyzed into pragmatic domains that characterize the Abanyole perceptions of their world view as a speech community. It is concluded that the idioms project the people’s cultural beliefs and perpetuate the norms and values of the speakers in their mutual interactive use of language. The Olunyole idiomatic utterances regulate the people’s behaviour for harmonious co-existence. The composition and comprehension of the idioms is therefore context-dependent in realizing deliberate acts that control social interaction. The study contributes to the attempts to preserve and promote the African Languages. It is recommended that studies need to be carried out on the other systems of Olunyole idioms such as the syntactic structure. Furthermore, the investigation between idioms and other levels of indirect language could provide enriching insights in Language and Linguistics. / African Languages / D. Litt. et Phil.(African Languages)

Intressenters efterfrågan på CSR har ökat, då näringslivet till stor del står till svars för den exploatering som sker av människan och miljön. Organisationers behov av legitimitet från omgivande intressenter, för att blir framgångsrika på marknaden, har därför lett till att allt fler organisationer väljer att frivilligt hållbarhetsredovisa. Studier visar dock att det ibland förekommer en särkoppling mellan organisationers externt redovisade CSR och deras praktiskt utförda CSR-arbete, vilket kan bli problematiskt då det kan leda till att en skev bild av hållbar utveckling presenteras. Föreliggande studie ämnar kritiskt granska särkoppling i relation till hållbar utveckling för att undersöka om och i så fall varför en organisations externa hållbarhetskommunikation kan leda till tröggående hållbar utveckling. Detta genom att utforska vad en förebildsorganisation externt kommunicerar gällande hållbarhet och hur det korresponderar med verkligheten. Urvalet utgörs av organisationen Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) då det går att argumentera för att organisationen är en förebild inom den globala textil- och konfektionsmarknaden. Genom en kritisk diskursanalys analyseras H&M:s hållbarhetsredovisning i syfte att se vilka diskurser organisationen externt kommunicerar samt hur dessa diskurser korresponderar med verkligheten. Resultatet/diskussionen utmynnar i att de diskurser som H&M externt kommunicerar främst villkoras av marknadsrationella ideal, varför en ”marknadisering” av kommunikationen går att argumentera för. Troligtvis kommuniceras detta av strategiska skäl då marknadsrationella ideal går i linje med den dominerande samhällsideologin nyliberalism, vilket kan leda till att organisationen erhåller legitimitet. Då en ”marknadisering” av H&M:s CSR-kommunikation identifieras i studien och detta vidare argumenteras för möjliggör ett sätt för organisationen att ta ett mer distanserat ansvar gällande hållbar utveckling i den sociala verkligheten, så skapas även argument för att H&M som förebild är med och bidrar till tröggående hållbar utveckling. Detta kan förstås utifrån nyinstitutionell teori som bland annat gör gällande att organisationer tenderar att efterlikna andra organisationer vars koncept är legitimitetsskapande och framgångsrika.

This research aims at finding how BBC and AJE media represented the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The study examines the news website, which reported the recent escalation of Jerusalem conflict in December 2017, where US President Trump have recognized Jerusalem as Israeli capital, and declared to move the US embassy from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem. The study uses qualitative research, where it investigated the impact of ideology on media discourse by means of critical discourse analysis (DHA, Topoi, and Social actor’s representation). CDA was carried out for a sample of 8 news articles published on the websites of two networks: the British Broadcasting Corporation World news "BBCWN" and the Middle Eastern Qatari owned "Al Jazeera English". The articles were chosen within the month of December 2017. Articles were analyzed by means of the two-level analysis method, including the thematic and in-depth analysis. On the first, entry-level analysis, I focus on contents of texts and outline the discourse topics. While in the second phase I analyze the means of discursive strategies and the representation of social actors utilized throughout the text. The thematic analysis revealed that, both BBC and AJE have covered the incident similarly in general look. However, in-depth analysis showed that each network had portrayed the images of Israelis and Palestinians differently. On contrast of AJE, BBC tends to perceive Palestinians as a threat and the Israeli one as victims of the Palestinian violation. Moreover, the analysis revealed that each network had different ideologies and aims. The study concludes that AJE articles was biased pro-Palestinians, while BBC articles was biased pro-Israelis.

The purpose of this essay was to investigate and highlight the strengths and shortcomings of Critical Discourse Analysis and Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis when used as an analytical tool. By comparing the representation of women and men in print advertisements, and how there may be a difference in language being used to describe both genders, including the use of sexist language, a critique of CDA and FCDA could be established. In order to establish this all areas of the advertisements had to be taken into account, including layout and images used. The ads were read and interpreted through CDA and FCDA in order to investigate and identify the strengths, and any shortcomings, of the theories. The investigation shows that, although CDA and FCDA scholars could argue that women tended to be described in a more sexist manner overall, a counterargument could also be made on most accounts. The argument which supported sexism was especially observable through how women’s bodies were more often fragmented in images and positioned in more sexual positions, but also how the advertisements not only reinforced stereotypes as well as using distinctly negative language in their descriptions. However, gender stereotyping against men in the ads was also prevalent, which allowed an argument against CDA and FCDA’s theories about existing power struggles. Although the investigation did manage to substantiate the critique regarding how CDA and FCDA view the differences in gender representations, therefore fulfilling its aim, perhaps a more accurate result would have been possible to achieve if more print advertisements had been used in the investigation. However, this was not possible due to the qualitative nature of the investigation.

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This paper adopts a critical discourse analysis approach in order to identify and contrast the representation of the Occupy Wall Street movement in the New York Post and the New York Times. Occupy Wall Street was a protest movement against greed and financial and social inequality that started in Zuccotti Park in New York City in 2011. News media and its institutional media discourse have a power to influence people in terms of what they talk about and how they talk about it. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to make it transparent on a linguistic level that newspapers have an ability to create different discursive realities of the Occupy Wall Street movement through their language use. This is done by analysing news articles written on the same dates about the Occupy Wall Street protest in the New York Times and the New York Post using the tools global coherence, transitivity, and lexical categorisation. Results showed that in the articles in the New York Post the city represents the in-group, ‘us’, while the protesters represent the out-group, ‘them’. The repression of ‘them’, the protesters, is desired by the city that represents ‘us’. In the articles in the New York Times, on the other hand, the group of protesters is the in-group that is polarised with the police. Both the New York Times and the New York Post produce discourses where the protesters are incapable of achieving any real political or social change.