The thesis analyses Turkey's and Russia's foreign relations with each other based on the theoretical premise that democratic peace can explain similar behaviour among authoritarian regimes as well. The thesis explores Russia's and Turkey's distinct forms or authoritarianism, before employing a detailed qualitative content analysis on official documents from Russia's and Turkey's presidents and foreign ministries. The readers will attain a broader understanding of democratic theory and the link between political regimes and peaceful relations. Keywords Democratic Theory; Russia; Turkey; Political Regime; Qualitative Content Analysis; MAXQDA

This essay aims to study the relationship between cosplay content creators and TikTok’s algorithm. To study this relationship the essay will conduct a qualitative semi-structured interviews with creators from the cosplay community on TikTok. Since the rise of digital plattforms the media and the role of producer as well as consumer has changed drastically. TikTok has been growing rapidly in popularity since its entry on the market, and by 2020 it had 500 million active users. Since many of today's digital platforms have consumer produced content, the consumer of today has taken on a mixed role between consuming and creating content, which creates a new relationship. The content consumers produce vary vastly on TikTok but one kind that has been present in much of TikTok’s existence is cosplay content. Cosplayers are creators who design costumes to already established characters or franchises. Since a discourse has started in the cosplay community on TikTok about the algorithm suppressing their content the study found it to be a good way to start examining content creators as individuals and how they behave towards an algorithm in their content creation process. The study aims to use algorithmic “folk” theory to examine what theories have been created in the community and how the theories affect the creators. The study also applies gatekeeping theory and social cognitive theory (SCT) to paint a clearer picture in how these creators view the algorithm. Seven interviews with cosplay content creators were conducted and with the help of a thematic analysis method the study found several themes in how the creators view and behave in relation to TikTok and its algorithm. The results of our study shows that there’s a definite present of “folk” theories created inside of the community. The most distinct behaviour relating to “folk” theory among the creators was that they can’t use the hashtag cosplay in the belief that the algorithm would suppress the content. This study concludes that the creators are more aware of the algorithm then they themself know and have different ways of working with and around it.

This study aims to map the individual competence of graphic designers in the social context within the creation of book covers. The ambition of this study is thus to increase understanding of the use of graphic design in strategic processes such as book campaigns. To investigate this, semi-structured interviews were conducted with six active graphic designers and the data were then analyzed in a qualitative content analysis with the help of sensemaking theory and campaign theory. The analysis resulted in the categories experiences as interpretive frameworks, the social process as practice shaping, the function of the book cover, understanding of the book's context and visual elements. The study's conclusion is that the designers adapt their work role according to other actors within the campaign and it is thus the social process that shapes the graphic designers' understanding of their mission. The graphic designers also express that their experiences are considered a resource that can contribute to a functional book cover, but it appears that they do not always get the opportunity to share this understanding. The need to understand the target audience and the book's context thus seems to be based on the order of responsibility that places the graphic designer in a role where the only official responsibility is to create visual communication based on the wishes of the publisher, the marketing department and the author. In line with earlier research, the results from this study show that intuition is used as a helping hand for the creative and free choices they face in this work process.

La tesi presenta una ricerca sull'interazione psicosociale in realtà virtuale. Il primo studio esplora l'impatto di una metodologia di produzione dei dati qualitativa sull'esperienza in RV; il secondo studio esplora, con un approccio grounded theory, le modalità di costruzione della presenza; il terzo studio esplorare l'interazione in rv durante delle sessioni di terapia; il quarto studio, tramite il ricorso all'analisi delle conversazioni, esplora le modalità di co-definizione dei significati in rv. / This research concerns psycho-social interactions in Virtual Reality. In order to investigate subjective experience by a qualitative approach, in the first experiment the feasibility of the thinking aloud data production technique has been verified. The second study investigated the process of presence, by analyzing data produced in the first study, within a grounded theory approach. The use of Virtual Reality in mental health, and particularly for psychotherapy, introduces a radical modification in the therapeutic setting: the typical configuration requires the patient to be immersed in the VE, while the therapist observes and controls the interaction by “outside” the environment. This unique ecosystem requires a qualitative approach to investigate it. In the third study, a qualitative content approach has been used, in order to describe the interactional processes and the co-construction of the sense of presence. In the fourth study, conversational processes in a shared VE have been investigated by creating a shared task in VR and in vivo. Results from this research program suggest the interactional nature of the sense of presence.

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The study examines the European coverage in four leading Nordic newspapers during two periods in 1993 and in 1996. During the first period, three countries were negotiating for membership in the European Union. During the second period, work on a new European Constitution was ongoing, to be negotiated by the Intergovernmental Conference at the end of the period. Two of the applicant countries, Finland and Sweden, were then members of the union since Jan 1, 1995. Voters in the third country, Norway, opted to stay outside the union. Norway is, however closely linked to the union by the previous EEA agreement. Finally, the fourth country, Denmark, had limited its longstanding membership in four important areas. Results of the main study in 1993 indicate a great difference in the degree of Europeanness of the coverage of European affairs, as indicated by the share of European issues, sources, players, institutions etc. The Danish paper, the Politiken, was on all counts genuinely European in its coverage. This could, to begin with, be understood in terms of a relational context - Denmark was a member of the European Community, the other countries were not. In 1996, as could be expected, the Norwegian paper, the Aftenposten, reduced its coverage of European affairs to about half the previous volume, the Finnish and Swedish papers, the Hufvudstadsbladet and the Dagens Nyheter, increased their volumes to new highs. The Danish paper maintained its previously comparatively high volume of European coverage, and was still distinctly more European in its outlook on transnational politics. This could be understood in terms of a new Maturity proposition - it may take a long time for the national media to come to terms with a new political environment. The study also puts forward the proposition that Danish political culture requires a different coverage of European affairs, and also requires an opportunity to discuss and evaluate European politics. On a theoretical level, the study supports the idea that national experience, historical and relational contexts influence media content. National agendas powerfully determine the orientation of transnational political communication . Three in-depth studies by and large confirm results from the content analysis. A separate exercise inspired by Grounded Theory gives rise to three theoretical concepts that seem to be fundamental dimensions of European political communication: Legitimacy (media coverage contributes to status conferral and encourages deliberation of cooperation as an idea), Participation (media coverage as expressions of intrinsical and instrumental motives for joining and taking responsibility towards European cooperation), and Mondialization/Universalism (media coverage of Europe's efforts in the global arena) / digitalisering@umu

The Great Recession that followed the financial crisis of 2008 had a devastating impact on workers, leading to high levels of unemployment and underemployment, increased job insecurity and stagnant or declining wages. While the legitimation crisis of neoliberalism could be viewed as a turning point for labour internationally, the immediate response by political parties across the spectrum was one of austerity measures and cuts to welfare. As the largest collective representatives of workers, trade unions are at the forefront of mobilisations attempting to challenge this consensus. Simultaneously, they are engaging in new activities to enhance public awareness and understanding of the crucial role that trade unions play in the labour market. Thus, the 21st century crisis is creating both challenges and opportunities. Each trade union movement’s response depends on the different forms of power they possess and choose to deploy, their strategies and allegiances, and the specific socio-economic and political context in which they are situated. Questions concerning what constitutes union power and the ways in which it is being exercised and revitalized therefore represent fascinating lines of enquiry to explore. To do so, however, requires a new perspective on trade union power that recognises the significance of the media which has been overlooked in industrial relations theory. Drawing on insights from industrial relations, the sociology of media and social movement studies, this thesis proposes the concept of communicative power to trace how trade unions produce and circulate discourse through the media (either union-owned or corporate) to a mass audience. Methodologically, it uses the tripartite approach which focuses our attention onto three key communication processes involved in trade union attempts to exercise communicative power: the production of union discourse, the circulation of union discourse, and the reception of union discourse. This is applied to four cases involving seven union organisations in the UK and Denmark over a five-year period 2010-2015. Data was gathered using 40 semi-structured interviews with union officials and activists, content analysis of newspapers, union media outlets and social media, and secondary survey data. In sum, this thesis argues that the media is, and always has been, central to how trade unions exercise and revitalize power in society. And within the context of accelerating digital capitalism, it looks set to becoming an increasingly important determinant of their future trajectory.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Umeå : Umeå universitet, 2009. / Härtill 4 uppsatser. Även tryckt utgåva.