Government / Controversies regarding the slavery and the Constitution often turn on investigation of original intent: Is the Constitution an antislavery or proslavery document? The arguments of West, Storing, Graber, and Finkelman show that scholarly opinion is greatly divided on this issue. This study, however, will present the case that the status of the document need not be resolved in order to determine whether the Constitution inaugurated a proslavery or antislavery project. Instead of attempting to determine the intent of the founders or to derive constitutional principles directly from their document a different task will be undertaken here. This paper will examine the “political logic” of the Constitution, both in terms of specific clauses and the structure of the whole. This study shows that the political logic of the Constitution is hostile to abolitionist paths of national, political development. Instead of setting in motion a project that places the institution of slavery on the road to elimination, the Constitution’s concessions to slavery provided a permanent privileging of slaveholding interests in the further development of the polity. / text

Social media has contributed to a democratization of public discourse. The down side is that it also means a dependency of social media where the logic of different platforms governs the public discourse. The purpose of this study is to widen the understanding of how Swedish politicians relate to social media through the dimensions of media logic, political logic and strategic use. Through interviews with members of the Swedish parliament, we seek to answer which logic they are governed by in their use of social media and if they are strategic in their use. Political logic and media logic, with a clear distinction between network media logic and mass media logic, constitutes the theoretical framework. The conclusion is that the politicians are governed by political logic, but are highly aware of the logics of different social media. They adapt to the logic of different social media in some ways but also actively choose to not adapt, with the motivation that their goal is to spread knowledge about their political issues. They show different levels of strategy in their usage. However, through the example of Twitter/X and the changes the platform has gone through recently, we identify that the politicians are bound to platforms and their logic even if they don’t want to be. Therefore, we classify the politicians as strategic victims. This study constitutes one piece of the bigger puzzle in understanding the impact of media logic on political logic by exploring the phenomenon in a Swedish context.

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.

This Diploma Thesis "Mediatization of Political Sphere" deals with the systematic influence of mass media and their logic on the functioning of the political system, process development and implementation of policy instruments and methods of political communication. First of all the theoretical part is focused on the description of the institutional importance of media in the social environment, more properly introduces images of the effects of media communications in the society, characteristics of the participation of media organizations in the economic relations so that the concept of mediatization in the frame of media studies could be defined and to specify its aspects in connection with a set of knowledge of media logic. The thesis does not omit the introduction of basic logic elements of political sphere, it also deals with its implicit settings, as well as modifications of the political structures in response to transfer a large part of the policy enforcement into the symbolic space of the media. The theoretical interpretation is followed by the research which is focused on the selected elements of mediatization in the Czech context. In the first stage the quantitative research method of content analysis is used to find out which topics and which representatives are observed by the Czech...