The study aimed to investigate the characterization of unaccompanied child refuges in two of Sweden’s leading newspapers by analyzing the rhetoric used in publications. The empirical material was collected from Aftonbladet and Expresses’s databases and was limited to 50 electronically published leaders, debate and news articles for the period of September 2015 up to February 2016. The empirical analysis was based on Norman Fairclough’s interpretation of critical discourse analysis, CDA and the theoretical discourse concept of power, knowledge and stigma. The result of the study showed two recurring themes within the discourse of unaccompanied child refugees titled “victim” and “prisoner”. Description within the themes portrayed the children as exposed, affected and involuntary addicts as well as criminal, violent and threatening. The portrayal of the children effected human perception, attitudes and actions toward the group. Media is described to have an undeniable impact on the creation of human perceptions, believes and attitudes. By doing so, the portrayal of children as perpetrators can have a negative impact on human processes, which however can be altered by nuances given to the subject by the portrayal of the children as victims.

This study aimed to examine how swedish tabloid press covered the sex crimes at music festivals that occurred in Sweden during the summer of 2016. The aim was also to examine if and how the press reproduces or opposes stereotypes and myths about sexual crime. The question examined was: How does swedish tabloid press portray victims, perpetrators, the festivals and sex crime?   To approach this we made a critical discourse analysis on 13 articles from the swedish newspapers Aftonbladet and Expressen, written during the time of the events. We found that there were many different and contradictory discourses about the sex crimes in our case. The victim was presented as innocent and without blame but there was also a discourse telling that women have a responsibility in making sure not to become a victim of sexual assault, by behaving and dressing right. The perpetrator was described as deviant and evil men, but also as men driven by lust not knowing what they were doing. They were also distant and indistinct in the text, which shifted the blame to the organizers of the festivals and to the police. Sex crime was overall presented as a serious phenomena. It was also presented as a new phenomena, both on the festivals and in the society. The crimes were presented as a problem isolated to festivals but also as a broader social problem. The festivals were described as unsafe places but also as safe places that had been soiled by the sex crimes.

The aim of the study was to examine how crime journalism relates to gender by exploring how a female perpetrator is constructed in Swedish news media. We examined a specific case where a female perpetrator murdered and dismembered her victim in Askersund, Örebro. The questions examined were; How are the female perpetrator represented in the tabloid Aftonbladet and the local newspaper Nerikes Allehanda and what are the differences and similarities between Aftonbladet’s and Nerikes Allehanda’s representation of her? We made a discourse analysis of eighteen news articles. The result shows that the female perpetrator is represented as a non-ideal female perpetrator, a heartbroken and weak victim and an ordinary woman who suddenly transforms. Aftonbladet and Nerikes Allehanda also represent the female perpetrator as an evil and insensitive murderer and like a jealous madman. Both Aftonbladet and Nerikes Allehanda describe that the female perpetrator saw her victim as a rival. At the beginning, mainly Nerikes Allehanda, represent the female perperator as a part of the community by representing her as a kind and innocent girl who loves horses. Then the representation is changing and the female perpetrator is represented as an intruder in the community. This representation also appears in Aftonbladet. However the tabloid mostly represents the female perpetrator with attributes like vicious, callous, jealous and mad. Our study also shows that the distance between the newspapers and the place where the crime occurred, influences the representation of the female perpetrator.

The purpose of this paper was to examine how the bullying discourse differs depending on if the person bullying is a student or an employee at the school. Cases from Skolinspektionen and Barn- och elevombudsmannen was analysed using Faircloughs three dimensional critical discourse analysis to be able to identify how the disocurse differs depending on who has been bullying. The analysis showed that the discourse do differ between when it is a student and when it is a employee at the school that bullies. The agency of the employees were hidden and their potentielly bully-like actions were rationalized while the agency of students that bully was clear. / Uppsatsen syfte var att undersöka hur mobbningsdiskursen skiljde sig åt beroende på om det var en elev eller en anställd på skolan som har utsatt en elev för kränkande behandling. Med hjälp av Faircloughs tredimensionella kritiska diskursanalys har ärenden inkomna till skolinspektionen analyserats för att kartlägga eventuella skillnader. Analysen visade att diskursen skiljer sig beroende på vem som var anklagad. Anställdas handlingar bortförklarades och förmildrades i huvudmannens yttranden samtidigt som agentskapet doldes medan elever framställdes som personligt ansvariga för de kränkningar som skett.

There have been many studies on media (mis)representations of the Middle East and Iran. However, the experts and analysts who serve as major sources for those representations (and for government policy making) have not been systematically studied. This project studies discourses and networks of widely published Iran experts during the first year of the presidency of Iran’s Hassan Rouhani (2013-2014), the period during which unprecedented direct U.S.-Iran diplomacy paved the way for the historic nuclear agreement with Iran. Norman Fairclough’s three dimensional critical discourse analysis method and Peter Haas’s Epistemic Community approach are employed to study discursive as well as non-discursive (networked) characteristics of the most widely published U.S. Iran experts during this time period. Results identify five major epistemic communities that, altogether, represent the spectrum of U.S. Iran experts: neoconservatism, liberal interventionism, containment (tactical engagement), strategic engagement, and rapprochement. These five epistemic communities are described in detail throughout the five results chapters. Findings show that these experts influence the terms of media representations as well as the foreign policy making process. Findings also show that experts operate in a web of discursive as well as networked affiliations (i.e., epistemic communities) in order to be able to develop and circulate their discourses. It is however important to recognize that epistemic communities are not uniform in terms of formation stage, cohesion and level.

I denna uppsats redogörs för en kritisk diskursanalytisk studie om konstruktionen av stress, vars syfte är att undersöka hur stress språkligt konstrueras i olika dokument om arbetsmiljöarbete. Vid analysförfarandet användes diskursanalytikern Norman Faircloughs tredimensionella analysmodell för lingvistisk och sociologisk forskning. Dennes kritiskt diskursanalytiska tankar utgör även studiens teoretiska referensram. Det analyserade materialet består av dokument om arbetsmiljöarbete mot stress, som Arbetsmiljöverket och Prevent har producerat. Uppsatsen innefattar en kartläggning över fältet för arbetsmiljöarbete och fenomenet stress, samt en presentation kring den tidigare forskning som studerats i studiens initierande fas. Denna forskning framställs genom de tre temana diskursiv påverkan, den normaliserande diskursen och individuella faktorer. Studiens resultat presenteras i de två delarna text och diskursiv praktik från Faircloughs analysmodell. Sammantaget innefattar den första resultatdelen text de fyra temana typ av text, modalitet, hyponymer och antonymer samt transitivitet. Under den andra resultatdelen diskursiv praktik återfinns de fyra diskurserna den utbildande diskursen, den arbetsrättsliga diskursen, den ohälsosamma diskursen och den vetenskapliga diskursen.

This thesis examined to what extent a particular class of highly mobile professionals has internalized the contemporary discourse of corporate global nomadism, proposed by the researcher as an example of the kind of corporate discourses that are emerging to encompass the ideology of neoliberalism and which are inscribed in a particular genre of popular managerial and globalization literature through prescription of ideal attitudes and forms of behaviour. The researcher selected a representative sample of corporate texts that comprises books by management gurus and popular writers on globalization and corporate websites by consultancy firms, and collected personal narratives or life stories from a sample of professionals who in the pursuit of work have relocated internationally more than once. These texts were cross-analysed to identify how the discourse of corporate global nomadism is manifested, whether in similar or contradictory ways. This analysis combined the methodological framework of critical discourse analysis with narrative analysis, with a particular emphasis on deconstruction and intertextuality. A characteristic feature of this study is the use of online communication technologies to encompass research participants who are geographically dispersed. The principal original contribution to knowledge of this dissertation is the relationship made between the contemporary discourse of corporate global nomadism and the ideology of neoliberalism. The methodologies and methods used in the elaboration of this research are also important contributions. The most prominent finding of this study is that the attitudes of the research participants towards their own mobility are contradictory as their self-representation from the standpoints of the context of work and the private sphere are discursively confronted. This dissonance in the narratives represents struggles in the life of the research participants as they attempt to meet corporate demands for continuous global mobility. The findings of this study show that despite the persuasive power of certain corporate discourses they are not passively assumed by individuals, meaning that the hegemony of neoliberal capitalism as a dominant ideology underlying modern organizations is not absolute, because individuals consciously or subconsciously resist and challenge the messages it conveys.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Educational Leadership / W. Franklin Spikes / This research examined the nature of the patterns of communication of discussion board users who were enrolled in undergraduate level online courses. For purpose of analysis, this study used Norman Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) framework (1992). Data were collected from discussion board posts of eight undergraduate online courses that were offered by a small, private, religiously-affiliated, liberal arts university. An examination of these data was further informed by Garrison, Anderson, & Archer (1999) Community of Inquiry model. Using Garrison et al.’s ideas, the researcher described the nature of the interactions between students and faculty with respect to social, cognitive, and teaching presence in online discussion boards. The findings of this research suggest that understanding the presence of social, cognitive, and teaching presence as well as the nature of the patterns of communication in the discourse is important in developing quality distance education discussion boards. More specifically, they showed that evidence of social and teaching presence was regularly present in an examination of the online discussion boards. Conversely, the data showed very few examples of cognitive presence. Based upon the findings of this research, ideas for how constituents of online education can continue with and improve upon the practices found here relative to social and teaching presence as well as how to re-envision and improve upon cognitive presence and overall-intention for discussion boards were also offered.

This study attempts to present the relations between discourse and ideology in debates taking place in the Bahraini Council of Representatives. It uses critical discourse analysis (CDA) and the Sociocognitive Approach (SCA) to ground the theoretical claims in the idea that Shiite members of parliament (MPs) in the Bahraini Council of Representatives employ discursive strategies differently from Sunni MPs. To test this hypothesis, the research aims first to observe whether, and if so how, the Sunni parties and the Shiite party employ discursive devices and strategies differently to achieve three ideological goals: attempting to gain political advantage discursively in parliamentary debates on topics related to dissent control and political freedom; manoeuvring the definitions of self and others in the contexts of dissent control and political rights; and manipulating the law to support one’s party’s and/or sectarian affiliation’s ideological stances about dissent-controlling laws and the definition of political freedom and political rights. The second aim of the research is to explore whether and how the use of discursive devices and strategies reflects the sectarian ideological conflict in Bahrain. The research critically analyses excerpts on dissent control and personal freedom from the Hansard of the Bahraini Council of Representatives. The research first marks discursive devices used by MPs. It then identifies discursive strategies. The research detects three major discursive strategies that are fulfilled by using the devices and called them ‘corroborating by information’; ‘intensifying grievance’; and ‘centralising pride and dignity’. The analysis shows that some discursive devices are used more intensively, though not exclusively, under certain strategies. The research also notes that the Shiite party, Al Wefaq, employs the strategy of intensifying grievance more often than other strategies. The Al Wefaq members demonstrate more tendency toward objecting than do the other parties to the dissent control in Bahrain. The research relates this tendency to the ideologies of Shi’ism as a religious and political institution that heavily relies on the ideology of protest and the feeling of injustice and discrimination. Finally, the research provides a preview of the use of identified strategies during the unrest that started in Bahrain in February 2011.

This study contributes to the expanding critical range of discourse analysis by analyzing texts used to market Viagra and other "sexual enhancement medication," pharmaceuticals that treat "erectile dysfunction". Applying elements of Norman Fairclough's critical discourse analysis framework, this study examines as cultural artifacts Viagra, Levitra, and Cialis print advertisements and television commercials and it offers insight into the institutional discourse of "sexual enhancement medication" and how this discourse constructs male identity and subjectivity.