This dissertation is composed of an introduction and six published articles and one refereed article manuscript. The articles were published in domestic scientific journals or books.

The dissertation approaches the issues of nationality, gender and social class from the standpoints of cultural studies, media studies, gender studies and higher education pedagogy. Some sociological ideas are also applied to the analysis, especially to the question of social class and the context of the Finnish welfare state. The main research question concerns, what kind of roles media has in the construction of nationality and how these constructions are culturally gendered and classified.

The introduction constructs the framework of the dissertation, concentrating on issues of nationality, gender and social class and their connections to media studies.

Nationality, welfare state, equality, gendered and classified Finnishness, the ordinarity , orders and emotions are regarded as the main concepts of this dissertation. The concepts are used mainly as tools for thinking and discussing with, not as a ready toolkit. Methodological issues are reflected regarding the use of the writer s personal and the idea of situated and committed knowledge.

The articles are divided into three sections: 1) At the top of the nation or at home? [Kaapin päällä vai kotona?], 2) In Tampere and at the match factory [Tampereella ja tulitikkutehtaassa] and 3) In the classroom [Luokkahuoneessa].

The first section includes two articles, which deal with the same material. The material consists of interviews with Finnish authors published in three Finnish magazines 1963 1993. The first article, Do you have the feeling as an author that you are going to the top of the nation? The literary orders, Finnishness and emotions [ Onko sinulla kirjailijana sitä tunnetta, että olet joutumassa kansakunnan kaapin päälle? Kirjallisuuden järjestykset, suomalaisuus ja tunteet] presents an overview of the material and studies the connections of Finnishness, literature and gender as represented in the magazine interviews. The second article, The experience of writing: Finnish female authors in the magazines [Kirjoittamisen kokemus: Suomalaiset naiskirjailijat aikakauslehdissä] examines the interviews with female writers in more detail.

The second section includes three articles. The first of these, In the search of the lost class [Kadonnutta luokkaa etsimässä] tries to find out what kind of category social class is, and what it means when taking seriously in media studies, especially when analysing representations. It also asks, what kind of category social class compared with gender and race, and develops tools for class and gender sensitive interpretations in media analysis. Some new conceptions, e.g. capitalist realism and romanticism, class cross dressing and disempowerment are also introduced.

The second article of this section, Tampere women s town? [Tampere naisten kaupunki?] examines the representations of the (working-class) women of Tampere, which was once a major industrial city with big textile companies and a great preponderance of women. This article studies many heterogeneous materials from statistics to photos in order to explore, what kind of question the majority of women in Tampere has been and how it is represented.

The third article in this section is called The Woman without Everything: Finnishness, gender, and class in The Match Factory Girl (1990) [Nainen vailla kaikkea: suomalaisuus, sukupuoli ja luokka Aki Kaurismäen elokuvassa Tulitikkutehtaan tyttö]. It examines the third film in the so-called Worker s Trilogy directed by Aki Kaurismäki. The analysis concentrates on how the distinctions are constructed within Finnishness. Special attention is paid to the protagonist s voicelessness, in the connection between hetero romance and money, as well as in the crimes represented in the film. The mixed feelings evoked by the Match Factory Girl in particular, and by contemporary Scandinavian melodrama in general are also contemplated.

The third section, In the classroom, concentrates on the pedagogy in the higher media education. In the first article, Waiting for better times [Parempia aikoja odotellessa], I ponder on the ideal of multidisciplinarity and the idea of situated knowledge in the context of the university pedagogy. The main question concerns the possibilities of pedagogy as a radical practice of empowerment and liberation.

The second and final contribution, Class and gender sensitive higher education [Luokka- ja sukupuolisensitiivistä yliopisto-opetusta] is an unpublished, refereed manuscript. First, I consider the absence of the class question in the Finnish pedagogical literature in general. After that I focus on the intersection of social class and gender in the higher education with reference to the ideas of critical pedagogy and feminist pedagogy.