RESEARCH

CATALOGUE
Environmental Communication and Management -
Thesis Projects
 WRITING YOUR
MASTER THESIS
The Division of Environmental Communication
invites 2nd year Master's students in Environmental
Communication & Management to write their theses
in closer connection to existing research projects at
the division.

In some cases, suggested themes, topics or research

questions are available to choose from to build your
thesis. In others, researchers invite students to
explore theses that are more loosely based on
proposed concepts and ideas that will help their
research projects forward.

This means that:

(1) You will actively contribute to an ongoing

research project at the division!
This can involve anything from data collection
together with the project team researchers to
pursuing initiatives on your own. Such collaboration
can result in conference participation and
publication of your thesis as an article. Through the
research project, you will gain access to contacts
with industry and NGO partners for your career.

In addition to that:

(2) You are guaranteed a supervisor with specific

expertise and interest in your topic.

(3) A greater range of resources may be available

to you during your writing, including project
equipment, multiple researchers, informant
contacts and sometimes funding.

PAGE 2
 INDEX
SHADOW FORESTS—RE-THINKING Page 6 - 7
DOMINANT FOREST CULTURES IN TIMES
OF EMERGENCY
Ann Grubbström, Sara Holmgren, Stina
Powell

ENVIRONMENTAL COMMUNICATION Page 8 - 9

BETWEEN PRECONCEPTIONS, STUDIES, AND
PRACTICES
Malte Rödl, Ann Grubbström
Page 10 - 11
ON THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN
ENVIRONMENTAL COMMUNICATION AND
SUSTAINABILITY TRANSFORMATIONS
Anke Fischer, Martin Westin

GENDERED IMPACTS OF AFRICAN SWINE Page 12

FEVER IN UGANDA
Klara Fischer

KNOWLEDGE, EMOTIONS AND VALUES IN Page 13 - 14

ENVIRONMENTAL DISCOURSES
Anke Fischer, Klara Fischer

COLLABORATION, DELIBERATION AND Page 15 – 16

PARTICIPATION IN TIMES OF POST-TRUTH
POLITICS
Sofie Joosse, Martin Westin, Amelia Mutter

A BALANCING ACT BETWEEN SWIFT AND Page 17 – 18

SLOW PLANNING
Camilo Calderon, Martin Westin, Amelia Mutter

PLANNING FOR SUSTAINABILITY Page 19 - 20

TRANSFORMATIONS
Camilo Calderon, Martin Westin, Lars
Hallgren, Amelia Mutter

PAGE 3
 INDEX
COMMUNICATIVE CAPACITY: THE Page 21 - 22
PRACTICE OF DIALOGUE
Hanna Bergeå, Lars Hallgren

COMMUNICATION BETWEEN HOPE AND Page 23 - 24

AMBIGUITY
Hanna Bergeå, Lars Hallgren Malte Rödl

Page 25 - 26
THE SOCIAL FARMER
Ann Grubbström

Page 27 - 28
CHANGING CONSUMPTION – META-
DISCOURSES IN CONSUMER CAMPAIGNS

Lars Hallgren, Ann Grubbström

STOP COUNTING BODIES: NEW IDEAS FOR Page 29 - 30

A GENDER EQUAL FOREST SECTOR
Stina Powell, Ann Grubbström

Page 31 - 32
THE VALUE OF STAKEHOLDER
PARTICIPATION - A FEMINIST AND
INTERSECTIONAL PERSPECTIVE
Stina Powell

WICKED PROBLEMS, POWER AND Page 33 - 34

FACILITATION
Martin Westin

THE ENVIRONMENT IN ENVIRONMENTAL Page 35 - 36

COMMUNICATION

Sofie Joosse, Hanna Bergeå, Daniele Kreb er, René

van der Wal

PAGE 4
 INDEX

COMMUNICATION IN ENVIRONMENTAL Page 37 - 38

COMMUNICATION: A SISTER PROJECT TO
THE E IN EC
Eva Friman, Rob ert Österb ergh, Sofie Joosse

ENVIRONMENTAL COMMUNICATION IN Page 39 - 40

(SOCIAL) MEDIA AND THE ARTS
Sofie Joosse, ;alte Rödl

PAGE 5
 SHADOW FORESTS—RE-THINKING
DOMINANT FOREST CULTURES IN
TIMES OF EMERGENCY

We are in the middle of a climate and biodiversity crisis where the forest is an
important part of the solution. Within the UN's scientific knowledge platforms and in
the EU's forest strategy, transformative land use (nature-based forestry such as selective
logging) is highlighted as an important solution to the double environmental crisis. In a
forest rich country like Sweden, where clear-cutting forestry dominates, the discussion
of closer-to-nature management methods does not only mean that strong economic
interests are challenged. It also means that established forestry practices, knowledge,
identities, values and norms are called into question. The Shadow forests project place
those dimensions of human-forest relations at the centre of analysis. ANN GRUBBSTRÖM
ann.grubbstrom@slu.se
Shadow forests aim to provide a deepened understanding of how alternative forestry is
understood, experienced, enacted and resisted in Sweden. With a communicative focus,
the project takes inspiration from feminist theories and recent work on transformation
studies to deconstruct sociocultural hurdles, and identify the possibilities of transformed
forestry in Sweden.
Empirically, the project direct attention to the people, places and practices cast in
shadow by Sweden’s industrial forestry, and focus on three particular groups of
practitioners that have a potentially important role in the change process, namely:
1. the young people who work in the various branches of the forest industry (eg
machine operators, timber buyers, nature conservation specialists) who can drive
change from within their respective organisations; SARA HOLMGREN
2. forestry innovators (people who already practice alternative forestry today, or run sara.holmgren@slu.se
companies based on, for example, clear-cutting forestry) whose experiences and
perspectives as norm-breakers are important to highlight and learn from;
3. forest journalists who write about, for example, alternative forest management CAMILO CALDERON
camilo.calderon@slu.se
methods or review the forest industry in various media (daily press, industry
magazines). This group has, through their professional position, the capacity to
publicly challenge established socio-cultural structures and influence public opinion.
We are in this stage of the project particularly interested in thesis projects focusing on
group 1-2, but are of course open for ideas also relating to group 3. We are also open for
ideas.
STINA POWELL
PAGE 6 stina.powell@slu.se
THESIS IDEAS
While we don’t want to limit your creativity, below are a
few project suggestions.

1) Young forest workers – experiences, expectations and

future visions
This proposed thesis topic focus on early career foresters,
including students who are soon to graduate from forest
educations. Potential questions to investigate include:
• How do young forest workers perceive and expect
climate change and biodiversity loss, and associated
pressures to transform Swedish forestry, to impact
their current and/or future work and careers.
• What are their expectations when entering the forest
sector, and what identities and norms underpin these
expectations?
• What competencies are seen as important as a young
forest worker? How are these competencies gendered?
• How do young foresters relate to the polarised forest
debates? How does it affect communication and trust in
their daily work? How can they envision respectful
conversations?
Suitable methods include interviews and focus groups with
young foresters. Possibilities to use photos, maps, articles
and films in these focus groups. Either the participants
are asked to bring their own material or that, for example,
photos and maps are chosen by the researcher and
discussed in the focus group. Walk along interviews with
young foresters at work. Observations of meetings and
other relevant forest related events.

2) Forest educational programmes and courses

This proposed thesis projects can engage with the content
and focus of forest educational programmes and courses.
Questions to address could be:
• What kind of competences and practices are taught in
forestry educations?
• What ideas of forests, forest management and future
forests underpin these competencies and practices?
• What norms, identities, practices and power relations
are the forestry educations, through their programmes
and courses, reproducing and/or challenging?
The study could be based on discourse analysis of textual
material from forest educational programmes and courses
in Sweden, including course curriculum, literature lists,
course schedules, course books, learning goals, excursions
and guest lectures; visual material on programme and
course web sites, in course books and other materials
relating to the forest education explored.
.

PAGE 7
ENVIRONMENTAL COMMUNICATION
BETWEEN PRECONCEPTIONS,
STUDIES, AND PRACTICES

Before you started your studies, you probably had some

ideas about Environmental Communication, which you
have revisited and revised multiple times throughout
your studies. You will likely do so many times again
throughout your career. Thesis projects can engage with
the teaching, learning, and doing of environmental
communication: How is Environmental Communication
taught by teachers and made sense of by students at SLU
and throughout the world? What insights can we gather
from looking at practice? How do communication studies MALTE RÖDL
degrees and your studies of environmental malte.rodl@slu.se
communication differ? What does environmental
communication look like in different cultures and
contexts?

ANN GRUBBSTRÖM
ann.grubbstrom@slu.se

PAGE 8
THESIS IDEAS
While we don’t want to limit your creativity, below
are a few project suggestions.
1. Moving from studying into practice . Students
could analyse past years internship reports and
investigate the problems, issues, and reflections
that emerge from conflicting understandings and
ideas of environmental communication. Or they
could research how recent alums try to navigate
the labour market, find jobs, or try to explain
their skills, when Environmental Communication
means something different outside the
university.
2. Environmental Communication journeys.
Students could investigate alums or other
students’ motivations, preconceptions,
understandings, and journeys of becoming
environmental communication students or
practitioners. What preconceptions did they start
with? What transformative encounters and
experiences did they make? Interviews or focus
groups might be suited for such topic.
3. In-depth investigations of specific course
activities. Students could study how teachers
reflect on didactic choices and how activities
contribute to meaning-making as well as
intellectual and personal development. Given the
timeframe of the thesis project, course activities
in period 3 (CDF course) and early in period 4
(ECG course) might be particularly suited for
that. But we might also be able to grant access to
(anonymised) assignments from other courses,
including the films from the introduction course,
presentations, or other written submissions
and/or you could conduct interviews and focus
groups.
4. Environmental Communication throughout the
world. Students could investigate how
environmental communication is practiced and
understood in their home country; or how it is
conceptualised and taught in courses and
programmes at other universities in comparison
to SLU. Interviews and/or studies of textual
material such as syllabi and course books might
be suitable for this kind of thesis project.

PAGE 9
 ON THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN
ENVIRONMENTAL COMMUNICATION AND
SUSTAINABILITY TRANSFORMATIONS
How does communication steer society? And which governance factors shap e
what is possible in communication? D oes understanding the links b etween
environmental communication and governance help us to b etter understand
sustainability transformations?

Environmental communication is a research field

concerned with understanding societal change, as all
acts of environmental communication inherently
contribute to change, or conversely, to the
consolidation of the status quo. Many people working
with environmental communication are thus
ANKE FISCHER MARTIN WESTIN
particularly interested in the role that communication anke.fischer@slu.se martin.westin@slu.se
plays in sustainability transformation processes and the
factors that promote or hinder them. However, in and of
themselves, theories of communication do not
necessarily explain how change happens (or why it does
not happen) – so we need to look across disciplines and
research fields to understand those links, and we need
to connect these to concrete empirical cases. We invite
you to dig deeper and explore the relationships between
environmental communication and governance, i.e., the
steering and coordination of society and processes of
change.

PAGE 10
THESIS IDEAS
Using case studies to unpack the relationships
between environmental communication and
governance

Communication can be seen as instrumental to

governance, but conversely, governance can also be
seen as communication as it constitutes norms,
values and other meanings. We invite you to select
an environmental or sustainability issue of your
choice and examine the diverse ways in which
communication shapes governance, and governance
shapes communication. This could involve
experimentation with different methods, such as
(mapping) workshops, interviews and document
analyses.

More ideas will emerge as the project develops – just

contact us to find out more and discuss!

PAGE 11
 GENDERED IMPACTS OF AFRICAN
SWINE FEVER IN UGANDA

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-ND

Gender considers the characteristics of men, women and non-binary

individuals that are socially constructed and proscribes to individuals the
norms, behaviours and roles associated with being a man or woman, and
the relationship between these groups. Gender roles are not fixed, are
context specific, and can be dynamic over time and over geographies. Yet
a universal mainstay of gendered relations is a hierarchical power
structure which produces inequalities for particular groups, which
includes but are not limited to access to resources, public and private
roles, decision making power and societal relations.

African Swine Fever is a deadly disease in pigs, which is endemic to

KLARA FISCHER
Uganda. In this small research project you would gather information
(through e.g. interviews, focus group discussion and different visual klara.fischer@slu.se
tools) to understand how men and women in rural Northern Uganda
conceptualize, communicate about and act on African Swine Fever, whom In collaboration with:
they seek advice from, and give advice, and how they interact and are Clare Wenham, Erika
helped or not by relevant authorities. The study will contribute Chennais, Juliet Kiguli,
knowledge about the gendered impacts of ASF in norther Uganda. Clare Standley, Ellen
Carlin, and Karl Stahl
Students interested in this project should approach Klara Fischer for
more information. Students will be requested to submit a CV and letter of
intention/ description of how they envisage they would approach the
project, and be interviewed by the project team. A student who is selected
will receive funding to support the travel to and field work in Uganda. In
exchange, the student will share all gathered data with the research
group.

PAGE 12
 KNOWLEDGE, EMOTIONS AND
VALUES IN ENVIRONMENTAL
DISCOURSES

How is knowledge and its role in environmental decision-making

challenged and negotiated in society? In public debate, how is
knowledge conceived vis-à-vis emotions and values? In which ways
are knowledge, emotions and values purposefully combined to convey
certain ideas, to persuade, maintain the status quo or create change?

In many contemporary societies, the role of scientific knowledge in

environmentally relevant, societal-level decision-making is contested
in manifold ways and from multiple directions. While parts of such
contestation and challenging of what is seen as knowledge are a ANKE FISCHER
necessary part of a pluralistic democracy in practice, others might be anke.fischer@slu.se
underpinned by a more fundamental, anti-scientific attitude that is
ultimately anti-democratic. In addition, emotions and value-based
judgements are often portrayed as the antitheses of knowledge and
evidence, and are used discursively to delegitimise certain positions,
arguments and perspectives.

We invite you to unpack some of the complexities around the ways in

which knowledge, emotions and/or values are being used in
environmental discourses. We are interested in a wide range of
possible contexts (e.g., debates on land and wildlife management),
particularly in:
• discourses around the governance of a low carbon/’green’ KLARA FISCHER
transition (Anke) klara.fischer@slu.se
• discourses around the governance of novel technologies of genetic
modification in the food and agricultural sector, CRISPR (Clustered
Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) (Klara).

PAGE 13
THESIS IDEAS
1.The role of knowledge, values and emotions in discourses
over transition governance

The governance of many countries’ transitions to a low

carbon society has been a focal point of heated public debate
around the role of scientific evidence, wider knowledge,
feelings and values in policy making. Public and policy
debates around different energy sources (e.g., wind, nuclear)
exemplify how scientific evidence is being challenged, and
how the accusation of using emotions and values in the
debate is employed to delegitimise an argument. Policies that
inherently draw on value-based guiding principles (such as
justice in the ‘just transition’, or freedom of choice) are, by
contrast, often treating these values in a superficial way. We
invite you to examine how knowledge, values and emotions
are pitted against each other in public and policy debates.
What are the implications? Suitable methods include
qualitative analyses of social media and other media data
(e.g., newspapers), interviews and focus group discussions.

2.The role of different knowledges, values and emotions as

arguments in the European debate on the regulation of
CRISPR technologies

CRISPR, a novel approach to gene editing, is often described

by scientists as more precise, quicker, and less invasive than
older versions of genetic modification. Hopes are raised that
this new technology can produce crops that are more
nutritious and more resilient to global warming. At the same
time, there are concerns about potential environmental and
health risks, ethical issues as well as indications that
CRISPR will not be, as hoped, more openly accessible than
previous technologies of genetic modification. Within the
EU, there is a vibrant debate on how to regulate CRISPR and
related technologies, and how to involve the public in a
deliberative process in which, to date, largely expert voices
are being heard. The narrow role given to the public in
debating these technologies has been raised as problematic,
not least for ethical and democratic reasons.

In recent years, processes to engage the public(s) in the EU

as well as specific stakeholders in deliberations have taken
place. Your thesis project could map out these public
deliberation efforts and examine e.g., the way in which
different knowledges are treated, the negotiation of different
values and interests in the deliberations, or the way in
which value-based arguments and emotions are pitted
against arguments that are portrayed as knowledge-based. A
discourse analysis of documents available on EU or relevant
country-specific websites could be suitable. Interviews with
key stakeholders could also be relevant.

PAGE 14
 COLLABORATION, DELIBERATION
AND PARTICIPATION IN TIMES OF
POST-TRUTH POLITICS
The role of dialogue experts

There is a broad consensus that Swedish society needs

to undergo major changes to meet ecological, economic
and social sustainability challenges. But there are many
different perceptions about what sustainability means,
how the transition should be carried out and what
changes are desirable. Both research and sustainability
policy emphasises the need for dialogue-based forms
of governance such as collaboration, deliberation
and citizen participation. However, in today's
emotionally charged political climate with filter bubbles,
polarisation and conspiracy theories - sometimes CAMILO CALDERON
SOFIE JOOSSE MARTIN WESTIN
described as the age of post-truth politics - dialogical camilo.caldro@slu.se
sofie.joosse@slu.se martin.westin@slu.se
working methods are made more difficult. This project
studies how an emerging group of officials and
consultants, so-called dialogue experts, try to realise
the dialogical ideals in a time of post-truth politics.

The project aims to unpack, analyse and rethink the

uneasy relationship between dialogue, expertise and
power in sustainability transformations. To do so, we
inquire into the practices of the street-level workers of
democracy: the dialogue experts who are charged with
enabling collaboration, deliberation and participation.
AMELIA MUTTER
amelia.mutter@slu.se

PAGE 15
THESIS IDEAS
1) Investigation of different communities of
dialogue practitioners . This type of study could
involve mapping actors from a shared community or
interviews to explore their attitudes on dialogue,
expertise, truth and power.

2) Analysis of post-truth case studies . Examining

how alternative truth claims are handled in relation
to specific collaborative, deliberative or
participatory processes.

3) Participant observation of dialogue experts .

Following the specific practices of one (or a
community of dialogue experts to generate
knowledge about their work with dialogue and truth.

PAGE 16
 A BALANCING ACT BETWEEN
SWIFT AND SLOW PLANNING
Reimagining deliberative
planning in view of the urgency of sustainability challenges

The urgency of sustainability challenges, such as

climate change impacts, shortage of affordable homes or
influx of immigrants, have prompted policymakers to
call for swift responses from government agencies.
Yet, proponents of deliberation urge them to slow
down in order to enable the broad citizen participation
required for democratic legitimacy and long term
CAMILO CALDERON MARTIN WESTIN
sustainability. Due to the struggles between proponents
camilo.calderon@slu.se martin.westin@slu.se
for swift and slow, planning processes risk becoming
ambiguous and might be neither efficient nor legitimate.
As an alternative to this “either or” framing, this project
aims to re-imagine deliberative planning as a balancing
act between equally valid demands for efficiency and
deliberation. The research design combines in-depth case
studies of deliberative planning processes addressing
different kinds of urgent sustainability challenges with
co-creative workshops where the research team and key
AMELIA MUTTER
planning actors use the findings to draw out practical amelia.mutter@slu.se
implications.

PAGE 17
Through this approach, the project will develop
deliberative processes capable of balancing efficiency
and deliberation. The findings will also be used to
contribute to the development of deliberative planning
theory in view of the urgency of sustainability
challenges.

THESIS IDEAS
(1) Understanding the double pressure for swift
decision making and slow participatory-based
planning with regard to particular urgent
sustainability challenges.

(2) Exploring responses to the double pressure: is

the balancing act possible?

(3) Synthesise knowledge, skills and strategies used

by practitioners in their attempts to design
deliberative planning processes addressing urgent
sustainability challenges.

All these suggestions can be applied to case studies

within the project or your own.

PAGE 18
 PLANNING FOR
SUSTAINABILITY
TRANSFORMATIONS
Is government-led dialogue in natural resource governance
the key to sustainability?

While dialogue processes are a valuable tool for inclusive,

legitimate and effective governance processes, their
implementation is often fraught with difficulties, usually due
to challenges related to power relationships and conflict.
This work package within the wider Mistra Environmental
Communication project works to translate recent research on
power and conflict into practice, and to develop ways to design
power-sensitive and conflict-aware environmental MARTIN WESTIN CAMILO CALDERON
communication. martin.westin@slu.se camilo.calderon@slu.se

AMELIA MUTTER LARS HALLGREN

amelia.mutter@slu.se lars.hallgren@slu.se

PAGE 19
THESIS IDEAS
(1) Analysis of power in government-led dialogues
with focus on identifying legitimate and illegitimate
power over.

(2) Analysis of conflicts in government-led

dialogues with a focus on agonistic pluralism.

(3) Exploring ways to design power-sensitive and

conflict-aware dialogues.

All these suggestions can be applied to case studies

within the project or your own.

PAGE 20
 COMMUNICATIVE CAPACITY
THE PRACTICE OF DIALOGUE
Great faith in ”dialogues” but what does actually happen?

Research project
Dialogue is a concept which often occurs in
environmental and natural resource management
(NRM) discussions, often associated with the hope
of solving problems with tensions, conflict,
disagreement, trust, legitimacy and sometimes also with
inaction and motivation for change. However, if the
participants are hopeful about ‘dialogue’ as a better way HANNA BERGEÅ LARS HALLGREN
hanna.bergea@slu.se lars.hallgren@slu.se
compared to other procedures for communication, they
are often unclear about what dialogue is and how it
differs from other procedures.

In this research project, we are investigating how

ambitions to make dialogues are carried out in
practice and what communicative norms are used.
We use practice theory, symbolic interactionism and
conversation analysis to research what is done in
normative dialogues. In a published article, we present
data which indicate that NRM dialogues often fail to
investigate disagreement due to agreement preferences
in conversational procedures.

PAGE 21
THESIS IDEAS

(1) Analysis of communicative procedures and

norms in NRM dialogues in different contexts, e.g.
dialogues in water and forest management, public
participation in decision making about wind power,
city development, or wildlife management or citizen
dialogues about e.g. climate change. Data generated
through audio or video recording or participant
observation and interviews is valuable.

(2) Conceptions of dialogue, disagreement and

conflict. Interviews with participants and initiators
of NRM dialogues about their hopes, fear and
experiences.

(3) Analysis of societal interaction,

communication, changes of trust and/or power
relations in conflicts.

(4) Analysis of communication procedures and

social interaction in street art, civil disobedience
and agonistic dialogue attempts. Data generation can
be done through video and audio recordings and
interviews with participants.

PAGE 22
 COMMUNICATION BETWEEN
HOPE AND AMBIGUITY
How do you coordinate transformations of food systems towards
circular economy?

Research project
Circular Economy — understood as one in which maximum
value is obtained from resources during use, avoidable
waste is eliminated and unavoidable waste reused or
recycled — is currently a popular notion within policy and
business, as an alternative to the prevailing linear system
(of ‘take, make and dispose’). Today’s food sector
increasingly aims to embed circular economic principles by
changing production and consumption systems. But this HANNA BERGEÅ LARS HALLGREN
hanna.bergea@slu.se lars.hallgren@slu.se
transition requires effective collaboration between multiple
players which can prove difficult to coordinate, particularly
since people may have different and competing
interpretations of the circular economy concept.

This project investigates how the Circular Economy is made

sense of in food systems, and suggests methods to facilitate
constructive collaboration between multiple players. It uses
symbolic interactionism and practice theory and develops
‘agonistic approaches’ to communication to understand how MALTE RÖDL
the CE is made sense of in food systems, and suggests malte.rodl@slu.se
methods to facilitate constructive collaboration.

PAGE 23
THESIS IDEAS
1) Circular Economy as a guiding concept: How is
Circular Economy made sense of, coordinated and
concretised in other empirical contexts: e.g. spatial
planning, the building industry, fashion industry?

(2) To study the use of other environment or

communication related empty signifiers in society:
e.g. sustainability, “climate smart”, dialogue; or a
discourse study of empty signifiers within specific
areas such as natural resource management or
specifically of Circular Economy.

(3) Different communicative aspects on labelling

and certification of food products. How is
coordination carried out in the food system? How are
tensions managed between the primary producers
(farmers), the processing industry and retailing
(contact with consumers) when it comes to
environmental concerns? One example of interest
might be the debate whether organic products also
can be branded as good for the climate.

(4) Several municipalities are making management

plans for Circular Economy. How is Circular
Economy made sense of and concretised in these
documents? Through case studies, it would be
possible to explore how the plans are translated into
action by interviewing consultants, civil servants,
and key actors about the process of transition
towards a Circular Economy.

(5) A number of courses and short educational

programmes are created about Circular Economy,
sometimes focusing on an operationalised level. In
what way do the courses approach change processes
needed in order to make Circular Economy realised?
How is facilitating change on the one hand and
resistance and structural obstacles on the other dealt
with in the courses?

PAGE 24
 THE SOCIAL FARMER
How do farmers deal with a rapidly changing agriculture? Who will
be the future farmer?

Research project
When both the number of farms and the number of
farmers decrease, remaining farmers have fewer and
fewer colleagues nearby. What does that mean for
collaboration and support? Will this lead to new
interactions, or new ways of communicating and modes
to exchange experiences?
ANN GRUBBSTRÖM
ann.grubbstrom@slu.se
This research project explores the types of networks
that farmers use, and takes a closer look at their use of
social media for farm-related learning and support.

The study is part of a research collective focussing on

being and becoming a Farmer in an Urbanising Society.

PAGE 25
THESIS IDEAS

(1) What new kinds of networks do farmers use?

(2) Use of Social media (FB, blogs etc.)

(3) What is their age, gender, location?

(4) New knowledge of the importance of these

networks for the farmer and the farming company
Important for farmers, farmer education, and
agricultural advisers.

Methods:
Focus groups, Netnography, interviews and
possibilities for observations of field studies
arranged by advisors (LRF).

PAGE 26
 CHANGING CONSUMPTION –
META-DISCOURSES IN CONSUMER
CAMPAIGNS
Investigate why strategies to influence consumption patterns and
increase sustainability do not live up to their promises.

Research project
A variety of NGOs, authorities and companies are engaged
in strategic environmental communication to influence
consumption patterns and increase sustainability.
They use, for example, advertisements, social media,
and gamification to get individuals’ attention and
engagement. These strategies are often designed based on
the idea that the receivers of messages will change their
behaviour according to the newly received information. LARS HALLGREN ANN GRUBBSTRÖM
lars.hallgren@slu.se ann.grubbstrom@slu.se
However, this knowledge-deficit model often ignores the
perspectives and interests of the ‘receivers’ and the social,
cultural and symbolic function of consumption practices.
Moreover, communicative strategies typically address
individuals as consumers, and prioritise ‘right’ ways of
consuming as the pathway towards sustainability, while
ignoring the structuring role of politics. This project
focuses on meta-discourses, communication planning
procedures and knowledge that guides communication
professionals when they design and perform campaigns
aiming to change consumption behaviours and ideologies.
We will also investigate consumption as a social practice
and what consumption means for the consumer.

PAGE 27
THESIS IDEAS
(1) Follow a campaign : What design decisions are
made and on what ground, with what expectations,
based in what communication and social
psychological models and theories? What language is
used to anticipate communication procedures and
effects? Ethnography in communication bureau.

(2) Analyse meta-discourses used by environmental

communication practitioners. Data collection
through interviews with EC practitioners.

(3) Analyse campaign components: What common

features can be recognised when comparing
campaigns from different contexts? What ideologies
and meta-discourses do these common features
reproduce (e.g. conceptions about change and
motivation). Data in the form of campaign material.

(4) Analyse consumption as a social practice:

What do consumers do when consuming and how do
they do it? Ethnography of consumption situations
and interviews with consumers.

PAGE 28
 STOP COUNTING BODIES:
NEW IDEAS FOR A GENDER
EQUAL FOREST SECTOR
How can we achieve gender equality in the forestry sector, focusing
on SLU’s forestry courses and programmes?

Research project
Despite a political agenda, a good will and plenty
of measures for gender equality, inequality persists
and reproduces, leaving only a very few women
working in forestry. The majority of the students
are men and only a few women become professors.
Research shows that the sector is permeated by a male
macho culture, something that became apparent also STINA POWELL ANN GRUBBSTRÖM
stina.powell@slu.se ann.grubbstrom@slu.se
in the forest industry’s MeToo call. Those signing
the # confirmed discrimination, sexism, harassment
and conservative norms.

This project aims to create an understanding of

the organisational cultures, as well as individual
and collective actions and resistance to change.
The research also aims to develop gender equality
methods through three different steps; analysis of
policy documents, interviews and focus groups
and finalising workshops where ways forward will
be established.

PAGE 29
THESIS IDEAS
(1) The forestry sector is pushing the gender
equality agenda and is explicit with that they want
to see a change. Still, not much happens. How can
we understand this? What kind of gender equality
measures do the forestry industries take, and what
do they consider as their main problems? Do they
match? Interviews with actors in the industry
and discourse analysis of strategies and policies.
Asking questions about why gender equality matters,
how and what they consider the effects to be.

(2) The forestry sector is required to work with

climate change measures, as well as gender
equality and diversity measures. Are there links
between them and what do they look like? Data can
be collected through either analysis of written
and media/pod material, or through interviews
(or a combination thereof).

(3) What is the narrative on sustainability

transformations in the forestry sector? What is
needed and who is leading the transformations?
Methods and empirical material for this can be
discussed.

(4) Who is the forester and what are the important

issues of forestry today? What perspectives are
dominant, and what are the silences and resistances?
Methods: Critical discourse analysis of
Twitter/Instagram or webpages, columns of forestry
companies.

(5) Study exhibitions or events in the forest sector

from a gender perspective. Methods: interviews
with organisers and visitors, observations.

PAGE 30
 THE VALUE OF STAKEHOLDER
PARTICIPATION - A FEMINIST
AND INTERSECTIONAL
PERSPECTIVE

Who gets to have a say about the future? What

knowledge counts and why? In this project, the aim
is to deepen our understanding of what happens with
collaborative and transdisciplinary projects for
sustainability, in practice. Through the lens of feminist
and intersectional theory, we can investigate questions
of priorities, knowledge, perspectives and experiences
in striving for sustainable futures. The focus is on
research projects for sustainability, a field often STINA POWELL
stina.powell@slu.se
organised around collaboration, participation, inter-
and transdisciplinarity, as well as stakeholder
involvement. There is a strong discourse arguing
that sustainability issues are too complex to be dealt
with by single disciplinary perspectives, or by academic
knowledge alone. Justice, gender equality and equity
are often seen as central (very much so also in the
Agenda 2030 and the SDGs) components for success.
The research project looks deeper into what happens
in three international, trans- and interdisciplinary
research projects for sustainability. Can we go beyond
the rhetoric, or is it business as usual?

PAGE 31
THESIS IDEAS
How is gender equality done when practicing
sustainability change? Method: Discourse analysis
of documents or interviews (with focus groups).

What does justice mean in practice in

sustainability projects? Looking at discourses
of change agents can tell us more about power
and knowledge and who is seen as central for
change to be possible. This question can be put
to small-scale municipality projects through
qualitative methods, but also through discourse
analysis of large-scale, international organisations
promoting sustainability change.

PAGE 32
 WICKED PROBLEMS, POWER
AND FACILITATION
Participation and learning related to complex and contested societal
challenges, or so called wicked problems

Research interest
Martin Westin focuses his research on power in
participatory processes. He is interested in facilitators'
sense making and actions. He applies power theory and
frame theory to critically scrutinise attempts to deal with
sustainability challenges in Sweden or globally.
Martin works with practical applications of power theory,
focusing on different kinds of understandings of power
(ranging from domination to empowerment). He also MARTIN WESTIN
applies communicative planning theory to shed light on martin.westin@slu.se
the design and facilitation of participatory processes.
In his research, he draws on the tradition of reflective
practice to explore how practitioners learn from the
difficulties they are confronted with.

The methods Martin uses include frame analysis.

This methodology provides possibilities to identify the
often tacit notions which inform sense making in
environmental communication. He also applies narrative
interviewing to elicit practitioners’ stories of difficult
situations they confront. Such stories are useful both for
generating theories and for informing the practice of
participation.

PAGE 33
THESIS IDEAS
Are you interested in learning about process design
and facilitation of contested participatory processes
focusing on different kinds of sustainability
challenges? Through his own practice, Martin can
provide access to these kinds of processes in
Sweden.

The kinds of questions you can look into are the

following:

(1) How are stakeholders making sense of contested

sustainability challenges/wicked problems?

(2) How are facilitators of participatory processes

dealing with power?

(3)How are facilitators of participatory processes

creating conditions for reflection and learning?

(4) How is power operating in environmental

communication?

PAGE 34
 THE ENVIRONMENT IN
ENVIRONMENTAL
COMMUNICATION

What does the E in EC stand for? The International

Environmental Communication Association puts it
plainly: “In the simplest terms, environmental
communication is communication about environmental
affairs” (The IECA, 2015). This sounds as if the
environment is foremost the backdrop for that which we
study, namely the communicative interaction of people.
But, are there other ways in which the environment plays HANNA BERGEÅ
SOFIE JOOSSE
into environmental communication? In 2022 and 2023 we sofie.joosse@slu.se hanna.bergea@slu.se
started investigating the E in EC through a literature
review of how articles in the journal of Environmental
Communication analyse and discuss the role of
environment for environmental communication. This is a
project in progress, but we have now categorized the
papers published in this journal into 3 groups, in which
the environment in EC research is: 1. only the backdrop
(the communication that is studied, could just as well
have been about something else); 2. an important part of
the study, but not actively drawn upon in theory or
methods or analysis; 3. part of theory/methods/analysis. RENÉ VAN DER WAL DANIELA KREBER
rene.van.der.wal@slu.se daniela.kreber@slu.se

PAGE 35
THESIS IDEAS
This is a project in progress, but we have now
categorized the papers published in this journal into
3 groups, in which the environment in EC research
is: 1. only the backdrop (the communication that is
studied, could just as well have been about
something else); 2. an important part of the study,
but not actively drawn upon in theory or methods or
analysis; 3. part of theory/methods/analysis.

In the E in EC project we will now focus on the

category of papers in which the environment in EC
research is part of the theory, method, and/or
analysis. It is still a broad category, with a lot of
new and developing research approaches, from
poetry/art-based approaches, to rich case studies
with much detail about the environment, and
conceptual work, e.g., that critiques the
human/nature dichotomy.

You are welcome to join us in our project! We are

looking for, ideally, a group of students (2-5)
interested in exploring this latter category of the E
in EC conceptually, empirically and experimentally
with us, and the larger Mistra Environmental
Communication program that this initiative is part
of.

PAGE 36
 COMMUNICATION IN
ENVIRONMENTAL
COMMUNICATION
A sister project to the E in EC

What does “communication” in environmental communication

mean? In the Journal of Environmental Communication – the
flagship journal of the field - the majority of the articles view
communication from an instrumental perspective – as a
purposeful activity to impact people's understanding through
e.g., information, mobilization, deliberation, persuasion, and
learning for (collective) action and change. The research
programme Mistra Environmental Communication is informed
by this instrumental approach, but simultaneously views
communication as a much broader, constantly ongoing,
constitutive meaning-making process that shapes people’s
understanding of socio-environmental reality. The programme EVA FRIMAN ROBERT ÖSTERBERGH
also highlights several other perspectives on communication eva.friman@uu.se robert.österbergh@slu.se
that are usually not in focus in the Journal of Environmental
Communication. A first example is that we consider
environmental communication as a field of discursive struggle
in which sustainability is a central, yet contested concept.
Another example is that we consider power and conflict
inherent to environmental communication. In total five key
principles guide the work in the programme, and the
programme has as its aim to get more EC researchers and
practitioners to work with an understanding of environmental SOFIE JOOSSE
communication based on these five principles. sofie.joosse@slu.se

PAGE 37
THESIS IDEAS
In relation to this we have two sets of questions. A
first one is oriented towards the programme itself:
what does it really entail for research to work with
these principles; and, with so many different
researchers and disciplines, how are the principles
used and operationalised in the research across the
programme?

A second one is oriented outwards, to the field of

communication studies – a broad field addressing
topics from face-to-face conversation to social and
cultural communication systems at macro level: how
do the key principles relate to work done in
communication studies? What can we learn from
communication studies; and what can we contribute?

In this project we welcome conceptual, empirical and

experimental explorations related to these questions.

PAGE 38
 ENVIRONMENTAL
COMMUNICATION IN (SOCIAL)
MEDIA AND THE ARTS
How do we reframe environmental communication in a way that can
foster sustainability transformations?

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND

We invite Master’s students to contribute to research on

how ’alternative’ arenas for communication, beyond
institutions and experts, engage in discursive struggles
over what legitimate environmental problems are and
how they should be addressed. In our current research,
we are interested in the roles of platforms, algorithms,
users, or interactions, seeking to understand how
humans, nature, technology, and platforms are
entangled and how they constitute and influence each
SOFIE JOOSSE MALTE RÖDL
other.
sofie.joosse@slu.se malte.rodl@slu.se

Our first project looks at this through visual

representations of nature experiences on the internet,
using selfies taken outdoors; we hope to expand our
work towards the role of search engines in
communicating and making sense of nature, the
environment, and their crises or denial. We also seek to
interrogate the relationships between artists and
environmental communication, using both artworks as
well as artistic practice. Specifically, we organise and
enable a series of conversations where artists and
people in the artistic sector bring both topics and HANNA BERGEÅ
specific examples along, after which we discuss these hanna.bergea@slu.se
interrelations.

PAGE 39
THESIS IDEAS
(1) Any research on/within alternative genres or
locations of communication about the
environment, including but not limited to arts,
literature, music, pop culture, comedy, caricatures,
or folklore on the one hand, and online platforms,
blogs, social media, or search engines on the other
hand.

(2) The role of arts in general or artworks in

specific to communicate, contest, or reframe the
environment or environmental issues. This could
include interviews, document analysis, observations,
or similar, and might relate to specific artists,
artistic genres, exhibitions, or individual pieces of
art.

(3) Meaning-making of the environment and

environmental issues on social media, including
for example protests, commentary, satire, or
reviews. This could include commercial as well as
non-commercial actors and might be related to
specific platforms, users, sites, feeds, groups, search
terms, hashtags, or similar.

(4) The role of search engines and digital

infrastructure in shaping meanings and agendas on
the environment. This could include ethnographic
fieldwork, experimentation, interviews, and might
for example look at the use and/or impact of specific
affordances of platforms (e.g. a share button, sad
emoji, autosuggested search terms, automatic
highlights, ordering of search results) in relation to
specific topic areas, such as climate change, carbon
emissions, deforestation, or biodiversity.

A horse drawn procession with ‘Heralds’ wearing living grass coats grown by
visual artists Ackroyd & Harvey. Photograph by The Lightscaper Photography

PAGE 40
 NEXT STEPS...
See anything you like? In the coming weeks you will get the opportunity to reflect on your
own research interests and how these might intersect with our on-going projects. Feel free to
reach out to the researcher(s) whom you share interests with.

• You will be asked to submit a first idea for your thesis. This is not a final decision but the
start of a process – you have time to change, tweak and discuss around proposed ideas.

• In this text you can specify in greater detail (in a few added sentences, or 1-2 paragraphs)
your interests and how they relate to the proposed topics. If you indicate several topics,
please rank them in order of preference.

• Based on your interests and researcher availability, you will be matched with a supervisor
to start discussing the next steps with.

Good luck with your Master's thesis on b ehalf of the

EC division!

PAGE 41