| 1. |
- Abalo, Ernesto, 1982-, et al.
(författare)
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An environmental problem in the making : how media logic molds scientific uncertainty in the production of news about artificial turf in Sweden
- 2023
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Ingår i: Journal of Science Communication. - : SISSA Medialab. - 1824-2049. ; 22:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study aims to contribute knowledge about how an environmental issue is discursively forged notwithstanding the prevalence of significant scientific uncertainty. This is done by studying the production of news about artificial turf as a microplastic pollutant in Sweden. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 journalists and editors, public officials, politicians, industry representatives and experts, all involved in the issue of artificial turf. The study shows how media logic, among other factors, informs the interpretations of the uncertainties surrounding artificial turf as an environmental problem and concludes that the power of media logic needs to be considered also in the construction of other scientifically charged issues.
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| 2. |
- Abalo, Ernesto, 1982-
(författare)
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Between facts and ambiguity : Discourses on medical cannabis in Swedish newspapers
- 2021
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Ingår i: Nordic Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. - : Sage Publications. - 1455-0725 .- 1458-6126. ; 38:4, s. 345-360
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Aim: This study examines the discursive construction of medical cannabis in Swedish newspapers, with the aim of understanding how the news media recontextualise the medical potential of cannabis.Design: The study is centred on the concept of recontextualisation, which focuses on how discourses are reinterpreted and reshaped when moving from one context to another, with a special focus on recontextualisation in relation to the media. Methodologically, the study uses critical discourse analysis to qualitatively analyse 134 articles of different subgenres, published in four Swedish newspapers between 2015 and 2020.Results: The study shows that medical cannabis is constructed around myriad topics and contexts, ranging from news that focuses on the medical potential of cannabis to articles where medical cannabis is mentioned in passing and constructed in a more abstract form. The media have difficulties retaining a conceptual boundary between medical and recreational cannabis. Moreover, the study shows that the medical potential of cannabis is discursively constructed using three different discourses: patient discourse, strong science discourse, and weak science discourse.Conclusions: The study suggests that there is a widening of the debate on cannabis in the Swedish public sphere, giving more recognition to the potential medical use of cannabis. The media, however, show difficulties in refining discourses on medical cannabis, which results in an altering between constructions that are strongly connected to science, and those that are not.
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| 3. |
- Abalo, Ernesto, 1982-, et al.
(författare)
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Class struggle in the era of post-politics : Representing the Swedish port conflict in the news media
- 2021
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Ingår i: Nordicom Review. - : Walter de Gruyter. - 1403-1108 .- 2001-5119. ; 42:3, s. 20-34
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article addresses how class as a category of conflict and struggle is understood and shaped discursively in mainstream media today. We utilise a case study of how Swedish news media represents the long-lasting conflict in the Swedish labour market between the Swedish Dockworkers’ Union and the employer organisation, Sweden's Ports. Using critical discourse analysis, we show two ways in which class relations are recontextualised in three Swedish newspapers. One is through obscuring class and centring the conflict around business and nationalist discourses, which in the end legitimise a corporate perspective. The other, more marginalised, way is through the critique of class relations that appears in subjective discourse types. This handling of class, we argue, serves the reproduction of a post-political condition.
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| 4. |
- Abalo, Ernesto, 1982-, et al.
(författare)
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Fostering the truthful individual Communicating media literacy in the comic Bamse
- 2021
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Ingår i: Nordicom Review. - : Nordicom. - 1403-1108 .- 2001-5119. ; 42:1, s. 109-123
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study examines the construction of media literacy in a special issue on source criticism of the Swedish children's comic Bamse - Varldens Starkaste Bjorn [Bamse - The World's Strongest Bear]. This is done with the purpose of understanding what values, perspectives, and practices are promoted when media literacy is communicated via children's edutainment media. Using narrative and discourse analysis, we problematise how notions of truth (such as post-truth) guide much of the discourse on digital media in today's post-political society, and how that and individualisation shape notions of media literacy. This is visible in the analysed case in how source criticism is constructed in relation to notions of truth and falsehood, and as moral lessons aimed at the individual media user. We argue that such an individualised, decontextualised, and depoliticised take on media literacy is problematic and an expression of neoliberalism and a middle-class gaze.
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| 5. |
- Abalo, Ernesto, 1982-
(författare)
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Medielogik eller hållbar kommunikation? En intervjustudie om medieringen av konstgräs som miljöfråga
- 2020
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Rapport (refereegranskat)abstract
- Denna studie intresserar sig för förhållandet mellan medierna och andra intressenter i kommunikationen av miljön, och centrerar kring medieringen av mikroplastutsläpp från konstgräsplaner. Med hjälp av semistrukturerade intervjuer undersöks kommunikationsstrategierna hos centrala aktörer i medieringen av dessa miljöfrågor. Syftet är att bidra till teoretiseringen av hur kommunikationsstrategier och institutionella logiker hos olika intressenter möts och omförhandlas i den medierade kommunikationen om specifika miljöfrågor. Studien bygger på 14 intervjuer med totalt 15 journalister och redaktörer, myndighetsföreträdare, politiker, forskare och representanter för däckbranschen. En tematisk analys visar att konstgräsfrågan blir intressant för redaktioner på grund av konfliktytorna som kan exploateras i frågan, och osäkerheten som finns kring konstgräsets utsläpp av mikroplaster integreras i strategierna som styr det journalistiska hantverket. Studien visar också att kommunikationsstrategier som är i linje med den så kallade medielogiken möjliggör för intressenter att nå fram med sina perspektiv i medierna och vice versa. Detta mönster visar sig exempelvis i däckbranschens kommunikativa arbete i konstgräsfrågan. Studien visar också att Naturvårdsverket, som innehaft en nyckelroll i frågan om mikroplaster, har haft en ambivalent kommunikationsstrategi i denna fråga. Myndigheten både använder sig av och bortser från medielogiken. Studien diskuterar också riskerna med miljökommunikationens anpassning till medielogiken, där denna anpassning riskerar att bli ett problem ur ett hållbarhetsperspektiv.
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| 6. |
- Abalo, Ernesto, 1982-
(författare)
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With senior citizens in mind? Affordances and constraints in how Swedish government user interfaces offer different contact channels to its users
- 2023
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Ingår i: Communication Policy and Technology Section. - : IAMCR – International Association for Media and Communication Research. ; , s. 57-57
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- As one of the leading countries when it comes to the access and use of ICTs (OECD, 2018), Sweden has also been on the forefront of the digitalization of government services. The Agency for Digital government, has launched the principal of Digital First, which means that digital encounters should, when relevant, be prioritized in the interaction between government agencies and citizens (Agency for digital government, 2023). At the same time, research has shown a divide in the diffusion and use of ICTs in Sweden, where increased age plays a negative role for access and literacy (Olsson et al, 2019). Against this backdrop, it is therefore important that the praxis of Digital First, thus the increased digitalization of the encounter between government and citizen, is inclusive also for the less digital savvy citizens, as some groups of elderly. This, in order for digitalization to enable rather than restrict citizenship.The current study, which is part of a larger project on senior citizens’ encounter with the digital welfare system in Sweden, analyzes the affordances and constrains of government user interfaces. Using multimodal critical discourse analysis, the study focuses on how government agencies, through the semiotic elements of their online user interfaces, offer and limit engagement and interaction with citizens–both digitally and off-screen. Moreover, the analysis has the overall ambition to discern the explicit and latent characteristics that the user interfaces require the users to have. The user interfaces studied belong to the Swedish pensions agency, 1177 (the Swedish healthcare system’s official website), The municipality of Växjö, and the municipality of Älmhult.The study discusses the affordances and constraint of the user interfaces in relation to digital citizenship (Schou & Hjelholt, 2018), a figure that is discursively construed by policy and the user interfaces themselves, but that is also materialized by the new forms of governance in advanced capitalist societies, where the slimming of government passes tasks to the citizen. The study argues that the naturalization of digital citizenship risks making senior citizens, an already vulnerable group, even more vulnerable, as the user interfaces require a certain level of digital literacy. Therefore, light needs to be shed on how user interfaces meet the needs of different groups of citizens, which in turn requires more empirical research on the actual encounters between citizens and government user interfaces.
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