This thesis explores how visions of the good life, as understood by Lauren Berlant, communicate through advertising for home cleaning services in a Swedish context. With an ambition to map out how life is portrayed in these commercials this thesis wants to shed light on how these portrayals of life can be understood as the good life and in turn, how they reproduce structures of power. In relation to research on the debate of the Swedish Rutavdrag, work/life balance and the perception of cleaning in Sweden the thesis continues to look into how paid cleaning service is constructed and understood. It draws on theories about work, emotion/affect and temporality that is tied together in an understanding of the good life as dependent of all of these to become possible. A promotion of happiness and feelings of intimacy, work induced with emotional value and a productivist temporality are all parts of what makes up the good life, that is what I pay attention to in my analysis. Through a multimodal critical discourse analysis, the material is analyzed in three steps where the first two steps is focused on one individual commercial/ad and the third connects several of them to analyze how the good life is depicted. The analysis is divided into two main themes: time for relationships and Win win. The first theme shows an emphasis on close family relationships that appears to be threatened by cleaning or mainly conflicts about cleaning, the service smooth over the frictions and makes an intimate life enjoyable and improved. The good life here is closely linked to good relationships and busy schedules. The second theme Win win analyses material that focuses on how the work and the workers situation. In this theme a picture emerges of the employer as someone who does a good deed by employing someone through a good company that has good conditions. This theme implicitly addresses the tension that surrounds cleaning services in Sweden and dissolves it with smiles. While wrapping the service good feelings and the promise of good deeds the unequal exchange changes into something natural and good. The good life is not as obvious in this theme, the focus on the good conditions rather promotes home cleaning as a possible part of the good life since it does not disturb the narrative of the good life as a moral good. In order to have an opportunity to move towards the good life, time is needed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:sh-46303 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Creators | Löfholm, Nora |
| Publisher | Södertörns högskola, Genusvetenskap |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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