Bland ambassadörer och varumärken : En kvalitativ studie av svenska universitets kommunikationspolicydokument

Sammanfattning: The aim of this thesis is to investigate in what way Swedish universities regulates its internal and external communication by the use of policy documents. The purpose has led to three research questions: what scope of communication is given to the documents user, if the document is challenging or redefining the current means of power, and how questions regarding trademark is taken into consideration. In order to achieve the purpose a discourse analysis is used as both underlining theory and comprehensive method. The underlining theory is based around social constructionism, structuralism, poststructuralism and critical discourse analysis. The analysis have taken emphasis from Norman Faircloughs three-dimensional model in which the documents have been studied on three separate levels. The material the research has been built upon is documents regarding communication policy from ten of Swedens fourteen universities. The results indicated that three central groups of participants where given authority in the policy document. The first group consists of different types of managers whom, in the policy document, where given the highest freedom of their own communication. The second group consist of colleagues and employees and are by the policy document viewed as both goals and actors with limited freedom and power over their own communication. The third group consists of students, whom much a like the second group, were viewed as both goals and actors. The last group where however given less influences over their own communication and there was a clear distinction between universities whom looked upon their students as part of the organisation and those who placed the students outside the university organisation. The results furthermore indicated that the policy document are used and works as reproduced documents for the current means of power and that questions regarding trademark are present. The term trademark were used in the majority of the documents and it was also possible to distinguish and read that the universities are very conscious about, and want to influence what image of them that is corresponded through media, employees and students.