| 1. |
- Dahl, Viktor, 1979-
(author)
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Breaking the law : adolescents' involvement in illegal political activitiy
- 2014
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Illegal political activity has always been part of a democratic society. Despite this, not much is known about young people’s involvement in these political activities. Research portrays political influence attempts of this kind in different terms; as troublesome for the democratic political system, as expressions of conscious decisions vital for humanity’s future, and yet other times as illustrations of a coming-of-age rebellion. Overall there is a lack of collective knowledge on illegal political activity, and especially in adolescence – the age period when these political activities seem to peak.The aim of this dissertation is therefore to enhance knowledge of involvement in illegal political activity in adolescence. This dissertation addresses this task in four empirical studies. Results show that mostly boys engage politically with illegal political means. Adolescents involved are also interested in politics, believe in their own abilities to take part in political activities, have long-term political goals, and approve of violent political tactics. In addition, these activities also seem to associate with a challenge of authority. This could be seen in how political dissatisfaction was translated into illegal political activity, and in the way these activities seemed to be reactions to a non legitimized parental authority. Besides authority challenges, these activities are likely the result of important peer relations; influences from peers with experiences of illegal political activity seem to be a most probable answer to why adolescents adopt these political means. Taken together, the results of this dissertation show that adolescents involved in illegal political activity are well-equipped for political involvement, challenge authorities in most contexts of their lives, and are likely to adopt these political means from already involved peers.
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| 2. |
- Hofstetter, Emily, 1988-
(author)
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Citizens getting help: Interactions at the constituency office
- 2016
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis examines a previously unstudied site of interaction: the constituency office. At the constituency office, Members of Parliament (MPs) hold MP surgeries , during which they help constituents to solve their personal difficulties. This thesis provides the first analysis of interactions at the constituency office. It is the only place where ordinary citizens can meet their MP; as such, it also provides the first analysis of face-to-face, unmediated interactions between politicians and their constituents. For this study, 12.5 hours of interactional data were recorded at the office of an MP in the United Kingdom, comprising over 80 encounters between office staff, the MP, and their constituents. The MP was of the majority ( government ) party at the time of recording. The data were analyzed using conversation analysis (CA), in order to investigate how the social activities of the constituency office were accomplished through interaction.The first analytic chapter reveals the overall structure of constituency office encounters, as well as examining what constituents say when they call or visit the office, and how they express that they are in need of assistance. This chapter finds that constituents avoid making direct requests of their MP, and instead use narrative descriptions. These descriptions manage interactional challenges including the unknown nature of the institution (Stokoe, 2013b), contingency and entitlement (Drew & Curl, 2008), reasonableness and legitimacy (Edwards & Stokoe, 2007; Heritage & Robinson, 2006), and recruitment (Kendrick & Drew, 2016). The second analytic chapter examines the action of offering, and finds it to be the central mechanism for transacting service. The staff use different offer designs to index different nuances in the offering action, such as asking permission or confirming an activity. Both the first and second analytic chapters show that systematic deployment of offers help control the direction of the encounters and tacitly instruct constituents as to what services are available. Furthermore, both of these chapters show the flexibility participants employed in turn design and action ascription, which extends previous descriptions of how requests and offers are constructed (Couper-Kuhlen, 2014; Curl, 2006) and supports recent calls for a more nuanced approach to action description from conversation analysts (Kendrick & Drew, 2014; Sidnell & Enfield, 2014).The third analytic chapter investigates the ostensibly political context of the constituency office, and how the MP and constituents raise political topics in conversation. The chapter finds that the term political is challenging to define in live interactions, and relies on the concept of politicizing (Hay, 2007) statements that upgrade (or downgrade) a topic into greater (or lesser) public and governmental concern. Both the MP and constituents were found to initiate political topics, but in different ways. The MP initiated political topics in explicit references to government, in order to provide evidence that the government was aligned with constituents interests. The constituents initiated political topics in vague and indirect references to recent policy changes, and avoided implicating the MP in any criticisms. The findings suggest that constituents privilege interactional norms (such as not criticizing a co-present interlocutor) over any potential interest in making political critiques. The chapter also discusses what impact these findings may have on concepts such as power and evasion . The final analytic chapter assesses the concept of rapport , finding that it is difficult for both participants and analysts to determine long-term outcomes from local, interactional occurrences in interaction. Rapport is important for MPs who may be attempting to build a personal vote relationship with constituents, but this chapter also finds that constituents have a stake in building rapport in order to receive the best (or any) service. The chapter finds that while traditional practices for building rapport , such as doing small talk or finding common ground, are problematic to employ and assess from an interactional perspective, other local outcomes such as progressivity (Fogarty, Augoustinos & Kettler, 2013) and affiliation (Clark, Drew & Pinch, 2003) may be more useful indicators of positive interactions. This chapter concludes that we need a more nuanced, and interactionally-based, framework to train practitioners (and clients) in effective communication practices.This thesis challenges the conversation analytic literature by finding that the constituency office setting revolves around a more flexible ascription of requests than many studies have previously accepted, and that we can analyze actions as if on a spectrum, rather than in bounded categories. The thesis also contributes to the political discourse literature by finding that constituents activities at the constituency office are strongly influenced by interactional norms, rather than political attitudes. Finally, this thesis provides a basis from which to study the constituency office, as a site of service interaction.
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| 3. |
- Jakobsson, Peter, 1977-
(author)
-
Öppenhetsindustrin
- 2012
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Over recent decades several competing descriptions of the media and cultural industries have been put forward. The media and cultural industries have been described as creative industries, copyright industries, and as constitutive of an experience economy. One key element in these descriptions has been the importance of copyright law in a postindustrial economy.The present study is an analysis of an emerging idea of an industry that functions, in part, outside of the market created by copyright law, and by exploiting, or by building markets on top of, digital, cultural and informational commons. The study is about how this idea is expressed in various forms by business organisations, companies, consultants and policymakers. I have invented the concept of the openness industry to denote the businesses that these organisations and policy makers claim are forerunners and promoters of the idea of ‘openness’ as a business model for the media industry. The purpose of the thesis is to analyse the governmentality and ideology of the openness industry.A key element in the idea of the openness industry is that internet users can be persuaded to produce symbolic products for it by other means than the economic incentives provided by copyright. Another key element is the high value placed on single individuals in the creation of economic value; but in contrast to how the copyright industries are thought to be dependent on ‘authors’, the openness industry relies on the ‘entrepreneur’. Previous notions of the media and cultural industries have given publishers and producers of film, music and games a central role.The companies that are seminal to the idea of the openness industry are internet and technology companies.
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| 4. |
- Kaun, Anne, 1983-
(author)
-
Civic experiences and public connection : media and young people in Estonia
- 2012
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- How do young people in Estonia experience the political, politics and citizenship? How are these civic experiences connected to young peoples’ experiences with the media? Anne Kaun’s thesis Civic Experiences and Public Connection presents a theoretical and empirical investigation of how civic experiences, particularly public connection, emerge in the context of contemporary Estonia. Employing open-ended online diaries and in-depth interviews, she aims to develop an in-depth understanding of how young people experience democracy today, and how they express themselves as citizens; expression not only through the physical performance of citizenship, but also through orientation, interest in, and reflection about issues that are of common concern or should be seen as such. The empirical investigation of public connection as critical media connection, playful public connection and historical public connection, is based on narrative analysis and embedded in a theoretical exploration of key concepts in the context of civic culture studies, namely the political, politics and citizenship.Combining Chantal Mouffe’s conflict theory with Paul Ricoeur’s narrative identity, Kaun aims to shed light on contemporary democracy from the citizens’ perspective. The author proposes a holistic approach to both civic experiences and the role that media might play in relation to them. Following a non-media- centric approach, she shows that media, despite their ubiquity, are an important but not exclusive source of the civic experiences of young adults in Estonia.
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Östman, Johan, 1976-
(author)
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Journalism at the borders : the constitution of nationalist closure in news decoding
- 2009
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This dissertation is a contribution to the social analysis of nationalism. Its disciplinary context comprises the field of empirical studies that explore how forms of mediated quasi interaction can function in processes of reproduction and transformation of nationality. The study poses the question of how news journalism can establish national frames of reference within which social reality is made meaningful by citizens. The research design facilitates a novel contribution to a field of research that is largely dominated by analyses of media output. Two distinct but intertwined domains are empirically studied: news as a form of discourse and the moment of news decoding as a form of social interaction between readers and texts. The results from the empirical studies show that phenomena deemed undesirable by the prevailing moral order tend to be symbolically expelled from the national community that news audiences recognize as their own. As a conclusion, two sets of structures and mechanisms are identified as generative of this logic. Their joint articulation in news decoding can establish nationalist closure of meaning by connecting morality to nationality. First, certain established interpretive repertoires can be brought into play in the moment of decoding. These function ideationally to depict other nations and ethnic minorities pejoratively. Thus they indirectly give meaningful content to the nation and its majority population. The invocation of such frameworks of meaning tends to employ discursive resources from the news domain itself. This is a feature that ultimately reveals the subordination of news reception to elite news journalism as a knowledgeable institution. Second, as a textual system, news discourse can function interpersonally to establish a configuration of identities and relations between itself, the news consumer and other institutions and actors in society. In accordance with this configuration, the audience can incorporate the position of being citizens (in a moral sense) and national members (in a geopolitical or an ethnic sense). The character of these identities and relations is an effect of news journalism being an inherently national institution, and of the normative presuppositions built into the structure of news values itself.
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| 7. |
- Ahlberg [Alsarve], Jenny, 1980-
(author)
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Efter kärnfamiljen : familjepraktiker efter skilsmässa
- 2008
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This dissertation is about post-divorce families. The central question is how family is constructed after divorce. The aim is to study how family relationships are negotiated, transformed and reproduced after the separation. The research is based on 24 in-depth interviews with twelve young adults, between the ages of 21 and 29, with divorced parents. Their narratives about their families are analysed using a theoretical framework inspired by the individualization theories (Beck & Beck-Gernsheim 2001; Giddens 1997, 1995) and the doing family perspective (Morgan 1996; Silva & Smart 1999a), especially focusing on the concepts of negotiation and family practices. More specific questions raised in the dissertation are how are family boundaries drawn by the young adults? How do the interviewees understand the new organization of their families, which has been renegotiated after the separation? What perception of motherhood and fatherhood can be found in the narratives? And, finally, to what extent are family relationships after divorce negotiated in the way that the individualization theories claim?The results show a quite complex picture of family life after divorce. While both parents are often described as participating parents, the family practices after divorce appear clearly gendered. The mother’s involvement in taking care of the child seems not to be negotiable in the same way as the father’s. Hence, motherhood appears natural and taken for granted to a much greater extent than fatherhood. The negotiations between the parents after divorce can be of both an explicit and implicit character according to the narratives, but yet another kind of negotiation are the indirect negotiations. In these negotiations, the child is used as a go-between or carrier, a position that seems to limit their own possibility to participate in the decision making. Another aspect that seems to diminish children’s participation is the principle of loyalty to both their biological parents. The results also show that the children’s living arrangements after divorce are characterized by changes and renegotiations rather than being permanent. The parents’ new partners are described in different ways in the narratives, however, they are often seen as turning points that have a major influence on the family relationships. The nuclear family as a normative ideal is present in all the interviews but in different ways. While some express an explicit critique of it, others regard it as something that they want for themselves in the future. What constitutes a family according to the narratives? Firstly, blood ties and formal relationships are pointed out. Secondly, the feeling of solidarity and closeness is viewed perhaps as the most evident element of family life. This feeling can be created by open communication as well as by spending time together on a regular basis. Thirdly, growing up together and/or sharing everyday life practices are also considered as vital to develop and maintain close family ties. This means that the family boundaries after divorce are renegotiated over time rather than permanent. These negotiations take place in a certain context, where gender norms, earlier experiences and other social relationships play an important role.
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| 8. |
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| 9. |
- Platen, Sara von
(author)
-
Intern kommunikation och meningsskapande vid strategisk organisationsförändring : en studie av Sveriges Televison
- 2006
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Planned change and change-related communication are perceived very differently by the members of an organization. Strongly varying perceptions of new tasks, work processes and goals make joint action difficult and cause the failure of many change initiatives. The purpose of this study is to investigate how internal communication and sensemaking processes contribute to the perception of strategic change among the members of a public service organization. The following questions are answered: How does the management plan and perform internal communication during a strategic change of the Swedish public service television company Sveriges Television (SVT)? How do the members of the organization make sense of a strategic change and the internal communication related to the changes that are planned and carried out?A social constructivist perspective combined with theories of sensemaking, communication, social identities, roles, groups, power and status constitutes the analytical framework. The investigation is designed as two case studies of the SVT production facilities in Malmö and Örebro. The empirical material consists mainly of personal interviews. Written documents and observations have also been used. The case studies took place between 2002 and 2004. Some main conclusions are as follows:1) Internal communication is central for how members of an organization make sense of, and participate in, major change. Yet, not even in ideal communication situations do the employees experience that the information has been sufficient and that they have been included in the change process. There are thus reasons for more balanced expectations of what is possible to achieve with internal communication during strategic change. 2) The most influential factor determining how people make sense of change-related communication is the practical everyday reality that constitutes their frames of reference. The reluctance to consider, and act upon, how other individuals conceive of a situation leads to misdirected internal communication and gaps of understanding. 3) Organizational identities, group membership, roles and status function as frames of reference when employees make sense of changes. But irrespective of whether the changes take place on an organizational, departmental or group level, personal identities are the most influential frames of reference for interpreting organizational change. The investigation thus establishes an order of precedence for frames of reference that has important implications for internal communication during strategic change.The thesis contributes to sensemaking theories by demonstrating their extensive ability to explain mutually related phenomena, such as attention, resistance and self-fulfilling prophecies. The apparent ability to explain basically all sensemaking-related issues in organizations, and thus leading to reductionism, is also concluded to be one of the weaknesses of the theories. By connecting sensemaking theories with roles, social identities and power, the study contributes to clarifying the frame concept.
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| 10. |
- Risberg, Jonas, 1968-
(author)
-
Kunskap i interaktion på en nyhetsredaktion : Om kollegiala möten i den redaktionella vardagen
- 2014
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This study examines collaborative work between colleagues in the newsroom of local radio stations. Through the framework of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis the overall aim is to explore how backstage work in the newsroom is initiated, established, and negotiated as a collective knowledge-based practice.Based on video ethnographic fieldwork in five local radio stations, the analyses demonstrate how the newsroom is constituted as a collegial knowledge-based practice through the ways in which colleagues contribute to the accomplishment of seemingly individual tasks in the production of news, and through encounters where journalists request assistance from colleagues to carry out work assignments that are typically technical/practical in their character. The analyses highlight the participants’ epistemic orientations as an interactional engine, but emphasize how this orientation is made relevant for professional actions. Examining in detail how members orient to epistemic asymmetries when requesting assistance in individual tasks, it is shown how accounts expressed in those situations are often double barreled in that they also explicate if the current situation is to be met with instructions or a division of labour. When examining the interactional sequences that ensue in response to requests for help, it is shown how those situations can be understood as communicative pedagogical projects, how the tutor in situ must decompose the overall task into relevant steps and formulate these composite actions so they can be recognized and performed by the colleague. It is also shown how embodied action or absence of expected embodied action is treated as expressions of knowledge, that is, epistemic stance.In these everyday pedagogical practices, the participants establish a local rationality and a situation where two professional colleagues interact. The study thus demonstrates how interaction with colleagues contributes to institutional tasks as well as to the development of different professional skills. In highlighting collaborative work between colleagues in newsrooms the study contributes to the field of epistemics in social interaction, collegial work, talk in institutions, and newsroom ethnographies.
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| 11. |
- Arnshav, Mirja, 1977-
(author)
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De små båtarna och den stora flykten : Arkeologi i spåren av andra världskrigets baltiska flyktbåtar
- 2020
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, were occupied no less than three times during the Second World War. Faced with a reign of terror, the threat of deportation, and compulsory conscription, over 30,000 people fled over the Baltic Sea to Sweden. On their arrival in Sweden, most escape boats were confiscated by the authorities and in 1945 were returned to the Soviet Union.This study, which began as an attempt to find out about the Baltic escape boats that ended up in Sweden, is inspired by a foreign boat in a small fishing harbour on the island of Gotland. My curiosity was piqued when I caught sight of the boat and heard that it had probably been an escape boat.The purpose of this thesis is to establish which, if any, Baltic escape boats survive in Sweden, in which contexts they remain, and to review their state of preservation, as well as to answer the question of their significance for the memory of the escape. It is an archaeology of the escape and its aftermath, based on the surviving escape boats – what the boats say about the escape, what happened to them afterwards, and how people relate to them and their historical legacy today.The study looks at 35 boats that have been described as Baltic escape boats in various contexts. It shows that they are found in a multitude of environments and in a range of different states of preservation. The boats illustrate experiences that few other source materials can convey, in a manner pertinent to the archaeological understanding of flight. In addition, the boats are rare traces of an earlier Estonian coastal culture eradicated by the second Soviet occupation.One of the most important outcomes of the study is the documentation from the survey and examinations carried out. Few of the boats were known outside their local context. A national compilation has been lacking, which has impeded research and ultimately our understanding of the breadth and complexity of the Swedish historical landscape when it comes to ship remains.
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| 12. |
- Buskqvist, Ulf, 1975-
(author)
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Medborgarnas röster : studier av Internet som politisk offentlighet
- 2007
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The Voices of the Citizens: Studies of the Internet as Political Public Sphere. The purpose of the study is to investigate the conditions for and forms of citizen participation in the websites’ communicative practices. A mainpoint is to compare websites located within separate institutional contexts, in terms of how they are designed and how they are used. Three types of websites are studied: media corporations, political parties and social movements, in connection with the Swedish parliamentary election 2002 and the election to the European parliament 2004. The dissertation involves case studies that take into account three different links of the communicative chain: production, content and interaction. The production dimension was studied with the help of qualitative interviews and observation. The content dimension – the design of websites, discourses and communicative invitations – was studied with critical multimodal discourse analysis (see e.g. Kress & van Leeuwen 2001). Finally, the interaction dimension was studied with inspiration from the theoretical and methodological perspectives of discourse and conversation analysis (see e.g. Hutchby 2001, van Dijk 1998, and Fairclough 1995). The results of the case studies of the three categories of websites shows that it is necessary that answers to the question of the Web’s importance for the public sphere be based on concrete empirical studies and an institutional perspective. The studies have shown that websites set up within the frame of media corporations and political parties strive to spread ready-made messages, and partly or entirely avoid interaction with the websites’ visitors. It is a question of activities that display and make visible, but neither open up nor include. On the political youth associations’ and one the social movements’ websites the imagined user is also constructed as a politically interested citizen who wishes to discuss politics with other (youths) in the website’s community, but also as a potential new member of the association.The dissertation emphasis the web as an important complement to the mass-media dominated public arenas and serves the needs of citizens in areas where journalism and established politics do not suffice.
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| 13. |
- Ekström, Magnus, et al.
(author)
-
Exertional breathlessness related to medical conditions in middle-aged people: the population-based SCAPIS study of more than 25,000 men and women.
- 2024
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In: Respiratory research. - : BioMed Central (BMC). - 1465-993X .- 1465-9921. ; 25:1
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Breathlessness is common in the population and can be related to a range of medical conditions. We aimed to evaluate the burden of breathlessness related to different medical conditions in a middle-aged population.Cross-sectional analysis of the population-based Swedish CArdioPulmonary bioImage Study of adults aged 50-64years. Breathlessness (modified Medical Research Council [mMRC]≥2) was evaluated in relation to self-reported symptoms, stress, depression; physician-diagnosed conditions; measured body mass index (BMI), spirometry, venous haemoglobin concentration, coronary artery calcification and stenosis [computer tomography (CT) angiography], and pulmonary emphysema (high-resolution CT). For each condition, the prevalence and breathlessness population attributable fraction (PAF) were calculated, overall and by sex, smoking history, and presence/absence of self-reported cardiorespiratory disease.We included 25,948 people aged 57.5±[SD] 4.4; 51% women; 37% former and 12% current smokers; 43% overweight (BMI 25.0-29.9), 21% obese (BMI≥30); 25% with respiratory disease, 14% depression, 9% cardiac disease, and 3% anemia. Breathlessness was present in 3.7%. Medical conditions most strongly related to the breathlessness prevalence were (PAF 95%CI): overweight and obesity (59.6-66.0%), stress (31.6-76.8%), respiratory disease (20.1-37.1%), depression (17.1-26.6%), cardiac disease (6.3-12.7%), anemia (0.8-3.3%), and peripheral arterial disease (0.3-0.8%). Stress was the main factor in women and current smokers.Breathlessness mainly relates to overweight/obesity and stress and to a lesser extent to comorbidities like respiratory, depressive, and cardiac disorders among middle-aged people in a high-income setting-supporting the importance of lifestyle interventions to reduce the burden of breathlessness in the population.
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| 14. |
- Fogde, Marinette, 1977-
(author)
-
The work of job seeking : studies on career advice for white-collar workers
- 2009
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In contemporary working life, training and guidance on how to write a curriculum vitae (CV) or succeed at an interview are fundamental features of job seeking. This kind of training and guidance, which emphasizes communicative skills and performance, entails ideals and norms in the process of becoming employed. This study focuses in particular on guidance by a Swedish white-collar union and how students at universities negotiate career advice. Central questions are: What kind of characteristics, values and moral obligations are constructed as ideals for job seekers? How is the governing of job seekers linked to the social and political context? How is governing and self-governing constructed in the interaction between career coaches and students? How is the subject position as a job seeker negotiated? These questions are explored in four separate but interrelated articles. The empirical material includes analyses of texts, fieldwork data and interviews. The theoretical framework is inspired by the Foucauldian concept of governmentality and the concept of discursive positioning.Findings indicate that job seeking is constructed in terms of self-marketing of individuals and the moral qualities are being active and ambitious in terms of job searching as well as taking responsibility in working on and displaying one’s personality. The study also points to ambiguities in career advice and obstacles to working on the self to become “sellable”. The career discourse is interspersed with other discourses (as national identity and gender) and other subject positions in these discourses. The technology of self-esteem is a technology for mobilizing the students in this context. In terms of “self-work”, this study shows how the students and future white-collar workers negotiate and work on their self to become employable. In addition, it is argued that career advice must be understood in relation to ideals of employability, flexibility and self-help discourses.
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| 15. |
- Landälv, Ludvig, 1982-, et al.
(author)
-
Phase evolution of radio frequency magnetron sputtered Cr-rich (Cr,Zr)(2)O-3 coatings studied by in situ synchrotron X-ray diffraction during annealing in air or vacuum
- 2019
-
In: Journal of Materials Research. - : CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS. - 0884-2914 .- 2044-5326. ; 34:22, s. 3735-3746
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The phase evolution of reactive radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtered Cr0.28Zr0.10O0.61 coatings has been studied by in situ synchrotron X-ray diffraction during annealing under air atmosphere and vacuum. The annealing in vacuum shows t-ZrO2 formation starting at similar to 750-800 degrees C, followed by decomposition of the alpha-Cr2O3 structure in conjunction with bcc-Cr formation, starting at similar to 950 degrees C. The resulting coating after annealing to 1140 degrees C is a mixture of t-ZrO2, m-ZrO2, and bcc-Cr. The air-annealed sample shows t-ZrO2 formation starting at similar to 750 degrees C. The resulting coating after annealing to 975 degrees C is a mixture of t-ZrO2 and alpha-Cr2O3 (with dissolved Zr). The microstructure coarsened slightly during annealing, but the mechanical properties are maintained, with no detectable bcc-Cr formation. A larger t-ZrO2 fraction compared with alpha-Cr2O3 is observed in the vacuum-annealed coating compared with the air-annealed coating at 975 degrees C. The results indicate that the studied pseudo-binary oxide is more stable in air atmosphere than in vacuum.
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| 16. |
- Lind, Martin
(author)
-
Det svårgripbara nätverket : en sociologisk studie av företagare i nätverk
- 2002
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The questions for this study are: 1. What are networks? 2. How do networks work? These questions are answered by means of two different investigations. The first is chiefly theoretical and the second is primarily empirical. The theoretical investigation begins with an examination of four different concepts of networks used in social research: network as a perspective, network as a phenomenon, network as a research method and network as a method for development. The concept is then further investigated on three levels. On the first level, the parts of a network and the relationships between these parts are analysed. The second level focuses on the emergent properties of a network. The emergent properties refer to those irreducible features that make it a network, and that at the same time mark the difference between networks and other types of social entities (organizations, rituals etc.). Two such properties form the starting point for the examination, namely value-adding and diffusion. The third level of analysis places the network in relation to space and organization. This three level analysis is used throughout the thesis. In the empirical section, four cases of entrepreneurial networks are examined. The aim of the case studies is to identify the network and to study how the network works. What in the example is the network? How does the network work in the actual case? What does the network do? What properties can be assigned to the network and the way it works? Or, more comprehensively, from the examination of four cases of networks, what conclusions can be drawn about what networks are and how they function? From the case studies I have concluded that personal ties are fundamental to a network, and that the chains of production are a type of tie that may, but does not have to, occur when the network is activated in an entrepreneurial context. For the entrepreneurs and their enterprises, the social exchange has no value in itself, but if it can add value, for example as a lubricant in coordinating production chains, it fulfils an important purpose. I have also concluded that what makes an entrepreneurial network a network is not the coordination of production chains, but the personal relationships that manage these chains. Thus it is not the coordination itself, but the way of coordinating that is of importance. Networks can be found in structures of many different types of ties, but for the emergent properties to emerge there has to be a structure of personal ties at the core. I have assumed that a network is not a method or a perspective, but a social entity with certain properties. The investigation has provided support for this assumption. There is extensive research on SME networks, industrial districts and value-adding chains that shows that networks in production contexts form social constellations with their own distinctive features and ways of working. The relationship between networks and space is temporary, but not essential. Networks can be bound to places, but they do not have to be. An important structural difference between organizations and networks is that networks are formed of separate units that cooperate, while organizations form a single unit that may, but does not have to be characterized by cooperation. The most important conclusion from the comparison of organizations and networks is that these concepts together provide a better explanation of the case studies than either of the concepts alone. To understand and explain the complex social interplay that occurs in the case studies, it is a great advantage to use networks and organizations as concepts for different social entities with different properties and different ways of working.
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| 17. |
- Mattus, Maria, 1959-
(author)
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De länkade orden : Den digitala arenans dynamik
- 2008
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The overall aim of this thesis is to explore freedom of speech and aspects of credibility related to the Internet. The phenomenon freedom of speech is seen and examined principally from a communicative perspective. Theoretically the thesis is based on three key concepts: Internet, freedom of speech, and credibility. Four studies are included; each of them focuses on the main problem from different angles using different methods.In the first study, two websites on the Internet, both having reference to the Holocaust, are examined. The aim is to identify some kind of hypertextual dialogue between Living history [Levande historia], representing a serious project about human respect and democracy, and True history [Sann historia], a plagiator expressing a revisionist opinion. The second study examines a media debate about freedom of speech and censorship related to the Internet found in newspaper articles published during 1997-1999, to see which issues these newspapers emphasise, and how the role of the Internet is described. The third study focuses on how university students writing essays assess the credibility of scientific information in web-based environments. In a questionnaire, the students estimate the importance they attach to 24 different elements. The fourth study seeks to increase the understanding of the function and dynamics of Wikipedia as a collaboratively shaped wiki-encyclopaedia. In e-mail interviews, active users are asked about their impressions and experiences.Based on the studies, some reflections on what could be considered as special with the freedom of speech on the Internet are presented. These reflections, in terms of seven aspects, are referred to as the hypertext structure, the collage effect, boundless identities, shift in responsibility, parallel worlds and hyper reality, the compensating effect, and the leaching effect. A concept, denominated the hypertextual dialogue, has emerged during the work on this thesis. This concept has a technical, an intertextual and a discursive level.The discussion deals with the news media’s approach towards the Internet, what their possible agenda could be, and the impact they have on people. Internet’s pluralism and its consequences are discussed. Wikipedia could serve as a model by showing how committed individuals interact to create a competitive product. When users interact with and within the hypertextual structure, the construction of meaning, as well as the responsibility for the consequences, would move from the texts’ original authors to the users. Perhaps the Internet requires the involvement of some kind of homo navigare who is able to function within, outside and between digital arenas.
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| 18. |
- Nordvall, Henrik, 1977-
(author)
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I skärningspunkten mellan det globala och det lokala : Tolkningsprocesser och koalitionsbyggande i organiseringen av lokala sociala forum
- 2008
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- World Social Forum, and the worldwide appearance of regional, national and local Social Forums (SF), is an important part of the movement for global justice. The aim of this thesis is to explore how the SF as a global phenomenon is interpreted and staged locally in Sweden. Central questions are: What local meanings are given to the SF phenomenon when it is introduced and organized in a local context? What relations are created between the various actors in this organizational process in terms of coalitions and power relations? How do the SFs relate to the Swedish institutionalized popular adult education? These questions are explored in the four articles on which this thesis rests. Ethnographic field studies of local organizational processes constitute the empirical basis of theoretically informed hermeneutic interpretations. A neo-gramscian perspective is used to analyze the SF as a potentially counter-hegemonic popular education phenomenon. This perspective has been complemented by mainly two theoretical concepts, that is, framing and symbolic capital. Results demonstrate how the emergence of SFs in Sweden is characterized by a widespread desire among various activists and organizations to build coalitions. In the establishment of SFs the institutionalized popular adult education play both the role of a source of economic and material resources and of being a link between various organizations. However, in the wide and formally open organizational process, specific distinctions and hierarchies arise that might neutralize the SF’s ideological impact and its potential for counter-hegemonic coalition construction. Finally, a Swedish academic debate on the concept of “folkbildning” (popular adult education) is addressed. It is argued that there is a need to widen the scope of this debate to more frequently focus on global (popular) educational phenomena (such as the social forums) in research on “folkbildning”, and not only pay attention to “typical” national or Nordic institutions and traditions.
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