Kuluttajamuotti : Kuluttajuuden tuottamisesta mainonnan instituutioissa

Advertising and marketing institutions produce categorisations of different groups of population. These categorisations serve as tools for addressing the potential consumers. This research is about how and what kind of categorisations of consumerhood are produced and how they are used as governing patterns within the institutions of advertising. My goal is to shed light on methods, cultural patterns and discourses for making people become consumers, objects for marketing measures. The data consists of 23 qualitative thematic interviews with Finnish advertising professionals. Moreover, examples are drawn from professional magazines and brochures of media agencies and marketing research organisations. First, I present some of the the official consumer categories in the consumer monitors produced by research organisations. Then, I analyse the unofficial consumer categories which are produced by advertising professionals in the interviews. The methodological framework is based on discourse theory and especially on Michel Foucault s ideas on power, governmentality, and discourses. Discursive categorisation of the population is one of the means of governmentality used in marketing and advertising. Knowledge of the consumer research is used as a tool for governing the potential consumers. Even though the real consumers always have a possibility to behave against the marketer s wishes. The marketers can not make people buy certain products or services, but they aim at influencing people in a way that they want to buy the products and start to govern themselves. As result, I present six unofficial discursive consumer categories, which are used by the advertising professionals. The consumerhood may be represented as rational, self-fulfilling, indifferent, whimsical, manipulated or sovereign. However, The discursive consumer categorisations are overlapping and controversial. The interviewed advertising professionals construct their own particular position in relation to the consumers which are viewed as others . On the other, the interviewees may talk about themselves as consumers. Finally, I maintain that the consumers and target groups of advertising are viewed as commodities in advertising institutions. The end product of the product development is not only the product but the aim is to produce the consumer of the product. The research of the ways advertising professionals aim to govern the consumers gives knowledge on the networks of power in which people act within consumer culture.

Toiminta, valta ja kokemus organisaation muutoksessa : Tutkimus kolmesta suuryrityksestä

Action, Power and Experience in Organizational Change - A Study of Three Major Corporations This study explores change management and resistance to change as social activities and power displays through worker experiences in three major Finnish corporations. Two important sensitizing concepts were applied. Firstly, Richard Sennett's perspective on work in the new form of capitalism, and its shortcomings - the lack of commitment and freedom accompanied by the disruption to lifelong career planning and the feeling of job insecurity - offered a fruitful starting point for a critical study. Secondly, Michel Foucault's classical concept of power, treated as anecdotal, interactive and nonmeasurable, provided tools for analyzing change-enabling and resisting acts. The study bridges the gap between management and social sciences. The former have usually concentrated on leadership issues, best practices and goal attainment, while the latter have covered worker experiences, power relations and political conflicts. The study was motivated by three research questions. Firstly, why people resist or support changes in their work, work environment or organization, and the kind of analyses these behavioural choices are based on. Secondly, the kind of practical forms which support for, and resistance to change take, and how people choose the different ways of acting. Thirdly, how the people involved experience and describe their own subject position and actions in changing environments. The examination focuses on practical interpretations and action descriptions given by the members of three major Finnish business organizations. The empirical data was collected during a two-year period in the Finnish Post Corporation, the Finnish branch of Vattenfal Group, one of the leading European energy companies, and the Mehiläinen Group, the leading private medical service provider in Finland. It includes 154 non-structured thematic interviews and 309 biographies concentrating on personal experiences of change. All positions and organizational levels were represented. The analysis was conducted using the grounded theory method introduced by Straus and Corbin in three sequential phases, including open, axial and selective coding processes. As a result, there is a hierarchical structure of categories, which is summarized in the process model of change behaviour patterns. Key ingredients are past experiences and future expectations which lead to different change relations and behavioural roles. Ultimately, they contribute to strategic and tactical choices realized as both public and hidden forms of action. The same forms of action can be used in both supporting and resisting change, and there are no specific dividing lines either between employer and employee roles or between different hierarchical positions. In general, however, it is possible to conclude that strategic choices lead more often to public forms of action, whereas tactical choices result in hidden forms. The primary goal of the study was to provide knowledge which has practical applications in everyday business life, HR and change management. The results, therefore, are highly applicable to other organizations as well as to less change-dominated situations, whenever power relations and conflicting interests are present. A sociological thesis on classical business management issues can be of considerable value in revealing the crucial social processes behind behavioural patterns. Keywords: change management, organizational development, organizational resistance, resistance to change, change management, labor relations, organization, leadership

Viestintää valtuustossa : Valtuutettujen viestintätyyli ja käsitys Helsingin kaupunginvaltuuston kokouksien viestinnästä

The goal of the study was to determine the kind of communication used in the meetings of the City Council. Councillors' addresses were studied by observing their communication styles. A questionnaire was used to study councillors' perception of communication in council meetings as perceived communication climate. A second goal of the study was to develop a method for analysing communication style. The nature of the study was a longitudinal case study. Studies of speech communication at the individual level and those of organisational communication at the community level served as the theoretical frame of reference. Due to the chosen object of study, political research and communication context shaped the frame of reference for the study. Verbal, nonverbal and paraverbal characteristics form the communication style. The perceived communication climate is dynamic in nature and consists of characteristics. The research material was gathered from the meetings of the Helsinki City Council held from 1993 to 1996. The communication style was analysed from meeting addresses (N=1271) given by the permanent members (N=95) of the council. The perceived communication climate was studied using a questionnaire modified from Wiio's OCD2 questionnaire. The questionnaire survey was carried out twice. The first time, 58 questionnaires (68%) were returned and, the second time, 49 questionnaires (58%) were returned. The method of analysis used for communication style was classification and cross tabulation. Based on the subset of material for the first year, five communication style categories were defined Communication style was examined using gender, length of council membership, and political party as subgroups. The results related to the perceived communication climate were analysed as averages and percentages. A comparison of the results from two different measuring times revealed how the perceived communication climate changed during a council term. The finding of the study was that the municipal politicians could be placed in all five communication style categories in each year of their four-year council term. The sizes of the style categories varied only little in the different years. A relatively stable - rather than changing - communication style was more characteristic of individuals during a council term. Gender did not explain an individual's communication style. On the other hand, the length of service in the council and, to some extent, the political party were connected with a certain communication style. Changes in style mainly manifested themselves as variation in communication activity so that activity was highest at the beginning and at the end of the council term. The method of researching communication style developed for this study proved to be functional, though labour-consuming. The perceived communication climate in the Helsinki City Council was good. Women's and men's satisfaction with the communication in the council differed; women's perception became considerably more positive at the end of the council term. Satisfaction with the communication in the council was characteristic of the Coalition Party and the Social Democrat councillors and dissatisfaction was characteristics of the Green councillors. Long council experience increased satisfaction with communication in the council. Only in the case of a few style categories was it possible to show any connection between the communication style and the perceived communication climate. The study confirmed the perception that an individual's communication style in the same communication context was relatively stable in the long term as well.

Uuden median murros Alma Mediassa, Sanoma Oy:ssä ja Yleisradiossa 1994-2004

This is a qualitative and multimethodological comparative study, which consists of two main parts: examining the development of new media and analysing and comparing the new media strategies of the three companies studied (Alma Media, Sanoma and the Finnish Broadcasting Company Yleisradio). The study includes the first large-scale review in Finnish of the development of new media, paying attention to the birth of the Internet as well as to mobile media, web TV and any other element of new media. It also concentrates on the function of electronic distribution channels before the age of the Internet, e.g. cable text and videotext. Answers about how the three traditional Finnish media houses began spreading their content to the Internet and wireless applications in 1994–2004 are also given. In researching the new media strategies the study pays special attention to the attitudes that the three media companies adopted towards the Internet and other forms of new media in their strategies during the years in question. By analysing and comparing, e.g., the companies’ strategies and their investments, the study ascertains whether the companies had a joint functional model in adopting new media or acted totally on their own without taking too much notice of the media field overall. The study makes extensive use of previously published material. The researcher has also interviewed almost twenty people who were involved in getting the companies’ new media functions under way. The methods for the interviews were dialogue and snowball sampling. The researcher has created a classification in which he divides the business strategies into four different categories: active strategy, careful strategy, permissive strategy, and passive strategy. In comparing and analysing the companies the researcher has used the classification devised by Allan Afuah & Christopher L. Tucci. The seven element classification consists of dominant managerial logic, competency trap, fear of cannibalisation and loss of revenue, channel conflict, political power, co-opetitor power and emotional attachment. In analysing the company strategies the researcher has also noted the classifications of convergence made by Everette E. Dennis and Graham Murdock as well as the aspects formulated by Sylvia Chan-Olmsted and Louisa Ha concerning the success of the companies in adopting the Internet into their functions. Based on all these classifications and by further developing them the researcher analyses and compares the success of the new media strategies of the three Finnish companies. The outcome of the study is a conclusion as to what kind of strategies the companies have carried out their new media functions and how they have succeeded in it.

Sinusta kiinni : Tutkimus puolisohoivan arjen toimijuuksista

Depending on you – A study of spousal care, everyday life and agency The present aim of the aging policy is to promote old peoples´ possibilities to live at their own home. It is also many elderly couples´ own wish. At home a persons spouse is the most natural care giver, if she or he is able to give care. Spousal care means living together, giving and receiving care and interdependency between the spouses. The aim of the policy is to support spousal care by paying financial support to a carer and arrang-ing formal home care services. The purpose of this research is to study the agency of care giving and receiving spouses as care givers and receivers and also as home care service users. The data of the study consist of the interviews of 21 elderly couples. Both spouses were interviewed seper-ately, with the exception of five couples who were interviewed together. In these inter-views a care receiver had difficulties in communicating by speaking and a spouse was her or his interpreter. The study is based on a social constructionistic and a discourse analytical view of con-struction of meanings in human communication. Talking is a social action: people achieve identities, realities, social order and social relationship through talking. In inter-pretating the spouses agency I have used of Harvey Sack´s method of Membership Categorization Device (MCD). The spouses construct social categories which made the meaning of their agency visible. Care changes the routines and actions of everyday life. The couples have to negotiate their duties and rights between each other. Care giving and receiving are both physical and emotional actions. In the end it becomes a part of the couples´ normal life. The pur-pose of couples´ action is to live together as long as possible. They want to strengthen both their own agency and their spouses´ agency. The living together depends on both of them. The spouses decided together what home care services they would like to use and on which conditions they have to use services. Spouses have different kind of agencies as service users which describe their relationship and confidency on formal home care support and services. Services must support the elderly couples´ shared life at home. They cannot be against the conditions on the spousal care. When you want to arrange services to elderly care giving and receiving couples, you have to consider their own wishes and the meanings of their own relationship and shared life.

The Relational Self, the Social Bond and the Dynamics of Personal Relationships : A Sociological Analysis

This study analyses personal relationships linking research to sociological theory on the questions of the social bond and on the self as social. From the viewpoint of disruptive life events and experiences, such as loss, divorce and illness, it aims at understanding how selves are bound to their significant others as those specific people ‘close or otherwise important’ to them. Who form the configurations of significant others? How do different bonds respond in disruptions and how do relational processes unfold? How is the embeddedness of selves manifested in the processes of bonding, on the one hand, and in the relational formation of the self, on the other? The bonds are analyzed from an anti-categorical viewpoint based on personal citations of significance as opposed to given relationship categories, such as ‘family’ or ‘friendship’ – the two kinds of relationships that in fact are most frequently significant. The study draws from analysis of the personal narratives of 37 Finnish women and men (in all 80 interviews) and their entire configurations of those specific people who they cite as ‘close or otherwise important’. The analysis stresses the subjective experiences, while also investigating the actualized relational processes and configurations of all personal relationships with certain relationship histories embedded in micro-level structures. The research is based on four empirical sub-studies of personal relationships and a summary discussing the questions of the self and social bond. Discussion draws from G. H. Mead, C. Cooley, N. Elias, T. Scheff, G. Simmel and the contributors of ‘relational sociology’. Sub-studies analyse bonds to others from the viewpoint of biographical disruption and re-configuration of significant others, estranged family bonds, peer support and the formation of the most intimate relationships into exclusive and inclusive configurations. All analyses examine the dialectics of the social and the personal, asking how different structuring mechanisms and personal experiences and negotiations together contribute to the unfolding of the bonds. The summary elaborates personal relationships as social bonds embedded in wider webs of interdependent people and social settings that are laden with cultural expectations. Regarding the question of the relational self, the study proposes both bonding and individuality as significant. They are seen as interdependent phases of the relationality of the self. Bonding anchors the self to its significant relationships, in which individuality is manifested, for example, in contrasting and differentiating dynamics, but also in active attempts to connect with others. Individuality is not a fixed quality of the self, but a fluid and interdependent phase of the relational self. More specifically, it appears in three formats in the flux of relational processes: as a sense of unique self (via cultivation of subjective experiences), as agency and as (a search for) relative autonomy. The study includes an epilogue addressing the ambivalence between the social expectation of individuality in society and the bonded reality of selves.

Lastensuojelun sosiaalityö asiakirjoina : Dokumentoinnin ja tiedonmuodostuksen dynamiikka

Tutkimuksen keskeinen tehtävä on selvittää, mikä on dokumentoinnin merkitys lastensuojelun sosiaalityön tiedonmuodostuksessa ja ammattikäytännöissä. Asiakirjateksteistä koostuvaa tutkimusaineistoa tarkastellaan kolmesta eri suunnasta kysymällä: 1)Miten asiakirjoja kirjoitetaan? 2) Mitä asiakirjoihin kirjoitetaan? 3) Miksi asiakirjoja kirjoitetaan niin kuin kirjoitetaan? Tutkimusaineisto muodostuu lastensuojelun sosiaalityöntekijöiden laatimista asiakastietojärjestelmään tallennetuista muistiinpanoista ja huostaanottopäätöksistä. Tutkimukseen on valittu 20 huostaanotetun eri-ikäisen lapsen ja heidän perheensä asiakirjat yhteensä 1613 asiakirjatulostussivua. Tekstit ajoittuvat vuodesta 1989 vuoteen 2000. Tutkimusmenetelmä on diskurssianalyyttinen ja tukeutuu Fairclough`n (1997)esittämään kolmiulotteiseen malliin, jossa diskurssi määritellään tekstin, käytäntöjen ja sosiokulttuurisen ympäristön suhteeksi. Diskurssianalyysi on näiden rakenteiden ja niiden välisten suhteiden kuvaamista, tulkintaa ja selittämistä. Fairclough’n mallia mukaillen tutkimuksen analyysi koostuu retoriikan ja tematiikan analyyseistä sekä pragmatiikan näkökulman sisältävästä tarkastelusta. Asiakirjatekstien pilkkominen puhujakategorioihin osoitti tekstien olevan moniäänisiä, useiden henkilöiden näkemyksiä ja mielipiteitä sisältäviä tekstipintoja. Retoriikan analyysi näytti, että lastensuojelun sosiaalityön asiakirjat sisältävät paljon dynaamisia kuvauksia työstä. Asiakirjojen kirjoittaminen moniäänisiksi tuo tekstiin uskottavuutta, ja se on myös yksi retorinen vaikuttamiskeino. Tematiikan tarkastelu osoitti,että asiakirjojen sisällölliset teemat (lapsen hoiva, arjen hallinta, yhteistyö ja päihteiden käyttö) ja kokemukselliset teemat (huoli, vastuu, yhteys ja moraali) toistuvat sisäkkäisinä ja päällekkäisinä säikeinä dynaamisesti vaihdellen. Sosiaalityöntekijät kirjaavat teksteihin monia yhtäaikaisia teemoja, joiden avulla rakentavat ammatillista ymmärrystä kyseessä olevasta tilanteesta. Asiakirjojen tutkiminen pragmatiikan suunnasta toi esiin, kirjoittamisen ja lukemisen kontekstiulottuvuudet sekä tiedonmuodostusprosessin. Asiakirjojen laatiminen on osa sosiaalityön käytäntöjä. Se on myös keskeinen alue ammattikunnan yhteisen ammatillisen ymmärryksen luomisessa ja ylläpitämisessä. Muistiinpanot, huostaanottopäätökset ja lakitekstit ovat intertekstuaalisia. Lastensuojelun sosiaalityön asiakirjojen tutkiminen on avannut uusia mahdollisuuksia ymmärtää sosiaalityön dokumentointiprosessia, merkitystä ja roolia sekä tiedonmuodostuksen dynamiikkaa. Tekstien kirjoittaminen, niiden lukeminen, tietojen siirtäminen ja asiakkaan kuuleminen samoin kuin kuulemisen kirjaaminen ovat sosiaalityön dokumentoinnin keskeisiä haasteita. Tutkimus pyrkii avaamaan ymmärrystä asiakirjatekstien monivivahteiseen ja dynaamiseen maailmaan ja siten myös sosiaalityön dokumentoinnin arkeen. Tarkastelut mahdollistavat työn kehittämisen erityisesti sosiaalityön asiakasvaikuttavuuden mittaamisen ja parantamisen suuntaan. Asiakirjoissa ilmenevä tiedonmuodostuksen dynamiikka syntyy kirjoittamiskäytäntöjen, kirjoittamisen ja lukemisen sekä toimintakäytäntöjen yhteisessä alueessa. Avainsanat: sosiaalityö, lastensuojelu, dokumentointi, asiakirja, diskurssianalyysi, tiedonmuodostus.

Immigrant Associations in the Metropolitan Area of Finland : Forms of Mobilisation, Participation and Representation

This study examines the role of immigrant associations in the societal and political integration of immigrants into Finnish society. The societal focus is on the ability of immigrant associations to mobilise their ethnic group members to participate in the socio-economic, cultural and political domains of Finnish society and in certain cases even beyond. The political integrative aims are the opportunities of immigrant associations to participate and represent the interests of their ethnic group in local and national policy making. This study focuses on associations in the Metropolitan Area of Finland, (Espoo, Helsinki and Vantaa).The qualitative research consisted of 71 interviews conducted with members of immigrant associations and civil servants. These interviews were mainly semi-structured, including some additional open-ended questions. Additional data consisted of documents, planning reports and of follow-up enquiries. -- In the analysis of the data I categorised thirty-two immigrant associations according to the activity forms and the description of the goals by the members. The four categories consisted of integrative, societal, ethno-cultural and transnational immigrant associations. Most of the immigrant associations belonged to the integrative category (15 of 32 associations). On the one hand the aims of these associations are to provide access for their ethnic group members into Finnish society, while on the other to strengthen the ethnic identity of their members by organising ethno-cultural activities. The societal associations only focused on activities with the objective of including immigrants into the Finnish labour market and educational system. The goal of ethno-cultural associations was to strengthen the ethnic identity of their ethnic group members. The transnational associations aimed at improving the living conditions of women and children in the members' country of origin. The possibilities for immigrant associations to mobilise their members depends partly on external financing. Subsidies have been allocated for societal activities in particular. There remains a risk of the crowding out of ethno-cultural activities: something which has already taken place in several European countries. Immigrant associations aim to strengthen the identity of immigrants mainly by organising social and ethno-cultural activities. Another important target was to provide peer support and therapy courses. Additionally, immigrant women's associations offer assistance to women who have encountered violence by providing counselling and in some cases access to shelter. The data showed that there is an ever growing need to pay heed to the well-being of women, children and elderly immigrants. The participation of immigrant associations in the municipalities' integrative issues takes place mainly through cooperative projects. Until the end of the 1990s there had not been much cooperation. The problem with the projects was that they had mainly been managed by civil servants, whereas members from immigrant associations had remained in a more passive position. Representation of immigrant associations in councils has been fairly weak. Immigrant associations are included in the multicultural councils of Espoo and Vantaa, but only in the planning stages. The municipality of Helsinki does not include immigrant associations due to the large number of organisations which causes problems in finding fair, democratic representation. At the national level, the ‘Advisory Board for Ethnic Relations’ – ETNO didn’t chose its members based on membership of ethnic associations, but based on belongingness to one of the larger language groups spoken by the foreign population in Finland. Since ETNO’s third period (2005-2007), the representatives of immigrant associations and ethnic minority groups have been chosen from proposed candidates. Key words: immigrant associations, integration, mobilisation, participation, representation, the Metropolitan area of Finland, immigrant (women), civil servants

Discursive Matrixes of Motherhood : Cultivating Decency and Emotion in Finnish and French Mother-talk

Discursive Matrixes of Motherhood examines women's discourse on their experiences of new motherhood in Finland and France. It sets out from two culturally prevalent turns of speech observed in different social forums: in conversations amongst mothers with tertiary education and in the print media. The pool of data includes: 30 interviews, 8 autobiographically inspired novels and 80 items from women's magazines. With instruments loaned from the toolbox of rhetorical analysis, the recurrence of certain expressions or clichés is analyzed with regard to the national, cultural, biographical, political and daily contexts and settings in which the speaking subjects are immersed. "Staying at home is such a short and special time", the first expression under scrutiny, caught the sociological eye because of its salience in Finland and because it appeared as contradictory with a core characteristic of the Finnish context:long family leave. The cliché was found to function as a discursive micromechanism which swept mothers' 'complaints' under the proverbial carpet. Proper emotions and decency in mother-talk thereby appear as collective achievements. An opposite phenomenon - that of the scaling up of rewards procured by children - was also discerned in the data. Indeed, the French expression "Profiter de mon enfant" ["making the most of my child"/"enjoying my child"] is interpreted as a crystallization of a hedonist ethos of motherhood in everyday language. Secondly, the recurrence of this utterance is analyzed in the light of a requisite located in child-rearing expert literature: that of pleasure that women should take in mothering. Hence, one of the rules found to structure the discursive matrixes of motherhood is the laudability and audibility of enjoyment and conversely the discretion and discouragement of 'complaints'. The cultivation of decent matches between certain categories of emotions and certain categories of individuals also appears as a characteristic of discursive matrixes. One of the methodological findings relates to the fact that such matches may be constituted as sociological objects through the identification of recurrent discursive crystallizations in a given culture. Ideal matches may crystallize in turns of speech and mismatches can be managed through clichés. Becoming a mother entails an immersion in such a particular economy of speech. Key words: mothers, motherhood, transition to parenthood, family, emotions, morality, bonds, rhetorical analysis, discourse analysis, media analysis, France, Finland, comparative sociology

Investigating the interactions of road users and pedestrians in a dynamic rail level crossing environment

There are 23,500 level crossings in Australia. In these types of environments it is important to understand what human factor issues are present and how road users and pedestrians engage with crossings. A series of on-site observations were performed over a 2-day period at a 3-track active crossing. This was followed by 52 interviews with local business owners and members of the public. Data were captured using a manual-coding scheme for recording and categorising violations. Over 700 separate road user and pedestrian violations were recorded, with representations in multiple categories. Time stamping revealed that the crossing was active for 59% of the time in some morning periods. Further, trains could take up to 4-min to arrive following its first activation. Many pedestrians jaywalked under side rails and around active boom gates. In numerous cases pedestrians put themselves at risk in order to beat or catch the approaching train, ignored signs to stop walking when the lights were flashing. Analysis of interview data identified themes associated with congestion, safety, and violations. This work offers insight into context specific issues associated with active level crossing protection.

Neighborhood Shopkeepers in Contemporary South Korea: Household, Work, and Locality

This is an ethnographic study of the lived worlds of the keepers of small shops in a residential neighborhood in Seoul, South Korea. It outlines, discusses, and analyses the categories and conceptualizations of South Korean capitalism at the level of households, neighborhoods, and Korean society. These cultural categories were investigated through the neighborhood shopkeepers practices of work and reciprocal interaction as well as through the shopkeepers articulations of their lived experience. In South Korea, the keepers of small businesses have continued to be a large occupational category despite of societal and economic changes, occupying approximately one fourth of the population in active work force. In spite of that, these people, their livelihoods and their cultural and social worlds have rarely been in the focus of social science inquiry. The ethnographic field research for this study was conducted during a 14-month period between November 1998 and December 1999 and in three subsequent short visits to Korea and to the research neighborhood. The fieldwork was conducted during the aftermath of the Asian currency crisis, colloquially termed at the time as the IMF crisis, which highlighted the social and cultural circumstances of small businesskeeper in a specific way. The livelihoods of small-scale entrepreneurs became even more precarious than before; self-employment became an involuntary choice for many middle-class salaried employees who were laid off; and the cultural categories and concepts of society and economy South Korean capitalism were articulated more sharply than before. This study begins with an overview of the contemporary setting, the Korean society under the socially and economically painful outcomes of the economic crisis, and continues with an overview of relevant literature. After introducing the research area and the informants, I discuss the Korean notion of neighborhood, which incorporates both the notions of culturally valued Koreanness and deficiency in the sense of modernity and development. This study further analyses the ways in which the businesskeepers appropriate and reproduce the Korean ideas of men s and women s gender roles and spheres of work. As the appropriation of children s labor is conditional to intergenerational family trajectories which aim not to reproduce parents occupational status but to gain entry to salaried occupations via educational credentials, the work of a married couple is the most common organization of work in small businesses, to which the Korean ideas of family and kin continuity are not applied. While the lack of generational businesskeeping succession suggests that the proprietors mainly subscribe to the notions of familial status that emanate from the practices of the white-collar middle class, the cases of certain women shopkeepers show that their proprietorship and the ensuing economic standing in the family prompts and invites inversed interpretations and uses of common cultural notions of gender. After discussing and analyzing the concept of money and the cultural categorization of leisure and work, topics that emerged as very significant in the lived world of the shopkeepers, this study charts and analyses the categories of identification which the shopkeepers employ for their cultural and social locations and identities. Particular attention is paid to the idea of ordinary people (seomin), which shopkeepers are commonly considered to be most representative of, and which also sums up the ambivalence of neighborhood shopkeepers as a social category: they are not committed to familial reproduction and continuity of the business but aspire non-entrepreneurial careers for their children, while they occupy a significant position in the elaborations of culturally valued notions and ideologies defining Koreanness such as warmheartedness and sociability.

Sikiöaikana päihteille altistuneiden lasten kasvuympäristö ja kehitys

Life of children exposed to alcohol or drugs in utero This study focused on the growth environment, physical development and socio-emotional development of children, aged 16 and under, who had been exposed to alcohol (n=78) or drugs (n=15) in utero. The aim of the study was to obtain a comprehensive picture of the living conditions of these children and to examine the role of the growth environment in their development. The study was carried out using questionnaires, written life stories and interviews. Attachment theory was used as a background theory in the study. Over half of the children exposed to alcohol were diagnosed with foetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), one quarter was diagnosed with foetal alcohol effects (FAE), and one fifth had no diagnosis. Most of the children exposed to drugs had been exposed to either amphetamines or cannabis, and a smaller number to heroin. Some of the children exposed to alcohol were mentally handicapped or intellectually impaired. The children exposed to drugs did not exhibit any serious learning difficulties but a considerable number of them had socio-emotional development problems. Language and speech problems and attention, concentration and social interaction problems were typical among both the children exposed to alcohol and those exposed to drugs. Only one child had been placed into long-term foster care in a family immediately after leaving the maternity hospital. In biological families there had been neglect, violence, mental health problems, crime and unemployment, and many parents were already dead. Two of the children had been sexually abused and four were suspected of having been abused. From the point of view of the children's development, the three most critical issues were 1) the range of illnesses and handicaps that had impaired their functional capacity as a result of their prenatal exposure to alcohol, 2) child's age at the time of placement on a long-term basis, and 3) the number of their traumatic experiences. The relationship with their biological parents after placement also played a role. Children with symptoms were found in all diagnosis categories and types of exposure. Children with the smallest number of symptoms were found among those who had never lived with their biological parents. Almost all children were exhibiting strong symptoms at the time of placement in foster care. In most cases, they were behaving in a disorderly manner towards others, but some children were withdrawn. The most conspicuous feature among those with the most severe symptoms was their disorganized behaviour. Placement in a foster family enhanced the children's development, but did not solve the problems. The foster parents who brought these children up did not receive as much therapy for the children and support for the upbringing as they appear to have needed. In Finland, transfer to long-term custody is based on strict criteria. The rights of children prescribed in the child protection law are not fulfilled in practice. Key words: FASD, FAS, FAE, alcohol exposure, drugs exposure, illegal drugs, early interaction, child development, attachment

Food biotechnologies in Italy: a social psychological study

This dissertation presents an analysis of the representations of food biotechnologies in Italy. The thesis uses the analysis of discourse to illustrate the articulated ways in which representations are instantiated in different contexts. The theoretical thrust of the work resides in its discussion of the basic tenets of both Social Representations Theory and Discursive Psychology. The thesis offers a detailed description of the two frameworks; affinities and difference are highlighted, and a serious effort is made to develop an integrated set of theoretical resources to answer the research questions. The thesis proposes to combine a discursive methodology with Social Representations Theory. After a description of the relevant legislative framework follows an illustration of the categories used for the textual analysis. The study proposes the textual analysis of the following data: the first declaration issued by a small Italian council rejecting biotechnologies; four texts which focus on positions taken by the Catholic Church in the matter of food biotechnologies; several transcripts from a public debate in a small community of the north west of Italy. The latter study, which included an ethnographic dimension, focuses on recordings from interviews, a focus group, a public meeting and newspaper articles. Particular attention is paid to ideological representations and to the relevance of citizenship and governance to debates about food biotechnologies.

Stor Anna, Liten Anna och tio andra personporträtt : Om innehållsliga och språkliga mönster i en mediegenres kvinnobeskrivningar

The aim of this licentiate thesis is to analyse how femininity is constructed in twelve portrait interviews of women in the dailies Dagens Nyheter (Stockholm) and Hufvudstadsbladet (Helsinki) in September 1996, and to explore the portrait interview as a media genre. The qualitative analysis has a feminist and constructionist perspective and is connected to critical text analysis. It was carried out on two levels: first, femininity is identified on the linguistic level by choice of words, and second on the level of content (topical motifs/themes). The portrait interview as a genre constitutes a third dimension in the analysis: The aim is not towards the identification of femininity, but rather towards the identification of the portrait interview a relatively unexplored media genre. References (Swedish: omtal) to the principal character (or protagonist) are traced mainly through reference chains which consist of names, pronouns and substantive phrases. The interviewees were referred to by their full names in Dagens Nyheter (with the exception of the oldest and youngest interviewees, both of whom were mainly referred to by their first names), while the style of reference varied more in Hufvudstadsbladet. The position of the principal character was also analysed through her relation in the text to minor characters from her working life and from her private life. These minor characters maintained their subordinate positions in all of the portraits except that of the youngest principal character, in which the subsidiary voices became at least as strong as the voice of the principal character. Three frequently-recurring topical motifs occurred in the portraits: The first involved explanations for the principal character s success divided into three categories, agent, affect and ambition, the second concerned using journeys or trips as symbols for turning points in life, and the third referred to the ambiguity in the contradiction between private (family/other private life) and public (work) life. This ambiguity is connected to the portrait interview as a text type (genre) which features conclusions at the end of portraits, which in turn is characteristic of reportage. However, the analysis showed that the conclusions of the portrait interviews often also included elements of ambiguity. This was evident in the contradictions be14 tween private and public life that arose in the portrait interviews that focused on these two spheres. The portraits that focused on the principal character s public life showed ambiguity on a more general level concerning questions about being a woman and having a profession, and they often ended with a description of some details of her private life. The women in the portraits were all constructed as being successful, in terms of having achieved direct success, reflective success or success in the form of life wisdom. The women of direct success were described as ambitious individuals with no sidetracks on their life paths, while those of reflective success were described as active heroines who had received help from different agents, who could use their affects as enriching ingredients in life, but who in the end had control over their own lives (life stories). The elderly women were constructed as having achieved life wisdom and their portraits were focused upon the past. The portrait interview as a genre is characterised by journalistic freedom (in relation to the more strict news genre), by a now room (Swedish nurum ) where the journalist meets the principal character (usually via spoken dialogue that she or he transforms into written text to be read by a mass-media audience) and by the relatively closed structure of the portrait. The portrait is relatively independent in relation to the news genre and in relation to the context of what has previously been written, what is being written at the time and what will be written in the future the principal character does not need to belong to the newspaper s usual gallery of actors. Furthermore, the principal character is constructed as being independent in relation to the subsidiary characters and other media actors. The conflict is within the principal character herself and within her life story, unlike the news genre in which equal actors are in conflict with each other. The portrait is also independent in relation to the news lifespan; the publishing timetable is not as strict as in the news genre, but is still dependent on the factors initiating the portrait. The enclosures consist of a raw analysis of two of twelve portrait interviews and of copies of all portraits.

"Elämää yhdellä siivellä lentäen" : Suomessa asuvien Chilen pakolaisten ja heidän jälkeläistensä historiatietoisuus

The starting point of this study was to find out how the historical consciousness manifest in conceptions and experiences of Chilean refugees and their descendants. The previous research of historical consciousness has shown that powerful experiences such as the revolution and being a refugee may have an effect on historical consciousness. The purpose of this study is to solve how those experiences in the past have influenced Chilean refugees and their descendant s interpretations of the present and expectations for the future. The research material was collected by interviewing four Chilean refugees that escaped to Finland in years 1973 1976 and four young adults who represent the second generation. All second generation interviewees were born in Finland and their other parent or both parents were Chilean refugees. The two groups were not in a family relation to each other. The empirical part of the research was made by qualitative methods. The research material was collected by the method of focused interview and it was analysed by the qualitative data analysis software Atlas.ti 6.0. Content analysis was the main research tool. The previous theory of historical consciousness and the study questions was used to create the seven categories that manifest historical consciousness. The seven categories were biographical memory, collective memory, experiences of living between two cultures, idea of man, the essence of history and the reason for living, value conceptions and expectations of the future. Content analysis was based on those categories. Subcategories were based on the research material and were created during the analysis. The results of this study were made up of categories. The study revealed that experiences of revolution and of being a refugee has a significant role in the historical consciousness of the Chilean refugees. It became evident in their biographical memory being separated in three parts, in their values and in the belief of possibility of an individual to govern her own life. The second generation was also exposed to their parent s experiences in the past. The collective trauma in their parent s past has been part of their life indirectly and has affected the way they think of themselves, their concepts and their place in the present world. The active and regular retrospection in Finland by Chilean adults and special Gabriela Mistral club activities has played a big part in the construction of their historical consciousness.