Browsing by Author "Stolt, Miira"

While using fireworks is a common seasonal tradition in Finland, it is accompanied with serious risks, such as injuries and fires. Thus, in 2018 a citizens’ initiative Rajat räiskeelle aimed to prohibit most firework-types from consumers. Despite being rejected by the Parliament, the initiative sparked an official investigation on how to decrease firework-related harm in Finland. This thesis continues to focus on the public’s stance on fireworks by studying the current controversy of fireworks in Finland through (I) the issues that are perceived as the most prominent by those, who oppose fireworks in consumers’ use and (II) inspects different measures with which to address the raised concerns, with the goal of mitigating them. My first research question’s data comes from 11 Finnish online news articles’ comment sections, that I sourced with the search term “rajat räiskeelle”. With inductive thematic analysis on the comments against private firework use, emerging themes indicate the main issues associated with the practice of using fireworks. The second research question is answered with previous literature, research, and existing regulations. Pierce and Turner’s insights on environmental pollution control (1990) as well as Lascoumes and Le Galés’ research on policy instruments implementations effects in societies (2007) provide the theoretical framework that guides this research. I identified (1) community disruption, (2) health and safety concerns, (3) regulatory issues, (4) environmental concerns, and (5) negative effects on animals to be the most prominent themes for objecting to fireworks in consumer-use, with human-related issues in the centre of interest for Finns. From the studied mitigation measures of standards, taxes, prohibition, subsidies, education, and labels and symbols, the combination of standards and education in different forms appear to hold most potential in addressing harm from fireworks. This indicates that regulative instruments are not sufficient alone to prevent fireworks’ harm, but that non-regulative measures, like educational campaigns, are needed as well. My findings also indicate country-specific variations in the motivations for opposing fireworks among the public, as well as among the background reasons that prompt authorities to restrict citizens’ access to and use of fireworks. This suggests that a mix of characteristics, unique to Finland, should be considered when planning for a successful mitigation of harm from consumer-fireworks.