Land remediation is an important part of restoration measures after a radioactive fallout contain... more Land remediation is an important part of restoration measures after a radioactive fallout containing long-lived fission products such as 137 Cs. In this multidisciplinary study, we focused on three main issues related to remediation of contaminated urban areas. First, we assessed how much decontamination contributes to reducing resident radiation exposure and how much this reduction depends on the timing of implemented measures. Second, we calculated direct and indirect costs of decontamination in an industrialized country such as Sweden. Finally, in a survey study, we considered reactions of Swedish citizens to being given the hypothetical option of moving to a site decontaminated after radioactive fallout and how this predicted response might influence the design of contingency plans. The main findings are that clean-up operations must be done within the first few years after a fallout to contribute significantly to reducing residual dose. If conducted within 1-2 years, large-scale decontamination can, on average, avert 20-200 manSv per km 2 residential area and unit ground deposition of 137 Cs (1 MBq). The estimated direct costs (in 2020 purchasing power) would amount to 100 million Euro per km 2 decontaminated residential area (comparable to Japanese estimates after the Fukushima accident), generating 39,000 m 3 of radioactive waste on average, mainly in the form of 137 Cs-contaminated topsoil. In our survey study of 2291 Swedish respondents about their willingness to return to decontaminated homes, women, families with resident children, and high-income earners exhibited more skepticism about returning, even if authorities were to deem it safe. The demographic pattern in attitudes was similar to that found among evacuees in the Fukushima prefecture after 2011. We conclude that predefined ranges of measured 137 Cs ground deposition can be used as guidance for rescue leaders in the early post-accident phase in long-term planning for affected areas. This planning should include timing and intensity of decontamination measures, duration of evacuation, and risk communication to citizens. Because some citizens expressed both high risk perception and risk aversion, however, timely and dialogic communication is unlikely to limit a shift after the incident to an older and more male-dominated population composition. There is a risk that those who can afford to do so will move away, whereas people whose wealth is locked in property (houses or businesses) will feel stuck. Perceptions of unfairness may fray the social fabric and complicate resettlement, which in some cases may mean inefficient outlay of decontamination costs. We believe that the issue of monetary compensation to affected residents requires priority in future work.
This chapter introduces a governmentality approach to issues of risk and safety, and carves out a... more This chapter introduces a governmentality approach to issues of risk and safety, and carves out an analytical framework that brings it together with a strand of discourse semantics called appraisal analysis. From the perspective of governmentality, responsibilisation is the social process whereby actors assign/assume various moral duties that benefit governing purposes. A pervasive trend observed in the governmentality literature is that institutions and organisations are also increasingly trying to involve and motivate people to manage risk themselves and thus 'partner' with them in large-scale tasks of improving health or safety. Appraisal analysis, in this context, can help demonstrate how actors evaluate risks and safety measures and how they assume or resist positions of responsibility. The analytical model proposed in the chapter more specifically aids an examination of how actors appraise (a) objects of risk and subjects at risk; (b) safety measures spanning collective and individual protection, or lack thereof; and (c) measures that span rules of conduct and risk elimination. It is suggested that choices along these dimensions stand in a dialectical relationship to certain pervasive, global discourses of risk governance. To exemplify this analytical approach, focus groups featuring discussions on a nuclear power plant (NPP) accident scenario are analysed, a scenario in which state agencies plan to recover contaminated neighbourhoods. The analysis shows that an enduring inconsistency in the policy of governing risk through the logic of recovery and individualised responsibility is that it is a risk mitigation strategy that requires that the risk be considered tolerable by those who are to face ita condition that, as the focus groups show, is met only partially. It is therefore also likely that such a policy will be met with resistance in the event of a real nuclear accident, as it was after the Fukushima Daiichi disaster. This is just one of several possible areas of risk research, however. Many other topics may be studied using governmentality and appraisal analysis jointly.
Communicating a pandemic: Crisis management and Covid-19 in the Nordic countries, 2023
This chapter examines how leading politicians and representatives of the public health authoritie... more This chapter examines how leading politicians and representatives of the public health authorities in Scandinavia attempted to create consent for their strategic choices to adopt or refrain from collective prevention measures, such as border and school closures, when such measures became relevant in the region in March 2020. It thus also concerns the broader strategic choices of the administrations in their attempts to curb or stop Covid-19. Based on a strategy-as-practice perspective, the chapter assumes that strategies are not artefacts that organisations only possess, but they are shaped, consolidated, and made public communicatively. The analysis of statements from press conferences shows how strategies are shaped communicatively through claims regarding a number of themes: economic consequences; the validity of epidemiological measures; secondary public health effects; the issue of risk severity (and in the Swedish case, natural immunity); and risk management history. The chapter also highlights the pragmatic arguments used and the dialogicality involved when a particular strategic choice is made viable through the presentation of alternatives. The chapter thus helps to bridge a gap between major response choices facing national and agency leaders on the one hand, and on the other, numerous micro-level communication efforts facilitated in part through press conferences.
Nuclear power plant (NPP) disasters are complex and dreaded scenarios. However, existing recovery... more Nuclear power plant (NPP) disasters are complex and dreaded scenarios. However, existing recovery plans presuppose that citizens will return to live in decontaminated areas following evacuation. Research on natural disasters has shown that high socioeconomic status (SES) influences people to continue living in their homes in recovery areas. This study examines the association between SES and citizens’ risk attitudes to a radiological emergency scenario and demonstrates instead that high SES implies a greater likeliness to move away from the accident-affected area. This is substantiated by survey data of Swedish citizens’ (N = 2,291) attitudes to a scenario where an NPP accident, evacuation, and remediation occur. More specifically, the study provides statistically significant results to show that high income is associated with less worry over ionizing radiation. Still, high-income individuals also appear to be more likely to move if their neighborhood is affected by radioactive fall...
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
The potential devastation that a nuclear accident can cause to public health and the surrounding ... more The potential devastation that a nuclear accident can cause to public health and the surrounding environment demands robust emergency preparedness. This includes gaining a greater knowledge of citizens’ needs in situations involving radiation risk. The present study examines citizens’ attitudes to a remediation scenario and their information and communication needs, using focus group data (n = 39) and survey data (n = 2291) from Sweden. The focus groups uniquely showed that adults of all ages express health concerns regarding young children, and many also do so regarding domestic animals. Said protective sentiments stem from a worry that even low-dose radiation is a transboundary, lingering health risk. It leads to doubts about living in a decontaminated area, and high demands on fast, continuous communication that in key phases of decontamination affords dialogue. Additionally, the survey results show that less favorable attitudes to the remediation scenario—worry over risk, doubt ...
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Studies of the aftermath of nuclear power plant accidents show that affected citizens assess high... more Studies of the aftermath of nuclear power plant accidents show that affected citizens assess higher risks and adopt more risk-avoidant behaviors than authorities expect. This results in differences between the planned recovery and actual outcomes. Based on this knowledge, this study examined the factors that affect citizens’ preference to continue living in a decontaminated area. Testing the key aspects of the protective action decision model (PADM), this study analyzed Swedish survey data (N = 2291) regarding such an accident scenario. Several aspects of the PADM, from the layperson’s view of threats and protective actions, to stakeholders and situational factors, were strongly supported. The most influential variables affecting settlement choices are perceptions of radiation risk, perceptions of decontamination effectiveness, government information, living with certain restrictions, and attachment to an area because of one’s work. A novel contribution of this study is that it rank...
This article proposes and examines gender and life-stage factors as determinants of public worry ... more This article proposes and examines gender and life-stage factors as determinants of public worry and risk avoidance in a nuclear fallout scenario. Drawing on a survey (N 2,291) conducted in Sweden, the article demonstrates statistically significant results that women as well as parents with children at home are more likely to express high levels of worry for radiation exposure and have a preference to move away from a fallout area despite assurance of successful remediation. Moreover, a negative relationship is shown between age and both worry for radiation exposure and preference to move. These novel results from Northern Europe thus support a life-stage framing of public risk attitudes. As radiation physicists develop new methods showing that women and children are at higher risk of cancer than other groups at the same radiation exposure, we may actually see the precaution among women and parents as a regulating mechanism for the higher objective risk they face. The results are moreover in agreement with studies of public risk reactions in Japan, creating a strong knowledge base that human-induced radiation pollution is largely an intolerable risk to the public. Considering the public opinion, managing an intolerable risk through risk mitigation by remediation alone is likely insufficient in many cases. A viable strategy would offer a range of social support options that enable individual decision-making and the protection of risk groups.
Today, communication specialists working for public security and rescue services increasingly use... more Today, communication specialists working for public security and rescue services increasingly use superficially personalized content, or apply ‘a human touch’, to promote their organizations in social media. To theoretically capture and understand such processes, the concept of marketable ordinariness is proposed. This refers to how the communication relates to everyday conceptions – through feelings, humor, cool vehicles or pet animals – and is made marketable, suggesting there is a promotional logic at work. Drawing on appraisal analysis of interviews with communication specialists, the article examines this strategy’s discursive elements, including the semiosis of simplicity, emotion, promotion, storytelling and quantitative success, pointing critically to the ways they aid marketization – the process whereby promotional culture encompasses increasingly more sectors and areas of life. It then discusses a number of implications. First, the public sector employees’ alignment with b...
Social media has evolved along with expectations that organizations, including public authorities... more Social media has evolved along with expectations that organizations, including public authorities, would create more dialogue with citizens. This policy brief argues for, first, the importance for public authorities to listen to, follow up on and use social media users' responses and viewpoints to facilitate dialogue and organizational learning, and, second, the need to more systematically reflect on the causes, meaning, and consequences of the informal tone that some public authorities have come to use in social media.
The literature on social media use in risk and crisis communication is growing fast, and it is ti... more The literature on social media use in risk and crisis communication is growing fast, and it is time to take stock before looking forward. A review of 200 empirical studies in the area shows how the literature is indeed increasing and focusing on particular social media plat forms, users, and phases from risk to crisis relief. However, although spanning 40 countries, a large proportion of the world's social media users are under-represented in the research. In addition, little attention is given to the question of who is actually reached through social media, and the effects of the digital divide are rarely discussed. This article suggests that more attention is given to the questions of equal access to information and ICTs, complementary media channels, and cultural diversity.
Public authorities have traditionally used an official language style in public, but currently so... more Public authorities have traditionally used an official language style in public, but currently social media have become an outlet for humour. This article uses positioning analysis to discuss challenges that use of humour poses for the identity of public organizations. Drawing on interviews with communications professionals working in the emergency services sector, the article suggests six evaluative themes that factor into organizational identity construction, such as the frequency and type of humour in social media posts. Indeed, while humour helps fashion more flexible and risk-taking organizational identities, it can also stand contrary to a bureaucratic ethos of public servantship and equal treatment. Dilemmas thus arise for public authorities that seek to adjust to the times and still remain 'in character'. The article contributes to organizational identity research by considering the hitherto overlooked immersion of social media use, humour and organizational identity formation.
Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture, 2016
This chapter argues that today's organizational risk management, where employees are to adopt rou... more This chapter argues that today's organizational risk management, where employees are to adopt routines for proper self-control, is fruitfully approached as what term governing-at-a-distance. Governing that relies on internal control and the self-governing capacity of citizens requires people to be involved in communication that signifies responsible behaviour. If there is hierarchical monitoring, then it is communication that is supervised which makes the signifying practices all the more important. While previous research has demonstrated that an increasing burden of responsibility is placed on citizens for the risks and health problems they face or envisage, less attention has been paid to the increased communication requirements this development involves. Bridging this gap, this chapter investigates how social interaction in meetings works to facilitate employees to become responsible risk communication subjects. An intensive discourse analysis of five safety meeting episodes demonstrates how the responsibilization of employees' risk communication extends questions of a) form -such as the duration of talk, b) paper work, c) genuineness, d) contributing on-topic, e) economization, and f) reliability regardless of illness and place. The study takes inspiration from positioning analysis (e.g. Bamberg, 2005), allowing for a detailed account of the moment-to-moment process of responsibilization, something that previous research on risk management tends to skim over.
Research on securitization – the process of politicization aiming to increase security –
stresse... more Research on securitization – the process of politicization aiming to increase security –
stresses how important it is for security authorities to gain public support for their
representation of threats and security measures. However, there is little research on
how people understand and respond to securitization and even less so via social
media. Research on security and antiterrorism discourse has rather focused on policy
documents and journalism. This article analyses attitudes on Twitter in the wake of the Norwegian terror alert in July 2014. Using discursive psychology it provides novel
insights into securitization as an argumentative process that has entered social media. The study analyses all tweets with the hashtag #terrortrussel (Eng. #terrorthreat) from individual users and, in addition, the initial statements by the Norwegian authorities. The results demonstrate that Twitter users are creatively using social media in response to securitization, endorsing attitudes regarding a number of themes: (1) the authorities’ announcement and ways of representing the terror alert; (2) the diffusion of responsibility to lay people for monitoring suspicious events and actors; and (3) the issue of ethnicity and blame. The study contributes to two research streams: studies of securitization and studies of antiterrorism discourse in discourse analytical research.
This compilation thesis aims to analyse how risk and safety are constructed, reproduced, and nego... more This compilation thesis aims to analyse how risk and safety are constructed, reproduced, and negotiated by communicative means in safety-critical workplaces. It conceptualizes these communicative moments of shaping and reshaping risk and safety as enmeshed in multiple forms of governing. That is, the management of risk and safety may not only be an employer's responsibility delegated by the State, in a welfarist fashion, but may take different forms through a variety of institutional practices and communicative means. These defining practices seem particularly urgent to study, since it is through them that the locus of risk may be moved from one type of area or object to another, that attention is or is not paid to certain conditions of human exposure, and that parties are appointed responsible for safety measures.
Violence in public spaces gives headlines in the media and is an issue of great concern for the p... more Violence in public spaces gives headlines in the media and is an issue of great concern for the public. It is threatening both on the societal and private level and shakes our belief in the rational and secure social world that was formulated by modernity and the welfare state. The article takes it point of departure in unforeseeable violent events in public spaces that in the media are labelled acts of madness and in which the perpetrators are pointed out as suffering from mental disorders. Results are presented from a study of how citizens attach social and cultural meanings to such events and it is shown how the meanings can be understood in relation to transformations in the emotional-cognitive climate of contemporary society. A culturally conditioned fear and worry, dilemmas and processes of individualization are discussed as crucial dimensions in institutional and public thinking about society and everyday life.
Multimodal analys fokuserar på hur olika former av kommunikation skapas, samverkar och förmedlar ... more Multimodal analys fokuserar på hur olika former av kommunikation skapas, samverkar och förmedlar betydelser i samhället. Begreppet multimodalitet innebär att vi kan beakta olika kommunikationsformer, som tal, musik och grafik, vilket skiljer sig från monomodalitet, exempelvis enbart tal. Tilllämpad strategisk kommunikation som syftar till att gagna vissa idéer och beteenden (och inte andra) till fördel för en organisation (Waver, Motion & Roper 2006), använder kommunikativa resurser på ett systematiskt sätt för att konstruera tillförlitliga och övertygande budskap. Kommunikativa element, som en viss bild, färg eller typsnitt, väljs på grund av dess potential att väcka särskilda associationer och känslor. Studier av strategisk kommunikation kan därmed identifiera och analysera mönster som är vägledande för organisationers kommunikation och målgruppernas bifall eller avslag. Det här kapitlet om multimodal analys syftar till att blottlägga just sådana mönster. https://www.studentlitter...
Our primary aim in this paper is to argue for a discourse analytical take on questions of how ris... more Our primary aim in this paper is to argue for a discourse analytical take on questions of how risk and safety are managed by personnel in high-risk workplaces, with a special focus on constructions of “us” and “them”. Thus, we approach the same issue investigated in many other studies, i.e., diverging safety-related understandings between people representing various occupational groups. We choose to examine so-called communication gaps as they are “talked into being” in discourse, meaning that we treat them as primarily socially constructed. A case analysis based on interviews will be used to illustrate how we can understand this phenomenon from a communicative perspective inspired by Linell’s (1998a) dialogue theory. While previous discourse and safety culture research emphasizes broad patterns and differences between entire professions and departments, we argue that researchers should hesitate to reinforce the notion of homogeneous groups. Instead, there is great value in demonstrating collective social construction processes and commonalities so as to facilitate inter-group solidarity and possibly productive change.
This article analyses occupational health and safety discourse, bringing special attention to dil... more This article analyses occupational health and safety discourse, bringing special attention to dilemmas that emerge as employees name and negotiate particular risks and safety measures. The study is based on 46 interviews conducted with employees in three chemical factories, and combines Michel Foucault’s conception of governmentality with a discursive psychology approach. The study demonstrates how dilemmas emerge when 1) respondents make others responsible for health and safety risks; 2) they personally assume responsibility as ‘risky’ workers; and 3) different rationalities – such as environmental and behavioural or hierarchical – appear in the same set of statements. Overall, occupational health and safety management tends to exclude egalitarian beliefs, which creates dilemmas that become visible as speakers find themselves compelled to excuse, ironize or systematically downplay discursive moves that may diminish or exclude themselves or others. Given that previous research suggests that behavioural approaches to health become increasingly widespread in working life, this article contributes by highlighting the presence of dilemmas that implies some flux and openness to change.
Land remediation is an important part of restoration measures after a radioactive fallout contain... more Land remediation is an important part of restoration measures after a radioactive fallout containing long-lived fission products such as 137 Cs. In this multidisciplinary study, we focused on three main issues related to remediation of contaminated urban areas. First, we assessed how much decontamination contributes to reducing resident radiation exposure and how much this reduction depends on the timing of implemented measures. Second, we calculated direct and indirect costs of decontamination in an industrialized country such as Sweden. Finally, in a survey study, we considered reactions of Swedish citizens to being given the hypothetical option of moving to a site decontaminated after radioactive fallout and how this predicted response might influence the design of contingency plans. The main findings are that clean-up operations must be done within the first few years after a fallout to contribute significantly to reducing residual dose. If conducted within 1-2 years, large-scale decontamination can, on average, avert 20-200 manSv per km 2 residential area and unit ground deposition of 137 Cs (1 MBq). The estimated direct costs (in 2020 purchasing power) would amount to 100 million Euro per km 2 decontaminated residential area (comparable to Japanese estimates after the Fukushima accident), generating 39,000 m 3 of radioactive waste on average, mainly in the form of 137 Cs-contaminated topsoil. In our survey study of 2291 Swedish respondents about their willingness to return to decontaminated homes, women, families with resident children, and high-income earners exhibited more skepticism about returning, even if authorities were to deem it safe. The demographic pattern in attitudes was similar to that found among evacuees in the Fukushima prefecture after 2011. We conclude that predefined ranges of measured 137 Cs ground deposition can be used as guidance for rescue leaders in the early post-accident phase in long-term planning for affected areas. This planning should include timing and intensity of decontamination measures, duration of evacuation, and risk communication to citizens. Because some citizens expressed both high risk perception and risk aversion, however, timely and dialogic communication is unlikely to limit a shift after the incident to an older and more male-dominated population composition. There is a risk that those who can afford to do so will move away, whereas people whose wealth is locked in property (houses or businesses) will feel stuck. Perceptions of unfairness may fray the social fabric and complicate resettlement, which in some cases may mean inefficient outlay of decontamination costs. We believe that the issue of monetary compensation to affected residents requires priority in future work.
This chapter introduces a governmentality approach to issues of risk and safety, and carves out a... more This chapter introduces a governmentality approach to issues of risk and safety, and carves out an analytical framework that brings it together with a strand of discourse semantics called appraisal analysis. From the perspective of governmentality, responsibilisation is the social process whereby actors assign/assume various moral duties that benefit governing purposes. A pervasive trend observed in the governmentality literature is that institutions and organisations are also increasingly trying to involve and motivate people to manage risk themselves and thus 'partner' with them in large-scale tasks of improving health or safety. Appraisal analysis, in this context, can help demonstrate how actors evaluate risks and safety measures and how they assume or resist positions of responsibility. The analytical model proposed in the chapter more specifically aids an examination of how actors appraise (a) objects of risk and subjects at risk; (b) safety measures spanning collective and individual protection, or lack thereof; and (c) measures that span rules of conduct and risk elimination. It is suggested that choices along these dimensions stand in a dialectical relationship to certain pervasive, global discourses of risk governance. To exemplify this analytical approach, focus groups featuring discussions on a nuclear power plant (NPP) accident scenario are analysed, a scenario in which state agencies plan to recover contaminated neighbourhoods. The analysis shows that an enduring inconsistency in the policy of governing risk through the logic of recovery and individualised responsibility is that it is a risk mitigation strategy that requires that the risk be considered tolerable by those who are to face ita condition that, as the focus groups show, is met only partially. It is therefore also likely that such a policy will be met with resistance in the event of a real nuclear accident, as it was after the Fukushima Daiichi disaster. This is just one of several possible areas of risk research, however. Many other topics may be studied using governmentality and appraisal analysis jointly.
Communicating a pandemic: Crisis management and Covid-19 in the Nordic countries, 2023
This chapter examines how leading politicians and representatives of the public health authoritie... more This chapter examines how leading politicians and representatives of the public health authorities in Scandinavia attempted to create consent for their strategic choices to adopt or refrain from collective prevention measures, such as border and school closures, when such measures became relevant in the region in March 2020. It thus also concerns the broader strategic choices of the administrations in their attempts to curb or stop Covid-19. Based on a strategy-as-practice perspective, the chapter assumes that strategies are not artefacts that organisations only possess, but they are shaped, consolidated, and made public communicatively. The analysis of statements from press conferences shows how strategies are shaped communicatively through claims regarding a number of themes: economic consequences; the validity of epidemiological measures; secondary public health effects; the issue of risk severity (and in the Swedish case, natural immunity); and risk management history. The chapter also highlights the pragmatic arguments used and the dialogicality involved when a particular strategic choice is made viable through the presentation of alternatives. The chapter thus helps to bridge a gap between major response choices facing national and agency leaders on the one hand, and on the other, numerous micro-level communication efforts facilitated in part through press conferences.
Nuclear power plant (NPP) disasters are complex and dreaded scenarios. However, existing recovery... more Nuclear power plant (NPP) disasters are complex and dreaded scenarios. However, existing recovery plans presuppose that citizens will return to live in decontaminated areas following evacuation. Research on natural disasters has shown that high socioeconomic status (SES) influences people to continue living in their homes in recovery areas. This study examines the association between SES and citizens’ risk attitudes to a radiological emergency scenario and demonstrates instead that high SES implies a greater likeliness to move away from the accident-affected area. This is substantiated by survey data of Swedish citizens’ (N = 2,291) attitudes to a scenario where an NPP accident, evacuation, and remediation occur. More specifically, the study provides statistically significant results to show that high income is associated with less worry over ionizing radiation. Still, high-income individuals also appear to be more likely to move if their neighborhood is affected by radioactive fall...
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
The potential devastation that a nuclear accident can cause to public health and the surrounding ... more The potential devastation that a nuclear accident can cause to public health and the surrounding environment demands robust emergency preparedness. This includes gaining a greater knowledge of citizens’ needs in situations involving radiation risk. The present study examines citizens’ attitudes to a remediation scenario and their information and communication needs, using focus group data (n = 39) and survey data (n = 2291) from Sweden. The focus groups uniquely showed that adults of all ages express health concerns regarding young children, and many also do so regarding domestic animals. Said protective sentiments stem from a worry that even low-dose radiation is a transboundary, lingering health risk. It leads to doubts about living in a decontaminated area, and high demands on fast, continuous communication that in key phases of decontamination affords dialogue. Additionally, the survey results show that less favorable attitudes to the remediation scenario—worry over risk, doubt ...
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Studies of the aftermath of nuclear power plant accidents show that affected citizens assess high... more Studies of the aftermath of nuclear power plant accidents show that affected citizens assess higher risks and adopt more risk-avoidant behaviors than authorities expect. This results in differences between the planned recovery and actual outcomes. Based on this knowledge, this study examined the factors that affect citizens’ preference to continue living in a decontaminated area. Testing the key aspects of the protective action decision model (PADM), this study analyzed Swedish survey data (N = 2291) regarding such an accident scenario. Several aspects of the PADM, from the layperson’s view of threats and protective actions, to stakeholders and situational factors, were strongly supported. The most influential variables affecting settlement choices are perceptions of radiation risk, perceptions of decontamination effectiveness, government information, living with certain restrictions, and attachment to an area because of one’s work. A novel contribution of this study is that it rank...
This article proposes and examines gender and life-stage factors as determinants of public worry ... more This article proposes and examines gender and life-stage factors as determinants of public worry and risk avoidance in a nuclear fallout scenario. Drawing on a survey (N 2,291) conducted in Sweden, the article demonstrates statistically significant results that women as well as parents with children at home are more likely to express high levels of worry for radiation exposure and have a preference to move away from a fallout area despite assurance of successful remediation. Moreover, a negative relationship is shown between age and both worry for radiation exposure and preference to move. These novel results from Northern Europe thus support a life-stage framing of public risk attitudes. As radiation physicists develop new methods showing that women and children are at higher risk of cancer than other groups at the same radiation exposure, we may actually see the precaution among women and parents as a regulating mechanism for the higher objective risk they face. The results are moreover in agreement with studies of public risk reactions in Japan, creating a strong knowledge base that human-induced radiation pollution is largely an intolerable risk to the public. Considering the public opinion, managing an intolerable risk through risk mitigation by remediation alone is likely insufficient in many cases. A viable strategy would offer a range of social support options that enable individual decision-making and the protection of risk groups.
Today, communication specialists working for public security and rescue services increasingly use... more Today, communication specialists working for public security and rescue services increasingly use superficially personalized content, or apply ‘a human touch’, to promote their organizations in social media. To theoretically capture and understand such processes, the concept of marketable ordinariness is proposed. This refers to how the communication relates to everyday conceptions – through feelings, humor, cool vehicles or pet animals – and is made marketable, suggesting there is a promotional logic at work. Drawing on appraisal analysis of interviews with communication specialists, the article examines this strategy’s discursive elements, including the semiosis of simplicity, emotion, promotion, storytelling and quantitative success, pointing critically to the ways they aid marketization – the process whereby promotional culture encompasses increasingly more sectors and areas of life. It then discusses a number of implications. First, the public sector employees’ alignment with b...
Social media has evolved along with expectations that organizations, including public authorities... more Social media has evolved along with expectations that organizations, including public authorities, would create more dialogue with citizens. This policy brief argues for, first, the importance for public authorities to listen to, follow up on and use social media users' responses and viewpoints to facilitate dialogue and organizational learning, and, second, the need to more systematically reflect on the causes, meaning, and consequences of the informal tone that some public authorities have come to use in social media.
The literature on social media use in risk and crisis communication is growing fast, and it is ti... more The literature on social media use in risk and crisis communication is growing fast, and it is time to take stock before looking forward. A review of 200 empirical studies in the area shows how the literature is indeed increasing and focusing on particular social media plat forms, users, and phases from risk to crisis relief. However, although spanning 40 countries, a large proportion of the world's social media users are under-represented in the research. In addition, little attention is given to the question of who is actually reached through social media, and the effects of the digital divide are rarely discussed. This article suggests that more attention is given to the questions of equal access to information and ICTs, complementary media channels, and cultural diversity.
Public authorities have traditionally used an official language style in public, but currently so... more Public authorities have traditionally used an official language style in public, but currently social media have become an outlet for humour. This article uses positioning analysis to discuss challenges that use of humour poses for the identity of public organizations. Drawing on interviews with communications professionals working in the emergency services sector, the article suggests six evaluative themes that factor into organizational identity construction, such as the frequency and type of humour in social media posts. Indeed, while humour helps fashion more flexible and risk-taking organizational identities, it can also stand contrary to a bureaucratic ethos of public servantship and equal treatment. Dilemmas thus arise for public authorities that seek to adjust to the times and still remain 'in character'. The article contributes to organizational identity research by considering the hitherto overlooked immersion of social media use, humour and organizational identity formation.
Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture, 2016
This chapter argues that today's organizational risk management, where employees are to adopt rou... more This chapter argues that today's organizational risk management, where employees are to adopt routines for proper self-control, is fruitfully approached as what term governing-at-a-distance. Governing that relies on internal control and the self-governing capacity of citizens requires people to be involved in communication that signifies responsible behaviour. If there is hierarchical monitoring, then it is communication that is supervised which makes the signifying practices all the more important. While previous research has demonstrated that an increasing burden of responsibility is placed on citizens for the risks and health problems they face or envisage, less attention has been paid to the increased communication requirements this development involves. Bridging this gap, this chapter investigates how social interaction in meetings works to facilitate employees to become responsible risk communication subjects. An intensive discourse analysis of five safety meeting episodes demonstrates how the responsibilization of employees' risk communication extends questions of a) form -such as the duration of talk, b) paper work, c) genuineness, d) contributing on-topic, e) economization, and f) reliability regardless of illness and place. The study takes inspiration from positioning analysis (e.g. Bamberg, 2005), allowing for a detailed account of the moment-to-moment process of responsibilization, something that previous research on risk management tends to skim over.
Research on securitization – the process of politicization aiming to increase security –
stresse... more Research on securitization – the process of politicization aiming to increase security –
stresses how important it is for security authorities to gain public support for their
representation of threats and security measures. However, there is little research on
how people understand and respond to securitization and even less so via social
media. Research on security and antiterrorism discourse has rather focused on policy
documents and journalism. This article analyses attitudes on Twitter in the wake of the Norwegian terror alert in July 2014. Using discursive psychology it provides novel
insights into securitization as an argumentative process that has entered social media. The study analyses all tweets with the hashtag #terrortrussel (Eng. #terrorthreat) from individual users and, in addition, the initial statements by the Norwegian authorities. The results demonstrate that Twitter users are creatively using social media in response to securitization, endorsing attitudes regarding a number of themes: (1) the authorities’ announcement and ways of representing the terror alert; (2) the diffusion of responsibility to lay people for monitoring suspicious events and actors; and (3) the issue of ethnicity and blame. The study contributes to two research streams: studies of securitization and studies of antiterrorism discourse in discourse analytical research.
This compilation thesis aims to analyse how risk and safety are constructed, reproduced, and nego... more This compilation thesis aims to analyse how risk and safety are constructed, reproduced, and negotiated by communicative means in safety-critical workplaces. It conceptualizes these communicative moments of shaping and reshaping risk and safety as enmeshed in multiple forms of governing. That is, the management of risk and safety may not only be an employer's responsibility delegated by the State, in a welfarist fashion, but may take different forms through a variety of institutional practices and communicative means. These defining practices seem particularly urgent to study, since it is through them that the locus of risk may be moved from one type of area or object to another, that attention is or is not paid to certain conditions of human exposure, and that parties are appointed responsible for safety measures.
Violence in public spaces gives headlines in the media and is an issue of great concern for the p... more Violence in public spaces gives headlines in the media and is an issue of great concern for the public. It is threatening both on the societal and private level and shakes our belief in the rational and secure social world that was formulated by modernity and the welfare state. The article takes it point of departure in unforeseeable violent events in public spaces that in the media are labelled acts of madness and in which the perpetrators are pointed out as suffering from mental disorders. Results are presented from a study of how citizens attach social and cultural meanings to such events and it is shown how the meanings can be understood in relation to transformations in the emotional-cognitive climate of contemporary society. A culturally conditioned fear and worry, dilemmas and processes of individualization are discussed as crucial dimensions in institutional and public thinking about society and everyday life.
Multimodal analys fokuserar på hur olika former av kommunikation skapas, samverkar och förmedlar ... more Multimodal analys fokuserar på hur olika former av kommunikation skapas, samverkar och förmedlar betydelser i samhället. Begreppet multimodalitet innebär att vi kan beakta olika kommunikationsformer, som tal, musik och grafik, vilket skiljer sig från monomodalitet, exempelvis enbart tal. Tilllämpad strategisk kommunikation som syftar till att gagna vissa idéer och beteenden (och inte andra) till fördel för en organisation (Waver, Motion & Roper 2006), använder kommunikativa resurser på ett systematiskt sätt för att konstruera tillförlitliga och övertygande budskap. Kommunikativa element, som en viss bild, färg eller typsnitt, väljs på grund av dess potential att väcka särskilda associationer och känslor. Studier av strategisk kommunikation kan därmed identifiera och analysera mönster som är vägledande för organisationers kommunikation och målgruppernas bifall eller avslag. Det här kapitlet om multimodal analys syftar till att blottlägga just sådana mönster. https://www.studentlitter...
Our primary aim in this paper is to argue for a discourse analytical take on questions of how ris... more Our primary aim in this paper is to argue for a discourse analytical take on questions of how risk and safety are managed by personnel in high-risk workplaces, with a special focus on constructions of “us” and “them”. Thus, we approach the same issue investigated in many other studies, i.e., diverging safety-related understandings between people representing various occupational groups. We choose to examine so-called communication gaps as they are “talked into being” in discourse, meaning that we treat them as primarily socially constructed. A case analysis based on interviews will be used to illustrate how we can understand this phenomenon from a communicative perspective inspired by Linell’s (1998a) dialogue theory. While previous discourse and safety culture research emphasizes broad patterns and differences between entire professions and departments, we argue that researchers should hesitate to reinforce the notion of homogeneous groups. Instead, there is great value in demonstrating collective social construction processes and commonalities so as to facilitate inter-group solidarity and possibly productive change.
This article analyses occupational health and safety discourse, bringing special attention to dil... more This article analyses occupational health and safety discourse, bringing special attention to dilemmas that emerge as employees name and negotiate particular risks and safety measures. The study is based on 46 interviews conducted with employees in three chemical factories, and combines Michel Foucault’s conception of governmentality with a discursive psychology approach. The study demonstrates how dilemmas emerge when 1) respondents make others responsible for health and safety risks; 2) they personally assume responsibility as ‘risky’ workers; and 3) different rationalities – such as environmental and behavioural or hierarchical – appear in the same set of statements. Overall, occupational health and safety management tends to exclude egalitarian beliefs, which creates dilemmas that become visible as speakers find themselves compelled to excuse, ironize or systematically downplay discursive moves that may diminish or exclude themselves or others. Given that previous research suggests that behavioural approaches to health become increasingly widespread in working life, this article contributes by highlighting the presence of dilemmas that implies some flux and openness to change.
The concept of transparency has been problematized in risk research. This exploratory study contr... more The concept of transparency has been problematized in risk research. This exploratory study contributes to the risk literature by considering an established three-dimensional transparency framework (information substantiality, accountability, and participation) and discussing the opportunities for and challenges to risk communication in relation to the framework. Furthermore, we examine the strategies of Scandinavian health authorities during the COVID-19 pandemic and the different levels of public trust in these authorities. In general, Norwegian authorities received higher levels of trust than their Swedish and Danish counterparts. We argue that this was partly due to differences in transparency management. Our findings support the importance of the three transparency dimensions and indicate that transparency regarding uncertainties positively impacts levels of trust.
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Papers by Joel Rasmussen
stresses how important it is for security authorities to gain public support for their
representation of threats and security measures. However, there is little research on
how people understand and respond to securitization and even less so via social
media. Research on security and antiterrorism discourse has rather focused on policy
documents and journalism. This article analyses attitudes on Twitter in the wake of the Norwegian terror alert in July 2014. Using discursive psychology it provides novel
insights into securitization as an argumentative process that has entered social media. The study analyses all tweets with the hashtag #terrortrussel (Eng. #terrorthreat) from individual users and, in addition, the initial statements by the Norwegian authorities. The results demonstrate that Twitter users are creatively using social media in response to securitization, endorsing attitudes regarding a number of themes: (1) the authorities’ announcement and ways of representing the terror alert; (2) the diffusion of responsibility to lay people for monitoring suspicious events and actors; and (3) the issue of ethnicity and blame. The study contributes to two research streams: studies of securitization and studies of antiterrorism discourse in discourse analytical research.
stresses how important it is for security authorities to gain public support for their
representation of threats and security measures. However, there is little research on
how people understand and respond to securitization and even less so via social
media. Research on security and antiterrorism discourse has rather focused on policy
documents and journalism. This article analyses attitudes on Twitter in the wake of the Norwegian terror alert in July 2014. Using discursive psychology it provides novel
insights into securitization as an argumentative process that has entered social media. The study analyses all tweets with the hashtag #terrortrussel (Eng. #terrorthreat) from individual users and, in addition, the initial statements by the Norwegian authorities. The results demonstrate that Twitter users are creatively using social media in response to securitization, endorsing attitudes regarding a number of themes: (1) the authorities’ announcement and ways of representing the terror alert; (2) the diffusion of responsibility to lay people for monitoring suspicious events and actors; and (3) the issue of ethnicity and blame. The study contributes to two research streams: studies of securitization and studies of antiterrorism discourse in discourse analytical research.