Browsing by Subject "narratiivianalyysi"

Tutkielmassa tarkastellaan henkilöautoja koskevaa kulutusta Suomessa vuosina 1980–2021 laadullisen tutkimuksen keinoin. Autokannan nuorentaminen, liikenteen sähköistäminen ja päästöjen leikkaaminen ovat ajankohtaisia diskursseja, joihin autoilijoita tarkasteleva kulutustutkimus voi tuoda täydentäviä näkökulmia. Tarkoituksena on ymmärtää yhteiskunnallisen muutoksen ja ihmisten elämänvaiheiden suhdetta autojen hankintaan sekä sitä, miten kuluttajat itse kuvaavat omaa toimintaansa. Tutkielman aineisto koostuu kymmenestä teemahaastattelusta. Haasteltavat ovat 28–65-vuotiaita naisia ja miehiä kaupunki- ja maaseututaustoista. Haastatteluissa henkilöt pohtivat autojen vaihtoon ja valintaan liittyneitä olosuhteita ja kokemuksia elämänsä varrelta. Aineisto on kertomuksellista luonteeltaan, ja narratiivianalyysin avulla aineistosta tarkastellaan erityisesti kertomusten rakentumista sekä kertojan omaa asennoitumista ja esitystapaa. Kertomuksista hahmottuu kaikkien ikäryhmien kohdalla kulutusasenteiden muutosta, joka on sidoksissa sosioekonomisen aseman kehitykseen, arvoihin, sosiaaliseen piiriin ja identiteettiin. Ydinnarratiiveiksi nousevat järjellisyys eli kulutuspäätösten esittäminen rationaalisina syy-seuraussuhteina, edistyksen viehätys eli uusimpaan teknologiaan keskittyvä kulutus sekä juurtuminen eli kulutuksen kohdistuminen tietyn aikakauden autoihin. Teknologisen uutuuden viehätys ja autojen kulutuksen lisääntyminen suhteessa vaurastumiseen on nähtävissä erityisesti 1980- ja 2000-luvuille sijoittuvissa kaupunkilaiskertomuksissa. Ympäristödiskurssi puolestaan alkoi vaikuttaa kertojien ostopäätöksiin ja kuluttajaidentiteetteihin selkeämmin vasta 2010-luvulla. Tulosten pohjalta on todettavissa, että teknologian viehätys, kehittyvä mukavuus sekä sosiaalinen hyväksyntä voivat olla voimakkaammin kulutusta ohjailevia tekijöitä kuin autokaupan poliittinen ja verollinen ohjailu. Kuluttajat siirtyvät elämänsä aikana eri kuluttajasegmentteihin, joilla on myös yleistettävissä olevia tarpeita ja ominaisuuksia, mutta elämänhistoria tuottaa yksilöllisiä ratkaisuja. Kuluttajien sosiaalisen ja paikallisen todellisuuden ymmärtämiseen tähtäävä tutkimus on suositeltavaa esimerkiksi verotuksellisia muutoksia pohdittaessa

This thesis examines just climate adaptation to climate change at the river Kokemäenjoki in Southwest Finland. Climate change will significantly change flood risks in Finland. Säpilänniemi adjustment stream is a flood risk management and climate change adaptation measure designed to mitigate flood risks in the area. The adjustment stream is expected to have effects on the flood risks of the entire river area. In particular, the adjustment stream is thought to be important in winter flood situations, which are increasing due to climate change. There are also some disadvantages associated with the planned adjustment stream such as the negative effects on a protected Natura2000-area upstream. The thesis is situated in the field of social scientific environmental research and delves into the themes of just climate policy. There is a great need for research that looks at just practices of climate change adaptation, because the challenges brought by climate change require significant adaptation measures. Adaptation measures are prone to an uneven distribution of harms and benefits, which is why the study of just adaptation is important. Adaptation planning opens up opportunities to reduce current vulnerabilities and promote just adaptation. Climate justice refers to the social and environmental effects on equality and justice that result from climate change or climate policy. In academic literature, climate justice is often understood as a combination of recognition, procedural and distributive justice. Climate justice opens possibilities to plan and examine just adaptation that takes unequally distributed justice effects into account. The research method used in this thesis is narrative analysis. Narrative analysis is a framework that can be used to study different groups' perceptions of the same events. The presupposition is that people build both events and relationships between things in speech and text in the form of narratives. Political processes and different policy practices can also follow the structure of a narrative. The data of the thesis consists of focus group interviews conducted in the fall of 2022 and the river Kokemäenjoki flood risk management plan for 2022-2027. The topic is approached through two research questions: i) What policy narratives emerge from the material? and ii) How is climate justice understood in the narratives? Three narratives were found from the data. The narrative of authorities is the narrative that dominates the data and defines the flood risk management and measures in the area. The narrative of the residents challenges the assumptions about management made in the authorities' narrative. The third narrative is the narrative of municipalities. The results of the study reveal that the case of Kokemäenjoki and Säpilänniemi adjustment stream have typical challenges of just adaptation. Narratives' understandings of climate-just flood risk management vary, and in particular procedural justice is perceived in different ways between the narratives. A climate just adaptation could be enhanced by strengthening participatory processes of flood risk management with the help of municipal actors in the case study area.

This thesis examines crisis communications at the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) during the intensified influx of asylum seekers in 2015-2016, which is commonly referred to as the ‘refugee crisis’. The study aims to uncover what kind of a self-narrative Migri constructed in its press releases about the refugee crisis and its own role as the government body in charge of crisis management. The work also examines how the organization’s crisis communications evolved during the crisis. The data consists of 98 press releases published between May 2015 and late December 2016. The data was analyzed through narrative theme analysis. The theoretical background is based on literature about crisis communications in the Finnish and Nordic government sector. Literature conceptualizing organizational crisis communications through theoretical frameworks was used to examine the temporal aspect of Migri’s crisis communications. The study identified five main narrative themes contributing to Migri’s self-narrative: efficiency, exceptionality, security, humanity and responsibility. All themes reinforced a self-narrative of a law-abiding and efficient, yet humane organization, which has successfully surmounted challenging circumstances. The narrative themes fortified either operational or strategic communication. The former refers to communication about the day-to-day management of the crisis, while the latter addresses legitimacy and organizational survival. Operational communication unitized themes of efficiency and exceptionality. Strategic communication appeared mostly in conjunction with themes of security, humanity and responsibility. Three temporal stages of crisis communication were identified; a pre-crisis stage, an active stage and a lingering stage. Early stages of the crisis focused on operational communication, while the active and lingering stages of the crises emphasized strategic communication. The prominence of strategic communication in the press releases suggests that maintaining a favorable organizational identity and ensuring legitimacy amid public scrutiny were some of the most important drivers for Migri’s crisis communications in the refugee crisis. Migri’s self-narrative negotiated organizational identity in relation to the surrounding society and took part in the narrative struggle about interpretations of the refugee crisis. The findings indicate that at the end of the studied period, Migri’s crisis communications had not returned to a ‘normal’ pre-crisis state, contrary to what theoretical crisis communication frameworks assume. Furthermore, crises in the government context can be understood as dynamic and complex processes. Crisis preparedness in the government sector could better consider the longevity and complexity of societal crises, especially since public organizations have an important responsibility in managing said predicaments.