Executive summary
Different media outlets have a big role in shaping our perception of reality, perhaps even more so for children. They have fewer reference points with real life than us adult, what they see in various channels is more or less all they know of the outside world. Therefore, when it
comes to equality between the sexes and other differences – such as class, sexuality, and ethnicity – media can be considered to play an important part in driving equality forward, but also potentially slowing it down.

The purpose of this study is to examine representation in the content on the digital platform Youtube consumed by children aged 9 to 12 in Sweden. Three popular Swedish Youtube channels in the age group have been selected, and one video from each channel have been
analysed using the ethnographic content analysis (ECA) according to Altheide and Schneider (2013). The study includes theories of representation, gender, and intersectionality, and is focused on different visible norms and stereotypes in the content, both reinforced and opposed. The study ends with a discussion of what meaning making processes that possibly could occur for children consuming these particular Youtube channels.

The questions that this study set out to answer are who is portrayed in the videos, how much space are they allowed, how are they portrayed in regard to different norms and stereotypes correlated to gender and ethnicity, and lastly what relationships are observed between the
individuals in the videos and what sort of power dynamics exist within these relations?

The results show that the content consist mainly of white people and that the majority of all portrayed individuals are men. This goes in line with the current statistical representation in
traditional media as well. It is also more common with upholding of various norms than opposing them, and some stereotypes can be seen as prominent. The hierarchy which places the man before the woman can also be considered salient, this being visible in discourse and
areas of responsibility. Overall, the content can be seen as reproducing a certain way of being and living, and therefor create a perception of right and wrong, for both women and men.

Executive summary
We are constantly online in this new digital world, always reachable through numeral devises and plattforms. For older generations there has taken some time to adjust, but for one generation this constant connectivity is as normal as breathing. Generation Z – or Gen Z as they are also called – are the ones born between 1997 to 2012, which means they have grown up after the birth of internet not knowing life without it. Studies show that Swedish Gen Z uses social mediaplattforms everyday, and the new audiovisual plattform Tiktok are to prefer. Though research on Tiktok has been done for the last two years – especially uses and gratifications of Tiktok – none has been made with the Swedish perspective.

The purpose of this study is to get a better understanding of how and why generation Z in Sweden uses Tiktok. To fulfill the purpose the study will answer the two following research questions; how do generation Z in Sweden motivate their uses of Tiktok and why do Generation Z
in Sweden use Tiktok. The chosen method was a qualitative interview study, both a group interview and seven individual interviews were conducted on youths between the ages 15 to 19 years old in Stockholm and Gothenburg, Sweden. The result was then analyzed through the lens of uses and gratifications theory and the MAIN-model for newer media.

The result showed that a total of 18 gratification were identified to how and why generation Z in Sweden uses Tiktok. Uses and gratifications theory identified 8 of the gratifications on how generation Z in Sweden motivates their uses of Tiktok; entertainment, boredom, pass time,
information-seeking, being updated, belonging, social interaktion and archiving. All are in line with what previous uses and gratifications studies have found. To answer the second question – why do Generation Z in Sweden use Tiktok – the MAIN-model for new media were used. To see what technological affordances motivates the users to choose Tiktok out of all the existing social media platforms. MAIN identified 10 motivations connected to Tiktoks technological
affordances; realism, coolness, agency enhancement, community-building, bandwagon, filtering/ tailoring, activity dynamic control, variety-seeking and play/fun.  Out of all the gratifications six were more prominent and distinguished Tiktok from other social media-plattforms, according to the respondents; entertainment, boredom, pass time, realism, filtering/tailoring and play/fun.

The aim of the study was to identify generation Z gratifications for using Tiktok, by doing that we get a better understanding of the plattform and the generation who is the main target group for it and thereby fulfill the purpose of the study. Through the empirical data further questions
were raised concerning different cultures influence on uses of media and also cyberbullying, which seems to be a product of generation Z online world. Both themes were discussed and examples for further studies concerning Tiktoks affordances and content were lifted.

Executive summary
The advertising industry is growing more than ever and is thought to be one of the most influential institutions in society by some researchers. What’s even more interesting is the connection between advertising and its tremendous effects on individuals as well as society at whole. Among these effects there has been a liaison between media portraits and mostly young women’s well-being. Some suppose that the increasing level of eating disorders and inferior self-esteem is a result of a lacking width of representation, especially in advertising. One of the
things advertising practitioners have been most criticized for is reinforcing and maintaining impossible beauty standards, that is putting a lot of pressure on particularly women. Due to the increasing level of attention facing the advertising industry there has been a large body of
research facing the topic. What’s been frequently highlighted is the way societal norms take expression in advertising where advertising stereotypes have been examined. There’s a wide span of stereotypical descriptions in advertising where gender roles, body image and
occupational roles are salient for women. Research shows that women particularly are more negative to stereotypical portrayals in advertising and therefore are more prone to develop a negative attitude towards it.

As a result of the critique, the growing industry or the third wave of feminism, a new type of advertising is emerging in our society. Among the depictions there’s a new range of representation with the purpose to break free from obsolete presentations where femvertising is
a mentioned phenomenon. The new type of advertising is going under a norm critical concept that this study will refer to as femvertising. Femvertising is embossed with messages aiming to empower women and seeks to represent a greater width of womens body, while including
different ages and ethnicity. Due to the ongoing change in media and brand related messages the research field has started to investigate the effects of femvertising. Research shows that women who are exposed to norm-breaking portrayals are more positive to the advertisement
which also influences their attitudes. The area of research about advertising and its effects are focusing on younger women, this study will therefore aim to explore an identified gap in the field concerning middle aged women. Earlier research states that middle aged women don’t experience the same negative effects of stereotypical advertisement.

Executive summary
As interactive media have grown, citizen journalism has gained greater importance. Almost half of Sweden’s population takes part in news delivery on social media, where the discussion forum Flashback is one of the platforms. This opens up for greater dissemination and
discussion of news between non-professionals which is classified as citizen journalism. With the importance of free speech and being exposed to unbiased and diverse news coverage to be an informed citizen, it is important to understand what one is consuming while taking part of news online that is not always provided by professional journalists.

User-generated content has been researched since web 2.0 technology emerged. A large part of the research focuses on social media, while citizen journalism on Swedish discussion forums is not as common.

This study aims to examine the quality of citizen journalism and its news reporting on Flashback through Urban and Schweiger’s (2014) quality dimensions of professional journalism. These quality criteria include, among others, the presence of rumors, speculation, and diversity of viewpoints. With a quantitative content analysis, we map the frequency of these criteria in three Flashback threads (n = 542 posts) with different topics, where they all start from a news story. The essay is based on two questions; What is the quality of flashback threads based on the approach to news quality? Does the quality differ depending on the
subject? To succeed in answering these questions, we carry out a frequency analyses and a Chi-square tests.

Furthermore, the selection of the threads has been done strategically to meet the demands of citizen journalism as well as the scope of posts that need to be adapted to the time frame we have. Following this, we used a codebook that was tested with K-alpha to determine as safely
as possible that the result would have been the same regardless of who carried out the analysis.

In conclusion, the result shows that the quality of Flashback is poor in terms of criteria used to measure professional journalism. We also see that the quality differs between the threads where some threads are good in one dimension while another is problematic and vice versa.
The thread about politics turns out to be of the best quality by a small margin.

Executive summary
It was in the fall of 2017 in October that the #metoo storm began to spread around the world.It only took a few days before the two words “Me too” had become both global and viral as women, non-binaries and transgender people came together around the world to share their
experiences of sexual harassment and sexual violence by men. Since then, researchers have begun to ask themselves the question of whether and how masculinity is constructed both socially and culturally. This study aims to examine how Swedish news media reflect over
how men and masculinities are constructed and represented along with the #metoo movement. The study is furthermore going to critically examine how the male role, men and masculinity are described in ten selected Swedish articles published between October 17, 2017 and
December 31, 2017. The articles are written by both men and women. Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis was chosen as the method and theoretical framework for this study. The purpose of this study is to evaluate if the articles articulate multiple masculinities and if
they challenge the current social practice in relation to gendered structure of power. The critical discourse analysis had in view to illustrate if the discourses in the text either reproduce
or restructure the current discourse order. The current social practice is explained in this study based on gender theory and masculinity theory. The results identified three different kinds of masculinities. The reproduced masculinity was associated with stereotypical behavior, for
instance violence, aggression, and sexuality. The reduced masculinity portrayed a hushed down man who got reduced by women in both the articles and the movement itself. The reformed masculinity described a new and improved kind of man who takes responsibility for his and other men’s actions. The results also discussed the three represented masculinities in relation to the #metoo movement’s ambition to reconstruct the current power structure between men and women.

Executive summary
Normative bodies in the last century have been characterized by a very slim ideal. Lately women, especially on social media, have started to question what is considered beautiful and healthy and fat bodies do not seem to fit those categories. This was the starting point for this paper where we wanted to examine if this change of mindset is measurable in today’s fashion magazines.

ELLE Sweden is a magazine focused on fashion and beauty with women as their main target group. It’s also the fashion magazine with the greatest reach in Sweden. The editorial staff describes ELLE as a magazine that inspires and encourages women to stand out and find new ways to express themselves. But is that really the case for all women?

The purpose of this paper was to examine the representation of overweight and obese bodies in the Swedish fashion magazine ELLE. We wanted to have a closer look at how common it is for fat bodies to appear in the magazine today and in what context they appear. We also
wanted to examine if and to what extent there has been any change over time.

Through a combination of content analysis and thematic analysis the following questions have been answered; (1) How often do fat bodies appear in the fashion magazine Elle today and has the representation changed over time? and (2) In what contexts do fat bodies appear and has that changed over time?

The results show that between the years 2001 and 2011 there hasn’t been any changes in how often fat bodies are represented in ELLE. Fat bodies do not exceed two percent of the content. In 2021 there’s a small change – seven percent of the visual content consists of fat bodies. The
results are still far from representative in proportion to the Swedish population where 45 percent of women are considered overweight or obese.

The results of the study show that fat bodies have historically been greatly underrepresented in ELLE, which they still are today. However, a small change has taken place as fat bodies are more common today than before, albeit still in an obvious minority. Three themes were
identified for the contexts in which fat bodies often appear when they are portrayed: the personal portrait, the fashion portrait and advertisement. Through these we see that the representation of the fat body is in some ways inclusive and progressive, and in other ways
not.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Succeeding former prime minister Stefan Löfven, Magdalena Andersson became the first female to take on office by the end of 2021. The former and current prime minister both had widespread media coverage when assuming the position. The general understanding and views of politicians is formed by the picture painted by the media and its reporting. Traditional gender stereotypes have, through research, been shown to be present in media coverage. Men are associated with
concepts of power and leadership, women, to fondness and family. This leads to an outcome of male politicians more commonly being associated with political leadership than their female counterparts. Current studies show a shift to a more equal portrayal of female and male politicians, with gender stereotypical portrayal only accounting for a marginal part of the reporting. This could indicate Swedish news-reporting becoming more gender-neutral.

The purpose of this study is to compare the portrayal, within Swedish media, of a female versus male prime minister, from a perspective of gender. To succeed with this, the essay is based on three questions: To what extent, if any, does the visibility of Stefan Löfven and Magdalena
Andersson differ?; To what extent, if any, does the portrayal of Stefan Löfven and Magdalena Andersson differ in text?; and, To what extent, if any, does the portrayal of Stefan Löfven and Magdalena Andersson differ in pictures? A quantitative study of 412 published articles has been performed to answer these three questions. The articles have been gathered from leading Swedish newspapers; Aftonbladet, Expressen, Dagens Nyheter, and, Svenska Dagbladet.

This study will be applying theories from Gender science such as theories of gender, gender stereotypes, and role congruity.

In conclusion, the results indicate an occurrence of similarities and differences alike in the reporting of Löfven and Andersson. Löfven has generally received a larger coverage within news reporting and therefore increased visibility compared to Andersson, this is in line with
stereotypical portrayal of men and women. Portrayal within text shows tendencies of both confirming and opposing stereotypical portrayal. Andersson’s gender pronoun is mentioned more often than Löfven’s, whilst Löfven’s character is more widely critiqued than Andersson.
The portrayal within pictures shows a majority of portrayals opposing traditional genderstereotypical reporting, with Löfven more commonly having inactive photographs and was photographed within the private sphere more than Andersson. It is important to point out, however, that most of the news reporting is neutral and that gender-stereotypical reporting occurs in only a marginalized part of the articles

Executive Summary

Unlike the business industries, which thrive upon economic purposes, cultural arts industries are often described being artistic and complex. In Sweden, good communication between business and cultural arts has been recognized as necessary for both parties to succeed in society. However, the
relationship is often associated with conflicting interests, lack of knowledge, and difficulties linked to communication and language.

The aim of this thesis was twofold. First, the purpose was to investigate how the cultural- and business industries understand communication. Second, the objective was to analyze the possible consequences of this understanding. The main research question was: How do representatives from the cultural and business industries describe the concept of communication? Furthermore, how can the communicative difficulties between them be understood?

This thesis collaborates with the organization Kulturakademin, a regional resource for competence development in arts, crafts, performing arts, music, and audiovisual media in Västra Götaland, Sweden. The method used was qualitative interviews. Four actors represent the business area, and
five represent the cultural and creative area. Furthermore, the implementation of Pierre Bourdieu’s Social Fields Theory and a Scandinavian Neoinstitutional perspective has served as a framework applied to the empirical analysis.

Through analysis of literature, application of theories, dialogue with the organization Kulturakademin and interviews with actors in large to medium-sized companies in business and cultural arts industries, the findings imply that both business and cultural arts understand communication in a relatively similar way. However, some aspects significantly distinguish them.
The business industry sees communication as transmission, while the cultural arts industry sees communication as a conversation. Communication seems to be an unreflected activity, influenced by organizational norms and perceptions. In addition, the results from both business and the cultural industry show that communication is inconstant and adaptable, which can be explained by both dependence on norms and perceptions and a kind of imbalance of power and dependency between them. The results also show that their respective social fields limit the business and cultural industries and that they have different views on how one should relate to the outside world.

This study also examined possibilities for mutual understanding and proposes actions for Kulturakademin in the future. The challenges lie in mutual understanding beyond values, cognitive perceptions, and prejudice. To overcome difficulties linked to communication, the two parties must
reach a shared understanding and respect for each other.

Executive summary
During the covid-19 pandemic, citizens faced many changes in their everyday lives and it was up to the authorities to communicate to the population how that adaptation would work and look like. This essay will examine Sweden and Denmark’s crisis communication strategies based on campaign films from each country’s responsible authorities. In the study, we will delve into the content of eight campaign films, four from each country and examine how narrative and rhetoric have been used.

The purpose of this thesis is to study how narrative and rhetoric are used in Danish and Swedish authorities’ campaign films during the covid-19 pandemic. The use of narrative and rhetoric will also be discussed based on the epidemiological and operational status during the pandemic. The status is defined by the basis of high or low spread of infection as well as stringent or eased restrictions. To achieve the purpose, we will study the use of ethos, pathos and logos, as well as the narrative structure of the campaign films based on a rhetorical and narrative analysis. The narrative structure will be studied according to theories of narrative, more specifically Robertson’s narrative model, which describes the anatomy of a story.

To achieve the purpose of this thesis, the following research questions form the basis and will guide us through our study.
• How did Denmark and Sweden’s authorities use narratives in their          campaign films during the covid-19 pandemic?
• How did Denmark and Sweden’s authorities use rhetoric in their campaign   films during the covid-19 pandemic?
• How did Denmark and Sweden’s authorities use rhetoric and narrative in different epidemiological and operational status during the covid-19 pandemic?

The main results of the study showed that the campaign films in both Sweden and Denmark are similar in terms of their use of narrative and rhetoric. All campaign films contained almost all of the narrative elements presented in Robertson’s model. As regards the rhetorical analysis, we can distinguish an imbalance between the three forms of appeal, ethos, pathos
and logos where pathos was the most common form of appeal. From the rhetorical analysis, the main result showed that positive emotions and eunoia could be found in all campaign films, regardless of the epidemiological and operational status during covid-19 in both Sweden and Denmark. When the countries had stringent restrictions we found that the feeling of hope, direct logos argument and depiction of private locations were used in the campaign films. Furthermore, the results showed that rhetoric was used in a humorous way in calmer periods during the pandemic.