Over the last six decades, the Eurovision Song Contest has tried to embody the voice of European unification and international corporation. Previous scholars have depicted Eurovision as something highly influential and beneficial for all participating parties, whether that relates to the opportunity for commercial profit, outspoken Europeanist aspirations, or desired political progress– the song contest is utilized by multiple actors for varying reasons. In this study, I aim to demonstrate how it functions as an alternative cultural battlefield, a unifying apparatus, a signifier of projections, and a vehicle for soft power politics in warfare. It is an essay about political storytelling– the dichotomies between collaboration and resistance, Europeanist aspirations versus nationalistic objectives, the democratic against the totalitarian, the good and the bad. The Eurovision rationale aims to encourage certain rules of behavior and regulate conduct towards those nations that have failed to adhere to these rules. When these assumptions gain terrain in the public discourse, epistemological hegemonies are maintained, power relations sustained and public opinion affected. The study uses a methodological framework of qualitative research, and the empirical data consists of seven interviews followed by a visual analysis of the performances and context surrounding entries from Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia over the years. Three main narratives emanated from this study. The Eurovision Song Contest can be understood as an imagined community created by language and imagined through symbols of meaning. The governing body of Eurovision is the sovereign player who gets to control the political discourse by managing the selection of songs and participating countries. With impression management, the participating nations try and regulate how they are perceived in a public setting. It is communicated through carefully curated performances and acted out by constructed characters. When one fails to adhere to the rules set by the ESC organizers, disturbances occur, and the competition's core values are threatened.

BRÅ:s rapport: Relationen till rättsväsendet i socialt utsatta områden som publicerades under 2018 indikerar att det finns ett lågt förtroende för rättsväsendet i de särskilt utsatta områdena. Det låga förtroendet för rättsväsendet tycks även påverka förtroendet för socialarbetare negativt. Studier om hur förtroendet för det sociala arbetet i särskilt utsatta områden faktiskt ser ut är dock få, vilket ökar behovet och vår önskan att utforska detta vidare. Syftet med vår studie har varit att undersöka förtroendet för socialarbetare i det särskilt utsatta området Rosengård i Malmö. Vi har undersökt på vilket sätt förbipasserande i Rosengård ger uttryck för förtroende för socialarbetare samt hur socialarbetare i Rosengård resonerar om medborgarnas förtroende för det sociala arbetet. För att kunna besvara studiens frågeställningar har data samlats in genom två metoder. Insamlingen har skett genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med åtta socialarbetare samt genom 25 Vox Pop-intervjuer med förbipasserande i Rosengård. Materialet som insamlats har sedan färgkodats och analyserats utifrån tidigare forskning och följande teorier: föreställda gemenskaper, social alienation och stigmatisering.Resultaten i studien visar på ett allmänt lågt förtroende gentemot det sociala arbetet och socialarbetare. Både socialarbetare och förbipasserande nämner bemötande, skam, ryktesspridning, utrymme för att mötas, tillgång till tolk och omsättningen av personal som faktorer som konkret påverkar klientens förtroende för det sociala arbetet i negativ riktning. Studiens slutsats är att ett nytt arbetssätt som utvecklats inom socialtjänsten i Rosengård ska bidra till att ge klienterna mer tid och deltagande i handläggningsprocessen, vilket flera av informanterna tror kommer öka förtroendet. / Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention report published 2018: Relation to the judiciary in particularly deprived areas. The rapport indicates that the people of the particularly deprived area of Rosengård has low trust in law and order. The low trust in the judiciary also reflects negative views on social workers. There are a few studies about the trust of social workers in the particularly deprived area of Rosengård, which increases the necessity and our desire to examine this subject further. The purpose of our study has been to examine the trust of social workers in the particularly deprived area of Rosengård in Malmö. We have examined how passing-by in Rosengård give expression of trust for social workers and how social workers in Rosengård reason about citizens trust for the social services.To answer the studies inquiry, data has been collected by two methods. Collection of data have been constructed with semi-structured interviews with eight social workers and 25 Vox Pop interviews with residents of Rosengård. The material that have been collected have then been color coded and analyzed by past science and the following theories: imagined communities, social alienation and stigmatization.In conclusion there are several factors that affect the trust in social services and social workers. Both social workers and bypassing residents mention treatment of shame, rumors, space to meet, access to interpreter and turnover of personnel are factors that affect clients trust for social services in negative direction. The conclusion of this study is through a new development of the working process in the social services in Rosengård shall the clients get more time and participation in the management process. The sources of this study believe those actions will increase the trust in social workers.

Educational textbooks have the power to influence pupils’ perception of the world. In the subject of English, this specifically concerns learning about cultures in different parts of the world where English is used. The purpose of this study is to identify the characteristics of cultural representation in two English Language Teaching (ELT) textbooks with the aim to make the hidden curriculum visible and to raise awareness among publishing houses and teachers. Using a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) based on Fairclough’s (2001) three-dimensional model in combination with Barthes’ (1977) Visual Semiotics methodology, we investigated which regions and countries were presented and how their cultures were constructed through texts and images. These findings were further compared to the cultural values and content of the Swedish curriculum, the genre of textbooks, and existing hegemonic discourses in society. In the analysis, Kachru’s (1986) Circles of World Englishes, Machin and Mayr’s (2012) toolkit for CDA, McKay’s (2010) interpretation of Anderson’s (1983) imagined communities, and Said’s (2003) concept of Orientalism were applied. Our findings show that the inner circle dominates and is depicted as superior in contrast to the outer and expanding circles. Although the textbooks include a variation of different cultures which is in line with the curriculum, representation of the outer and expanding circles is often stereotypical and underdeveloped which reinforces hegemonic discourses instead of acting to restructure them. This corresponds to previous studies in the genre, and hence, educators must work to ensure that the hidden curriculum in ELT textbooks is continuously made visible and challenged.

In the past decades a lot of research has been dedicated to widening the understanding of different media audiences, as well as to determining the motivations behind both, creation of user-generated content (UGC) as well as audience behavior. This thesis seeks to broaden this knowledge by studying vloggers and their interaction with their audiences. Instead of asking the audience members: In what ways are the vloggers an influence on you, this thesis asks: “Can the audience be a source of inspiration and influence for vloggers? The thesis aims also at recognizing typicality’s in vloggers audio-visual content as well as strategical approaches for audience engagement. Approach in order to find answers to the set questions is critical yet humanistic. Empirical research is divided in two parts, of which the first is done by qualitative content analysis and the second part by semi-structured interviews. The aim of this multimethod approach is to get a broad yet deep view on this commercial, and contemporary storytelling form. Appadurai’s five scape- theory is used as the theoretical framework, and the research findings as well as conclusions are also viewed through other recent studies from media and communications field.

Nostalgia for the Soviet past has been relevant for more than three decades since the demise of the USSR in 1991. The first scholars who studied this phenomenon believed that it related to backward Soviet mentality typical of the old generations. However, with the passage of time it has become clear that young people also not only express interest in the Soviet legacy, but many of them clearly state that they have nostalgia for the USSR. Here, we encounter an intriguing question: can we contend that nostalgia may be provoked by the live experience only, or it can be a longing for the unexperienced past? Nowadays, there are many online nostalgic Russian-speaking communities that provide rich material for studying post-Soviet nostalgia. But Russian language should not be confused with “Russianness”. Moreover, as we go deeper into this topic, we understand that those people who are nostalgic for the USSR, experience longing for different aspects of the Soviet life, depending on their ethnic belonging. This study addresses the difference between Russians who long for the grandeur of the Soviet Union which was the most powerful and effective embodiment of the Russian empire, and the representatives of other nationalities who have another perspective on their Soviet past. This thesis deals a lot with the issue of values, because, as it is shown in the research, longing for socialism is not a matter of age, but rather a matter of values. The most essential point which is recalled by many nostalgic persons is aspiration for the future. Now Russia and other post-Soviet countries do not have a clear plan for the future, while the USSR provided its population with a goal for future development. On the other hand, many nostalgic subjects admit, that a unique spirituality that was embedded in Soviet life is lost. It is another paradox, because the Soviet state was atheist, and now in Russia and other former Soviet republics, religion plays a significant role, however, the decrease of morals in comparison to Soviet times is apparent. Therefore, this thesis discusses compatibility of Communist (socialist) values and religion. Many nostalgic subjects feel that the USSR was a bastion of science and technological advancement in comparison to the backward obscurantist Russia of today. They mourn the downfall of the USSR as a failed project of modernity. This is another important topic that is addressed in the thesis. This study is based on online ethnographies of a few nostalgic communities on three Russian-speaking internet platforms: VKontakte, Odnoklassniki and Facebook. Initially, the focus of the study was on a group level of analysis, but the most valuable portion of this project turned out to be interviews conducted with individual participants of the studied communities. The research participants were from the following countries: Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russian and Ukraine. The task of this research was to understand the nature of their nostalgia and to reveal their visions of the to-be-restored USSR. Depending on their worldviews (socialist/ non-socialist, nationalist/internationalist) the research participants provided very different and instructive pictures of this new potential unity which the researcher approached from the perspective of Benedict Anderson’s theory on imagined communities.

Uppsatsens huvudsakliga syfte är att undersöka hur amerikansk nationell identitet förmedlas i populära filmer. Undersökningen sker genom att analysera tre av de populäraste karaktärerna i de fyra Avengers-filmerna. Karaktärerna som ska analyseras är Iron Man, Captain America och Thor. Benedict Andersons undersökning av hur nationell identitet och nationalism sprids med hjälp av litteratur är förutsättningen för uppsatsen. Utgångspunkten är att populärkultur påverkar tittaren och kan sprida idéer som har verkliga effekter i samhället. I analysen tar effekterna av terrorattacken mot World Trade Center en viktig plats och hur den påverkar uppfattningen av amerikansk nationell identitet i Marvel-filmer narrativt och visuellt. Innan 9/11 var amerikansk nationell identitet stark kopplad till triumfalism och exceptionalism. Trots att terrorattacken påverkar gestaltningen av amerikansk nationell identitet i popkultur så förblir Amerikansk triumfalism och exceptionalism en grundläggande del av amerikansk identitet. Samtidigt undersöks den paradoxala relationen mellan individualism och kollektivism. En gestaltning av gemenskap och individualism präglar filmerna där även regissörers påverkan kan spela roll i det hyperindustrialiserade Marvel-maskineriet.

The master thesis focuses on German population living in Slovakia during the Second World War. Moreover, it examines the way the status of Germans was changing after Slovak autonomy had been established and which role did Deutsche Partei led by Franz Karmasin play in this process. The political party attempted to form collective identity of Carpathian Germans and have control of the entire German social life. The thesis analyzes on political, economical and cultural level how the party suceeded in fulfilling this ambitious purpose or influencing Germans and getting sympathy. Futher, it deals with the wartime aftermaths, retributive justice and coming to terms with the past.

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