This study examined by content analysis and semiotic picture analysis how gender equal the UK newspaper The Times, the U.S/Iranian nespaper Iran Times International and Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet were May 1st 2009 and May 8th 2009. The study had a foundation of feminist theory about patriarchy and gender theory with a contribution of research about race and its impact on patriarchy. None of the three papers were fully gender equal. Even though Svenska Dagbladet was found to be the most gender equal when it came to the number of women represented all of the newspapers examined showed patriachal structures since women more often than men were described as victimes, trivialized, incompetent and inferior.  People with a race other than white were in minority but patriarchy seems to be a stronger form of oppression than racism. White men were in majority and were less opressed than other groups and were because of that most in favour of the newspapers symbolic powers.

Meningen med LIV1: Semiotisk karaktärsdesign för animation är en rapport skriven för ett examensprojekt utfört av Kaj Banfather och Kristofer Johansson som studerar Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap: Visuell kommunikation och design vid Karlstads universitet. Projektets uppdragsgivare var organisationen Fryshuset, där en animation som beskriver ett av deras många sociala projekt LIV1, som går ut på att belysa det positiva med etnisk, kulturell och religiös mångfald, skulle skapas. För att gå i linje med Fryshusets värderingar och målet med LIV1 blev det därför av stor vikt att designa de karaktärer som skulle komma att finnas i animationen på ett etiskt sätt som inte förstärker stereotyper. Med teori om stereotyper och banal nationalism utforskades även idén om förekomsten av banala stereotyper. Stereotypa representationer som blivit så pass normaliserade att de ofta inte ses som direkt kontroversiella. För att identifiera de tecken och koder som kom att användas (eller undvikas) för att representera etniska och kulturella minoriteter utan att bygga på befintliga stereotyper, vare sig banala eller inte, utfördes en semiotisk analys av de två populära, svenska TV-serierna Bonusfamiljen och Torpederna. Analysen utfördes genom att undersöka tecken inom kategorierna det estetiska, beteende och kontextualitet. Resultatet visade att kontextualitet var avgörande för hur etniska minoriteter representeras i de båda serierna. När narrativet kretsar kring vad som ska föreställa svenska familjeliv och de relationer och konflikter som förekommer där, visade det sig att etniska minoriteter fick betydligt mindre betydelsefulla roller och därmed kortare skärmtid. När det istället handlade om kriminalitet ökade skärmtiden för etniska minoriteter då de fick viktigare roller, men detta kopplades starkt till att de representerades som kriminella. Beträffande det estetiska och beteende påträffades inga större avvikelser mer än att etniska minoriteter oftare observerades med våldsamma beteenden, men enbart i den serie som handlade om kriminalitet. Även detta kopplades till kontextualitet och hur etniska minoriteter oftare representerades som kriminella då det övergripande var de brottsliga karaktärerna som iakttogs utföra våldshandlingar. Slutresultatet diskuterades i koppling till de nämnda teorierna och även tidigare forskning om representationer av etniska minoriteter och karaktärsdesign. För att undvika att förstärka stereotyper designades karaktärer utifrån undersökningens resultat. De fyra, unga karaktärerna fick därför olika etniciteter och en jämnare fördelning av skärmtid. De placerades även i kreativa miljöer och representerades med intressen därefter för att motverka stereotypen av att etniska minoriteter oftare är kriminella. / The meaning of LIV1: Semiotic character design for animation is a report written for a graduation project by Kaj Banfather and Kristofer Johansson who studies Media and Communication Studies: Visual Communication and Design at Karlstad University. The project's commissioner was the organisation Fryshuset, where an animation describing one of their many social projects, LIV1, that aims to highlight the positive effects of ethnic, cultural and religious diversity, was to be created. To keep in line with Fryshuset's values ​​and the objective of LIV1, it was therefore important to design the characters that would exist in the animation in an ethical way that did not amplify stereotypes. With theories concerning stereotypes and banal nationalism the report also explored the idea of ​​the existence of banal stereotypes. Stereotypical representations that have become normalised to the extent that they are often not seen as directly controversial. To identify the signs and codes that came to be used (or avoided) to represent ethnic and cultural minorities without building on existing stereotypes, whether banal or not, a semiotic analysis of the two popular Swedish television series Bonusfamiljen and Torpederna was performed. The analysis was conducted by examining signs within the categories the aesthetics, behaviour and contextuality. The results showed that contextuality often was crucial for the representation of ethnic minorities in both series. When the narrative revolves around what is supposed to represent Swedish family life and the relationships and conflicts that occur within that, it turned out that ethnic minorities gained significantly less important roles and thus, shorter screen time. When crime was the main topic, screen time for ethnic minorities increased as they were assigned more important roles, but this was linked to being represented as criminals. Regarding the aesthetics and behaviour, no major discrepancies were found more than that ethnic minorities more often were observed with violent behaviours, but only in the series revolving crime. This was also linked to contextuality and how ethnic minorities more often were represented as criminals and how criminal characters mostly were the ones observed to carry out acts of violence. The final results were discussed through the perspectives of the mentioned theories and also previous research on representations of ethnic minorities and character design. In order to avoid enhancing stereotypes, characters were designed based on the results of the analysis. The four young characters therefore received different ethnicities and a more even distribution of screen time. They were also placed in creative environments and then represented with the interests to counteract the stereotype that ethnic minorities more often are criminals.

The aim of this research is to study how gender is constructed and represented in children's literature through image and text analysis of the four selected children's books from respectively Sweden, Poland, and Turkey. Through our analysis we want to demonstrate the prevailing gender discourses expressed in children's books through text and image. From this we want to create an understanding of the importance of the selection of children's books and the role of adults in com­municating and discussing the content. The study has feminist poststructuralism as theory which is part of social constructivism. To achieve the in-depth analysis, we used semiotic text and image analysis as well as multimodality and critical discourse analysis. The study's findings show that, based on semiotic image and text analysis, most analyzed books convey and portray a con­ventional and traditional image of femininity and masculinity. There are some break­through chal­lenges in the selected children's books that adults need to attend to in social practice with the chil­dren. The result we have reached is only partly in line with the curriculum for preschool gender equality. Some messages are also in conflict with them.

Mitt kandidatarbete går ut på att fastställa om det finns något samband mellan hur vi relaterar till färger i förhållande till platser och hur mycket våra tidigare erfarenheter som påverkar sambandet. Med hjälp av Donna Haraway´s arbeten om begreppet situerad kunskap och begreppet diffraktion av Karen Barad. I detta kandidatarbete används diffraktion som ett verktyg i skapandeprocess. Färg är någonting som vi ser hela tiden i vårt dagliga liv. Därför kopplar vårt minne ihop färg på både ett medvetet och omedvetet sätt, så som till platser, företagslogotyper, mat, hustyper, bilar och blommor. Eftersom mitt arbete handlar mycket om bilder, och färger, har jag använt mig av ett analysverktyg som heter Semiotisk analys, där jag får hjälp att tolka resultatet av färg och form i olika bilder. Slutsatsen kommer att handla om hur mycket tidigare erfarenheter kan påverka visuella arbetsminnet dvs. associationen mellan olika färger och olika platser, mycket, lite eller obetydligt. Resultatet kommer förmodligen att landa i någon form av påverkan. / With this Bachelor thesis, I want to enlighten if there are some connection between how we relate to colours in relations to separate places and how mush our previous experiences interfere with this relation. With the support of Donna Haraway´s works with the concept situated knowledge and with the concept diffraction of Karen Barad. In this Bachelor thesis, I use the concept diffraction as a tool in the design process. Colour is something as we see around us all the time in daily life. Therefor our memory connects colours together in a consciousness way and a unconsciousness way with a lot of different things as Places, Company Logos, food, different kind of Houses, Cars and Flowers among others. Because of my Bachelor thesis is about Pictures and colours, have I used a tool for analyses called Semiotic analyse, with this tool I got some support in the way of interpretation of colours and shapes in different Pictures. The conclusion is about how mush previous experience are going to affect the visual memory that is to say association between colours and separate places, a lot, little or almost nothing. The result is probably going to be some kind of influence.

On screen we can find different types of leadership styles and film has a great potential to influence our view on leadership. In this essay we have analyzed how the filmmakers have portrayed different leaders and styles in movies. Northouse defines leadership as a process in which an individual influences a group to achieve a common goal. He highlights that it is possible to define three different main perspectives of the concept, focus on the group process, focus on behavior and focus on personality. We wanted to analyze how and to which extent the leader communicates with the subordinates and what type of leader this makes them. By looking at organizational communication in the films we can contribute to media and communications research. Our main question is “How is the leadership portrayed in three big award-winning movies from the 2000s?”. The purpose of this study is to analyze how formal leaders and their leadership are portrayed in modern American movies. Big American movies have a large audience and therefore have big potential to affect our view on leadership. That's why it's relevant to analyze how movies portray leaders in different situations. We have used a qualitative content analysis method in our essay. This is because we have been striving to achieve a comprehensive description of the studied area. We have also used a semiotic analysis for the studied area. We have analyzed how the leaders talk, what they say and how they behave. We have come to the conclusion that leadership can look very different. Based on previous research and our analysis of the movies we have also come to the conclusion that communication is a very important part of a functioning leadership and an organization. The choice of semiotic resources such as gestures, words and symbols can affect the leadership. A leader does not always have to have a specific style, it's possible to adapt different styles to different situations and people and you can also use a mix of different traits from different styles. We have also realized that it is possible to develop and change the leadership to what suits the organization and to what the followers are motivated by. A certain leadership style may not work in one organization but work in another.

The purpose of this reception study is to increase the understanding of how perceptions correspond between communicators and recipients regarding which feeling is perceived to engage the most in the context of sustainability communication. The theoretical frame stretches from Sara Ahmed's theory about how actions are reactions of feelings, the green gap, living in denial, Tim Jensen’s theory about environmental guilt and theories in politics that include subactivism and Chantal Mouffe's theory about the importance of an “us and them” in opposition political movements. The study also includes theories within semiotic analysis, reception analysis and Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding model. The reception study is divided into two methods. The first method is a visual semiotic analysis that made it possible to find the preferred reading of the commercials. The second method is qualitative interviews which made it possible to analyse the way recipients interpret the message of the commercials. Analysing tools within reception analysis were applied to the material from the interviews with the recipients. The study also utilized a comparative analysis of interview responses between the communicators and recipients to locate possible differences in perceptions of sustainability communication.   The study's results show that positive emotions encourage recipients to maintain the already sustainable lifestyle they consider themselves to have but it also make them feel skeptical to the message. The negative emotions encourage them to make a behavior change but it also makes the recipients feel hopeless. The analysis however shows that the target group do not believe that they will make any further changes as they already believe that they are acting sustainably. The study has also identified some of the challenges that communicators face when it comes to sustainability communication. One is that the recipients respond best to the communication that they tend to avoid and another challenge is to find the balance between positive and negative emotions so that the recipient feels that the message is trustworthy. The study has also shown the importance of giving the recipients sustainable tools they feel they can act on. Dissonance between recipients and communicators regarding the sense of community has been located.

Today we live in an advertised-oriented society and we are constantly exposed to commercialized messages. Most advertising is based on stereotypical portraits of humans. And something that has attracted attention during the last decade is the one-sided representation that appears in these advertisements. This matter has been particularly relevant during the last decade with the emergence of significant societal phenomena and the questioning of power relations in society. Among these, Black Lives Matter, Metoo, and the Body Positivity-movement. This study aims to investigate what stereotypes can be identified in H&Ms advertisement and if these have changed over the last two decades. The theoretic framework consists of representation, the designation of ethnicity, stereotypes, and corporate social responsibility. Semiotic image analysis has been used as the method, and from this tool such as denotation, connotation, and body rhetoric have been implemented for the execution of the analysis. The result that emerged from the analysis showed that the gender stereotypes have changed over the studied years, as well as the amount of diversity of the objects portrayed in H&Ms advertising. The diversity that holds the most significant change is that people of color are more prominent in the later ads. When it comes to diversity in body types and plus-size models a decrease can be identified. Furthermore, the results also left us questioning if it is successful for companies to include diversity and implement the current trends in society in their advertisement

Varför är black metal provokativt? Vad i subkulturen och musiken provocerar? För att besvara detta är arbetet indelat i två delar. Den första delen utgår från en autenticitetsdiskurs och undersöker black metal som kulturellt fenomen. Här ligger fokus på black metal som subkultur med dess tillhörande historik. Den historiska översikten delar in black metal i fyra generationer och definierar tillhörande subkulturell terminologi, likväl subkulturen och genrens utveckling. Detta sker i relation till relevanta musikexempel för de fyra generationerna. Efter detta ges en religiös bakgrund gällande de tre band som ska analyseras i arbetets andra del. Dessa tre band kommer ifrån tre olika länder med en vitt skild samhällsdiskurs och religiöst samt politiskt klimat. Syftet med att föra fram respektive religiös bakgrund avser förståelse för hur black metal använder gemensamma nämnare för provokation, då inom samma genre men inte i samma miljö. Arbetets andra del lägger vikt vid den klingande musiken och fokuserar på vad det är i musiken och dess låttexter som är provocerande. Analyserna av black metal som subkultur och musikalisk genre utgick från ett snarlikt forskningsläge. Resultatet av respektive analys var likartat. Normbrytande beteende från rådande samhällsdiskurs är skäl nog för att provocera, som subkultur var detta tillräckligt genom visuell representation för en subkulturell tillhörighet. För musiken landade resultatet dels i den aggressiva framtoning musiken bär, samt genom de tillhörande låttexternas innehåll där centrala teman inkluderar satanism, ockultism, djävulsdyrkan och bär anti-religiösa budskap.

Digitaliseringen och vårt samhälle är under ständig förändring och utveckling. Exempelvis talas det fler språk än ett inom flertalet förskolor i Sverige. Läroplanen för förskolan fastställer att utbildningen i förskolan ska lägga grunden för barnens förståelse för olika språk samt att barn ska ges möjlighet att uttrycka sig på olika sätt såväl analogt som digitalt (Skolverket, 2018). Detta anses sätta ett allt högre krav på förskolan och förskollärare inom digitalisering och flerspråkiga barns möjligheter. Denna studie undersöker på vilket sätt förskollärare använder sig av pekplattan för att stödja flerspråkiga barn i deras meningsskapande, litteracitet-, och språkutveckling. Ett didaktiskt designteoretiskt tillvägagångssätt användes för att lyfta fram förskollärares val av metoder i undervisningen med pekplatta som semiotisk resurs för flerspråkiga barns litteracitet och meningsskapande. I resultatet framkommer det att förskollärare använder sig av pekplattans egenskaper i litteracitetshandlingar samt att de på olika sätt skapar möjligheter för barn att beskriva sin omvärld men att undervisning med pekplatta inte planeras i syfte för flerspråkiga barns språkutveckling. Det visar sig att det finns en positiv inställning hos förskolläraren mot pekplattans fördelar i språkfrämjande syfte men även en viss osäkerhet kring det digitala verktygets förmåner.

My study contains a semiotic analysis of three screen captures of still lifes from the music video PrettyBones by the artist Yeule, directed by Joy 秀 Song. The music video depicts several scenes with inspiration from the Dutch great power era and it’s still life painting. The visual elements of the music video have a focus on the course of life and one's own mortality, themes that have long been addressed through still life painting. My study is based mainly on David Petit’s (1988) studies about the symbolism and meaning of 16th-17th century Flemish still life painting. The study also contains segments of Fanny Ambjörnsson’s (2011) studies about the color pink. The purpose of the study is to investigate what the still life communicates through the context of 16th-17th century Flemish iconography and through acontemporary semiotic reading. Results of the study shows that there are similarities between the themes that are present in the still life with contemporary objects and the more traditional still lifes. It also touches on morals and societal norms about feminine identity.