The United States is built on the core idea that the government is run by the people. Vital to this idea is that the public opinion of the masses is a main consideration of political elites in the formation of policy. By analyzing six issues, looking at both the policy opinion of the masses and actual related policy, levels of correlation between opinion and policy will be demonstrated. The results vary depending on the issue, ranging from a very high correlation to a very low correlation. The research also looks at saliency, or importance, of each issue to the respondents. This serves to demonstrate which public opinion political elites are acknowledging when forming policy, those who care about the issue or those who do not. Understanding levels of saliency can help to better prioritize the importance of which issues should be addressed by elites in order to create greater governmental efficiency.

The civil war in Finland became a great political battle between the Swedish Social Demo- cratic Party (SAP) and the Swedish Social Democratic Left-Wing Party (SSV) during spring 1918. Few studies about Swedish media report have been published that has a connection to the Finnish civil war. This composition has compared three socialist newspapers – Folkets Dagblad Politiken (FDP), Norrskensflamman and Social-Demokraten – formation of opinion. In the Swedish parliament’s lower chamber a significant interpellation debate took place, which this composition compares with the newspapers, in order to identify if the debate affected the newspapers reports.This composition administers a qualitative method by the use of text analytical elements. This allows findings of differences in the media reports during February 1918. The newspapers media opinion and the lower chamber members’ statements’ has been studied throughout three aspects: which causalities they gave to the civil war, how they related to the Swedish government commitment to Finland and how they related to the national political “Finnish debate”. In general, the Left-Wing Party supported the Finnish social democrats rising, whereas the Swedish Social Democrats couldn’t authorize the rising. Instead they emphasized that they acted on the will of the Swedish population, by keeping Sweden out of the war.The differences between the Left-Wing Party and the Social Democrats were vast during the debate. One could understand this polemic by applying Gunnar Sjöbloms theoretical concept of how parties construct their political ambitions in a multiparty system. The Left-Wing was more idealistic in the debate, compared to the Social Democrats who were more practical. The Social Democrats was for the first time in Swedish history in a ministry cabinet, together with the Liberal Party. Thus the ambition for the SAP was to show their voters that the party was “governmental capable”. SAP couldn’t legitimize nor admit the Finnish rising, thus they accentuated the democratic inviolableness. SSVs’ more idealistic standpoint became clear when they supported the Finnish Social Democratic rising. Therefore, SAPs’ focus was to maximize their parliamentary influence, while SSVs’ focus was to realize their political, ideological program. Thus the parties’ had different political ambition, which became clear during the “Finland debate”.Keywords: Finnish civil war, SAP, SSV, Folkets Dagblad Politiken, Norrskensflamman, Social-Demokraten, formation of opinion.

<p>Today, we live in a consumption society. We buy products to soothe our needs and desires. Thru material things we can express our own personal identity and shopping is seen more as a pleasure than a need to survive.</p><p> </p><p>With the background media- and communication studies, the reason of this study was to explore how blogs as a social medium can influence the consumption ideal in society<strong>. </strong>With dialogical analysis and semiotic analysis we wanted to see if we could find a specific consumption culture in the content of six blogs we did our studies on. We found that the blogs showed us that there is normal to have everyday luxury and spoil oneself with expensive things. However, some of the result clearly shows that there is a difference between the Swedish and the international blogs.</p>

Today, we live in a consumption society. We buy products to soothe our needs and desires. Thru material things we can express our own personal identity and shopping is seen more as a pleasure than a need to survive.   With the background media- and communication studies, the reason of this study was to explore how blogs as a social medium can influence the consumption ideal in society. With dialogical analysis and semiotic analysis we wanted to see if we could find a specific consumption culture in the content of six blogs we did our studies on. We found that the blogs showed us that there is normal to have everyday luxury and spoil oneself with expensive things. However, some of the result clearly shows that there is a difference between the Swedish and the international blogs.

Abstract Purpose: The purpose of this thesis was to examine to which extant the politically governed organization, Swedish association of local authorities and local regions (SALAR), has been mediatized. Furthermore the purpose was to examine how SALAR being a Meta-organization affected the mediatization process. To accomplish this the thesis studied how SALAR organized themselves internally in order to form opinion through the media in one of their prioritized issues. A further purpose was to equalize SALAR’s mediatization process with the mediatization process for the whole political system.  Method: This is a qualitative study which the gathered material has been collected through two types of methods, semi structured interviews and field observations. Material: A total of eight interviews were made distributed over three departments inside SALAR. Furthermore four observations were made to supplement the interviews. Findings: The general findings of this study shows that SALAR has been mediatized through organizing in way which signals adaptation to media logic. However, contrary too much of what the literature tells about political mediatization, SALAR adapts to media logic to be able to use the media as an arena for the messages and stories they want to tell. Which means that the adaption isn’t only forced but they are able to make the most of that adaption. SALAR from a Meta organizational perspective shows that it does not affect the actual mediatization process, only that using members as examples enforces the content, which later forms opinion. Concluding, no evidence can be found the supports the notion that SALAR’s mediatization process can be equalled to the meditization process for the whole political system. / Sammanfattning   Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen var att undersöka i vilken grad den politiskt styrda organisation SKL blivit medialiserad. Dessutom studera hur SKL i egenskap av att vara metaorganisation påverkar hur denna medialisering sker. För att åstadkomma detta undersöks hur SKL organiserar sig internt för att kunna bedriva medial opinionsbildning inom en av deras prioriterade verksamhetsfrågor, ökat bostadsbyggande. Därtill var ett ytterligare syfte att likställa SKL:s medialiseringsprocess mot medialiseringsprocesserna för hela det politiska systemet.   Metod: Det här är en kvalitativ studie där insamling av det empiriska materialet har skett genom semi-strukturerade intervjuer och fältobservationer.   Material: Totalt åtta intervjuer genomfördes. Fyra tycken från avdelningen för kommunikation, tre från avdelningen tillväxt och samhällsbyggnad och en från avdelningen VD-stab. Därtill har fyra observationer genomförts för att komplettera de intervjuer som gjorts.   Resultat: Resultatet av undersökningen visar att SKL har blivit medialiserad utifrån två definierade medialiseringsfaser. Det betyder att SKL anpassar sig till medielogik för att kunna möta mediernas behov. Resultatet visar att denna anpassning görs för att kunna använda media som en arena för de budskap som man vill förmedla i opinionsbildande syften inom bostadsfrågan vilket skiljer sig från vad mycket av litteraturen om politisk medialisering säger. SKL som metaorganisationen har också inga stora problem med att hantera sina medlemmar in denna medialiseringsprocess och har heller ingen påverkan på hur den sker. Däremot kan SKL som metaorganisation förstärka sitt innehåll i de mediala produkter som produceras i syftet att vara opinionsbildande. Inga övertygande bevis kan dock inte göras för att se SKL:s medialisering som en representant för medialiseringen av det hela politiska systemet. Det här på grund av att SKL som organisationen har ett annat sätt att vara verksam på vilket gör att deras anpassning till medielogik inte med säkerhet går att säga är densamma som anda politiska institutionernas anpassning.