This thesis examines if there is any differences in how gender is produced in the Administrative Court’s application of care of young persons (special provisions) act. To do that, we’ve studied 40 judgements that all has the requirement “social destructive behavior”. A social destructive behavior means that the young’s behavior is considered to differ from the basic norms in the society. The deviant behavior may be that the young person socialize in inappropriate environments or through the behavior exposes the young’s health and development. The judgements we’ve been studying are from 2017 and 1996, because we want to see if the discourse has possibly changed over the past twenty years. We’ve used a qualitative method, the critical discursive analyze, to visualize power structures regarding the construction of gender. The thesis is based on the theories social constructionism, discourse analysis and gender theory. By using these method, theories and data, we can note that differences are made between gender and sexuality.

This bachelor thesis examines how “begging” is represented in Swedish newspaper during the period between October 2017 until the end of January 2018. The selection of time was made in connection to a bill suggesting a national begging prohibition. The thesis problematizes how the image of begging is constructed and represented in the press. The empirical material consists of publications from the three biggest newspapers in Sweden. The material is analysed in relation to the (re)production of normality and deviance, with special attention to the concepts of ethnicity and class. The thesis adopts a theoretical framework informed by an intersectional analysis, and the empirical study was approached through critical discourse analysis. Concepts such as social constructionism, discourse analysis and intersectionality are central to the study. The thesis includes discussions on ethnicity, class, representation and power as well as highlighting the hegemonic Swedish perspective in connection to research of established conceptions of beggars in Europe. The result indicates that begging is understood as a social problem that implicit threatens the Swedish welfare. Begging is mainly described as a problem derived from other countries. However, there are also arguments that claim begging to be a symptom of poverty. These arguments support an international cooperation, but this application is often underrepresented. Due to the description of begging, it is positioned as a problem that Sweden can not be held accountable for. Furthermore, begging in terms of a discourse, is positioned as an instrument to attract both readers but also voters for the election that is to be held the fall of 2018. These positions are maintained by systematical constructions of beggars as deviant from the hegemonic Swedish perspective, mainly based upon conceptions of ethnicity and class.

Under 2017 ökade den mediala rapporteringen om sugardejting i Sverige i samband med att sugardejtingsajten Rich Meet Beautiful lanserades i Sverige. Sugardejting presenteras som ett nytt fenomen men vid en närmare undersökning visar det sig att sugardejting är en fråga som diskuterats och uppmärksammats i Sverige tidigare. Tidigare forskning visar att sugardejting är ett fenomen som länge förekommit i Afrika, söder om Sahara. Det är framförallt ekonomiska faktorer som lyfts fram som förklaring till varför det förekommer, vilket även observerats i studier utförda i Nordamerika. Hur fenomenet sugardejting presenteras och diskuteras i media har ännu inte uppmärksammats inom forskning. Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka och analysera hur fenomenet sugardejting framställs i svensk media. För att möta detta syfte har kritisk diskursanalys tillämpats, framförallt utifrån Faircloughs och Foucaults teorier. Studien baseras på svenska tidningsartiklar och medierapportering mellan mars 1994 och december 2019. Medierapporteringarna har studerats och analyserats utifrån kritisk diskursanalys med hjälp av Faircloughs tredimensionella modell och olika teman har identifierats. Det framkommer hur orden inom sugardejting används för att beskriva någon i artiklarna, eller medierapporteringar där de som sugardejtar får berätta sin historia. Detta samtidigt som det i analysen ses en ökad medierapportering i samband med en ökad problematiserande syn på sugardejting, där främst polisen och journalister har makten över diskursen. De som ger ett beskrivande perspektiv med en mer positiv bild får mindre plats i media med tiden. Den dominerande diskursen är den som framställer sugardejting som prostitution och som ett socialt problem, som grundar sig i psykisk ohälsa. / In 2017 the media coverage on sugar dating in Sweden increased as Rich Meet Beautiful launched its site in Sweden. Sugar dating is presented as a new phenomenon, but on closer examination it turns out that sugar dating is a topic that has been discussed in Sweden much earlier. Research shows that sugar dating is a phenomenon that has occurred for a long time in sub-Saharan Africa. The leading factor to why sugar dating occurs is believed to be economical aspects. This is also evident in studies conducted in North America. How the phenomenon of sugar dating is presented and discussed in the media has not yet been researched. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate and analyze how the phenomenon of sugar dating is presented in the Swedish media. In order to meet this purpose, critical discourse analysis has been applied, primarily based on Fairclough's and Foucault's ideas. The study is based on Swedish newspaper articles and other media reports between March 1994 and December 2019. These have been studied and analyzed based on critical discourse analysis using Fairclough's three-dimensional model and various themes have emerged. The result of this thesis showed how the words in sugar dating are used to describe someone. There are also articles where those who sugar date get to tell their story. This is happening at the same time as this thesis can show an increased media coverage with a problematic view on sugar dating, where mainly the police and journalists have power over the discourse. Those who provide a descriptive perspective with a more positive image get less space in the media over time. The most dominant discourse is the one presenting sugar dating as prostitution and as a social problem caused by mental illness.

The aim of this study was to examine how a company within the aircraft industry communicates environmental sustainability. We have therefore chosen to investigate the airline SAS - partly because it is an aircraft industry and partly because the airline is criticized today for its negative environmental impact. The purpose of this study has been answered based on two questions (1) How does SAS produces environmental sustainability through linguistic means and (2) How does SAS speaks to its audience through its sustainability communication? Furthermore we have based this study on theories about discourses, critical discourse analysis and sustainability communication. As well as we have used the theoretical perspective of critical discourse analysis, it has also been used as a method in this study. We have based our analysis on the three-dimensional model of Fairclough together with the linguistic and rhetorical tools modality, intertextuality/interdiscursivity, interpellations, ethos, pathos and logos. Our material consisted of social media posts from SAS’s Twitter, Facebook and Instagram that significantly concerned environmental sustainability as well as the sustainability section of their website. The analysis resulted in three recurrent themes (1) Sustainability as a vision of the future (2) Sustainability together with SAS and (3) Sustainability as innovation. Therefore we have found that the focus is shifting from the environmental sustainability of the aviation industry as a dilemma, to being perceived as a long-term solution for us to being able to continue to fly. Thus, SAS is constantly indicating how the airline industry will continue to exist but sustainability aspects should be integrated into the business. We have also discovered how the audience is interpelled as ethical travelers - partly when SAS positions itself as a sustainable alternative for us to choose, and partly by offering us opportunities to act together with them for environmental sustainability.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the representation of the current female presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren in two american newspapers. The representation of Elizabeth Warren in the media is being related to the masculinity norm of the presidency. The aim with the study is to create understanding for how implicit biases about gender and the presidency influence the rendition of female presidential candidates in the media. The study is using Norman Faircloughs critical discourse analysis and the theory of the gendersystem. The empirical material consists of 10 articles from The New York Times and The Washington Post. The main conclusion of the analysis is that the media discourse of Elizabeth Warren is defined by the question of her electability in the election. The masculinity norm of the presidency is being reproduced and also questioned in an open discussion about the gender aspect in presidential elections.

Education has an important role in working towards equity and social justice. Education is assigned the role to balance out inequalities in education, and to provide people with opportunity for social mobility. This thesis seeks to critically explore international curricula in the context of an international private school company. The theoretical framework of this study is drawn on moral philosophy (Pogge), intersectionality and transnational feminist theory (Mohanty and Nancy Fraser), and previous critical knowledge on globalisation, international schools, social inequality and social justice. This study seeks to conceptualize a critical position towards the neoliberal agenda organizing globalization and argues that the current system actively maintains social inequality and poverty. It takes a stance against the globalizing, neoliberal, capitalist economy, claiming that it is inherently hierarchical, maintains the current hegemonic status quo between the social classes, and deprives big groups of people of their basic human rights. Furthermore, this thesis claims that educational actors have moral responsibility in striving for a more equal society. The scope of the research is the discourse on poverty and social justice created by an international, private school company, Nord Anglia Education and by educational materials for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

There has been an increase in the number of people migrating around the world in recent decades. The main reasons for this migration are mostly social pressures, conflicts, and wars. With the Arab spring, which showed its effect in the early 2010s, a civil war arose in Syria. With the civil war that had its influence in Syria in 2011, thousands of people had to take shelter in Turkey. With the rapid increase in Syrian refugees who took refuge in Turkey, this issue has become vital in Turkey's agenda. Many studies on the media and the representation of immigrants and refugees show that these groups are often negatively represented. In this research, news about Syrian refugees published in Cumhuriyet, Hürriyet, and Sabah newspapers, among the best-selling newspapers in Turkey, are examined. In addition, the fact that the three selected newspapers have different political stances, this situation adds sample diversity to this research. June 2011 - March 2012 and June 2016 - March 2017 constitute the times of the sample. The first time sample represents the early times of both the Syrian Civil war and the arrivals of Syrian refugees in Turkey. In contrast, the second time sample represents the time that Syrian refugees are more integrated into Turkish society and not a new subject for Turkey anymore....

Protests have been important social phenomena for the wider Middle East, especially since the Arab Spring, with the potential to achieve dramatic change. Understanding the nature of uprisings in the region is important for our understanding of the present and the future. To this end, this thesis tried to make sense of the dynamics and processes that led to the emergence of three protests in the region, the 25th of January Revolution in Egypt, the Syrian Uprising, and the Gezi protest. It tried to analyze the different aspects in which they were comparable. Furthermore, it tried to analyze their representation in the media by uncovering the differences and similarities between the discourse of two Turkish newspapers, Sabah and Cumhuriyet, in their columns and news reports regarding these instances of protests. Critical discourse analysis was used alongside comparative case study to see the differences between social reality and the discourse of the newspapers. Also, the thesis tried to explain the discrepancies and commonalities between the discourse of the newspapers. When the protests were compared with the help of the existing literature, it was seen that the protests had some similarities in the aspects such as causes of protest, the performance of the protestors, and state reaction. Moreover,...

In early 2020, the outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan put China in the spotlight of international news. China’s development in the field of politics, society, and economics still occupies media attention in the context of the global public health crisis. Previous studies have shown that China’s image in the western media, including the Canadian media, adopted a generally negative tone. The objective of this thesis is to investigate China’s image in one of the mainstream Canadian media platforms, the Globe and Mail, during the whole epidemic year of 2020. This research is based upon news reports published in 2020 by the Globe and Mail and is conducted with the support of corpus linguistic methodology and with the guideline of Critical Discourse Analysis, especially van Dijk’s ideology square. In order to discern and identify the image of China as portrayed by the Globe and Mail, the underlying discourse strategies are analyzed. Findings show that “China”, “Chinese government”, and “Chinese citizens” are the main subjects that make up the broad concept of China’s image. And in China’s related news report in the Globe and Mail from 31 December 2019 to 31 December 2020, (1) rhetoric devices, including number game, news source selection, illustration, irony, implication, presumption, vagueness, comparison, and history as lesson, are employed to polarize the image of the Chinese government and the Canadian government. (2) China’s image in the Globe and Mail is generally negative, which can be described via four aspects: China as a threat, callous, dishonest/untrustworthy, and powerful (3) the China-related news as constructed by the Globe and Mail reflects its own particular national ideologies and interests.

Community treatment orders (CTOs), which allow for involuntary psychiatric treatment of individuals who meet particular legal criteria while they are living in the community, have been in effect in Ontario since 2001. Some similar form of mandated community-based psychiatric treatment exists in every Canadian province and in many other jurisdictions around the world. In the wake of deinstitutionalization, CTOs filled a gap in mental health care, allowing for the treatment of people with serious and persistent mental illness (SPMI) who were otherwise unable or unwilling to access care; however, CTOs brought their own host of legal, ethical and practice dilemmas, as well as mixed results in research about their effectiveness. This doctoral research examines the way CTO policy is situated within a larger historical, social, legal and discursive system; the way it is deployed, operationalized and negotiated in day-to-day practice; and the layered effects that this has on the multiple actors involved. This study gives voice to a small and vulnerable subset of the population who, in addition to experiencing mental illness, have layered experiences of stigmatization and low socio-economic status. The purpose of this study was to explore the cultural context, beliefs and values underlying the CTO and perpetuated by the CTO, as it was used in community mental health care in Ontario, through an examination of its impact on identity of people living with SPMI. The study was guided by a theoretical framework that brought together the work of Michel Foucault on governmentality and Elizabeth Grosz on body image in order to critically examine the issue of identity from both the outside in (how identity is constructed) and the inside out (how that constructed identity is experienced). It used a critical ethnographic methodology. Data collection included in-depth interviews with persons with SPMI (N=7), family members (N=5) and clinicians (N=10), observations of health care practices for people with CTOs, and analysis of documents used during the CTO process. Data was analyzed using critical discourse analysis. This study revealed insights in the into social context of CTOs, that is, the complex social landscape in which CTOs operate; the social practice of CTOs, that is, the many steps and many actors involved in the CTO process; and the social impact of CTOs, that is the effect of CTO processes on both the constructed and the experienced identity of the patient, family member and clinician. The constructed identity of the patient included perceptions of the patient as risky, defective, and in need of surveillance; the experience of this identity was characterized by feelings of being criminalized, disconnected, muted, traumatized and gaslit. The constructed identity of the family members included an idealization of families as responsible and available, and instrumentalization of the family role. This identity experience was characterized as a dissonance between roles, a witnessing of the absurd, and as putting a strain on other elements of life/identity. The constructed identity of the clinician in relation to CTOs included the role of enforcer, fall-guy, paternalistic provider, and the patient’s adversary. The experience of this identity was characterized by frustration, powerlessness, distress, and an acceptance of dissonance. CTOs, while facilitating access to some treatments and services, also act to construct identities for patients that further limit their full integration into communities as valued members. An examination of the constituent parts of the CTO highlights areas in which CTO processes could be changed; research participants conveyed areas in which they thought the CTO could be improved, including changes to methods of police intervention, better collection and use of administrative data, systemic change, the use of specific approaches to care, changes to the timings of renewals, and changes to the Consent and Capacity Board hearings. The discussion highlights ways in which a re-examination of the context in which CTOs are used can lead to the consideration of political and therapeutic means to reduce both the circumstances that lead to mental and emotional distress and to improve our responses to mental and emotional distress when these are experienced by members of our communities.