Browsing by Author "Lukkarinen, Vilja"

The aim of this study is to examine what kind of discourses can be found in the public expert debate in the news media and in the public lay discourse from the news media comment field regarding the Milk Myths campaign. Milk has a historically strong position in Finnish food culture, and because of this Milk Myths campaign has caused a stir. The theoretical framework of the dissertation is related to Finnish food culture, its tension and changes, food policy and food in media discussions. The topic is strongly connected to the Finnish food culture and its tensions. The changes and tensions in the food culture are notoriously discussed and may create confrontations between interlocutors. The research questions are: 1 What kind of discourses can be found in the expert speech related to Oatly’s Milk Myths campaign in the news media? 2 What kind of discourses can be found in the public debate about Oatly’s Milk Myths campaign? The material for the dissertation was three news articles and one news comment field based on Milk Myths campaign. The news articles were found in Helsingin Sanomat, Iltalehti and MTV. The comment field was related to Helsingin Sanomat’s news coverage Milk Myths campaign. The data was analyzed using discourse analysis. The discourses found in the news material were named health, environmental and economic discourses, as well as a discourse of confrontation. The discourses found in the public debate were named the discourses on the defense of milk and animal welfare, as well as the discourse on a boycott, the environment and Finnishness. In conclusion, the discourses found the research were tense both internally and with other discourses. The discourse was as polarized and dichotomous as the discourse found in previous studies regarding food wars.