Anna Maria Jönsson

Tabloid journalism and the public sphere: a historical perspective on tabloid journalism

Tabloid journalism is generally considered to be synonymous with bad journalism. This assessment of tabloid journalism is not very productive from a social scientific point of view. The argument of this article is that the journalistic other of tabloid journalism has appeared throughout the history of journalism, and that elements and aspects of journalism defined as “bad” in its own time in many cases served the public good as well as, if not better than, journalism considered to be more respectable. Tabloid journalism achieves this by positioning itself, in different ways, as an alternative to the issues, forms and audiences of the journalistic mainstream—as an alternative public sphere. By tracking the development of tabloid journalism through history, we want to contribute to the reassessment and revision of the normative standards commonly used to assess journalism that is currently taking place within the field of journalism studies. We do this by first examining what is meant by an alternative public sphere and how it can be conceptualised, then by relating this to the historical development of tabloid journalism. The historical examples are used as a basis for reviewing and revising a key dimension of current criticisms of tabloid journalism.

USER-GENERATED CONTENT AND THE NEWS: Empowerment of citizens or interactive illusion?

The involvement of citizens in public life through the Internet, variously described by terms such as interactivity and user-generated content, is frequently held up as a democracy-enhancing development. However, these concepts say little about the exact nature and character of media–audience relations. We wish to introduce a more detailed taxonomy of user-generated content (UGC) that takes issues of power and influence into account. We examine the media–reader relationship (in online newspapers) by looking at (1) degree of participation and (2) type of content. We also suggest that it might be fruitful to think in terms of a political economy of UGC. Our results show that users are mostly empowered to create popular culture-oriented content and personal/everyday life-oriented content rather than news/informational content. Direct user involvement in news production is minimal. There is a clear political economy of UGC: UGC provision in mainstream media to a great extent addresses users-as-consumers and is part of a context of consumption.

Framing Environmental Risks in the Baltic Sea: A News Media Analysis

Scientific complexity and uncertainty is a key challenge for environmental risk governance and to understand how risks are framed and communicated is of utmost importance. The Baltic Sea ecosystem is stressed and exposed to different risks like eutrophication, overfishing, and hazardous chemicals. Based on an analysis of the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, this study discusses media representations of these risks. The results show that the reporting on the Baltic Sea has been fairly stable since the beginning of the 1990s. Many articles acknowledge several risks, but eutrophication receives the most attention and is also considered the biggest threat. Authorities, experts, organizations, and politicians are the dominating actors, while citizens and industry representatives are more or less invisible. Eutrophication is not framed in terms of uncertainty concerning the risk and consequences, but rather in terms of main causes.

Responsible procurement and complex product chains : the case of chemical risks in textiles

The objective of this study is to gain insights about the opportunities and challenges that private and public organisations face regarding the development of responsible procurement in a complex and uncertain issue. The paper focuses on chemicals in textiles, and uses a qualitative methodology with semi-structured interviews. Key elements of a pro-active, responsible procurement strategy are defined, including criteria such as using a preventive, systematic, responsive, integrative and reflective approach. The analysis includes the following topics: (1) priorities and knowledge; (2) communicative strategies; (3) policy instruments; (4) monitoring and trust in relation to suppliers. The results show a fairly modest level of organisational responsibility, although it is possible to observe an initial positive development.

Participatory Deliberation, Risk Governance and Management of the Marine Region in the European Union

Abstract In Europe, marine environmental risks are governed in a complex multi-level system. The role that the marine region could or should play as a level of risk governance has attracted growing attention of late. In this context, reference has been made to the regional sea as one level at which participatory processes in the future governing of European Unions (EU) marine environment and resources are required. The paper unfolds the particular challenges that one faces when trying to implement stakeholder and citizen participatory deliberation at marine region level. The EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive is highlighted as a key European environmental policy initiative and participatory deliberation at regional sea level is underlined as a requirement for the Directives successful implementation. The papers account of participatory deliberation is informed by perspectives of inclusive risk governance and reflexive governance. The discussion of the challenges draws on the distinction between horizontal and vertical risk governance. The papers main argument is that frequently encountered problems of participatory deliberation are exacerbated when deliberation is to be carried out at the regional sea level, i.e. at a large trans-boundary scale. These problems include the ‘inclusivity-effectiveness dilemma’, a fragmentation of participation efforts and a loose connection to actual decision-making.

Coping with Complexity in Baltic Sea Risk Governance: Introduction

Modern society is confronted with the grand challenge of coping with complex socio-environmental risks such as human-induced climate change and hazardous chemicals, typically characterized by scientific uncertainty, socio-political controversy, and ambiguity. This is true not least for the marine environment and for the Baltic Sea, one of the most polluted marine ecosystems in the world. This complexity may relate to multifaceted and uncertain sources and ecosystem responses, ambiguous and controversial scientific advice, or multi-level and multi-actor interactions and communication barriers. All in all, this challenges conventional risk assessment, risk management, and risk communication. Evidently, new strategies for coping with complexity seem to be a key prerequisite for sustainable governance of socio-ecological systems. The aim of this special issue is to describe and analyze the governance of complex socio-environmental risks with a focus on the Baltic Sea. Like the topic of interest, our approach is heterogeneous. The variability in topics and methodology of the individual articles are motivated by two underlying assumptions. First, we are convinced that methodologically pluralistic as well as inter- and trans-disciplinary approaches are required. This is linked to our second assumption that there are more profound differences between various risks than the conventional parameters (probability and harm) suggest, for example, the type and magnitude of impact, the degree of reversibility, and the form of complexity. Going back to Greek mythology, this can be exemplified with the risk and complexity connected with two well-known artifacts, the Sword of Damocles and Pandora’s Box. Clearly, the possible negative outcomes are quite extreme in both cases, but whereas Damocles’ dilemma can be relatively well captured by conventional risk assessment and management, the irreversibility in the case of Pandora’s Box requires new forms of analysis and governance, for example a precautionary approach. Although simplified, these cases are illustrative metaphors for two socio-environmental risks in the Baltic Sea, namely large-scale accidental oil spills and invasion of exotic species, respectively. Our point here is that governance of complex socio-environmental risk is context dependent and might require quite different approaches for various types of risks. The distinction between governing and governance may seem unproblematic, where the former primarily comprises command and control mechanisms and the latter a wide spectrum of actors influencing eventual outcomes. However, this distinction is quite complex, as leadership by governments may be required in order to structure participatory processes. For example, governmental organizations play leading roles in regulating marine transport and coordinating adaptation to climate change. Participatory processes and stakeholder involvement are on the other hand shown important for at least two reasons. First, knowledge not considered by science may fruitfully be brought into decision-making processes, as seen for example for time and place-bound fishermen’s knowledge on sizes and fluctuations of local fish stocks. Second, stakeholder participation in management processes may improve implementation by increasing legitimacy particularly when managing ambiguous risks. Risk management has traditionally been almost exclusively based on risk assessment in combination with economic implications. It is shown in this special issue that the relation between scientific knowledge and political decision-making is more complex than commonly thought. Ambiguity may be caused not only by stochastic components and knowledge gaps, but also by individual, social and contextual factors. It is clear that societies’ responses to various threats to the environment and to human health are not only based on tangible data on probabilities and level of harm, but also on how the risks are framed and communicated, how they relate to social and cultural norms and how the risks and effects are distributed among different groups of people. For example, risks related to consumption of fatty fish from the Baltic Sea with high concentrations of hazardous chemicals have to be balanced against positive health effect from eating fish and subjective values stemming from consumption of traditional food. In a rather different context, macro factors such as level of economic development and individual socio-economic status is shown to affect risk perceptions, and fertility rates in Russia seem to have been substantially affected by changes in how individuals have assessed future risks related to socio-economic conditions after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Complex risks and problems require a more sophisticated iterative approach to risk assessment and risk management than what traditional expert-driven approaches, often set out in policies, offer. This should naturally not be interpreted as an argument against science-based management. Science is central, but often needs to be complemented by academic perspectives from social sciences as well as the humanities. Furthermore, under scientific ignorance, science-based management fails and precautionary strategies, guiding the understanding of uncertainty, offer important complements. Likewise, aspects related to stakeholder participation, communication and increased involvement of civil society, and other concerned representatives all need to be addressed in many cases. We think that the improvement of risk governance in the Baltic Sea region requires moving from holistic perspectives and the formulation of an ecosystem-based approach in theory, to actual implementation in practice. There is a need to identify environmental risks, define appropriate levels of stakeholder involvement, assess needs for local knowledge, identify key actors and their respective interests, evaluate socio-economic impact and normative implications in particular problem areas in order to improve sector integration, and build a basis for a holistic, and often precautionary, ecosystem-based management approach.

Risk Communication and the Role of the Public: Towards Inclusive Environmental Governance of the Baltic Sea?

This chapter focuses on forms of and challenges for risk communication within regional environmental governance, based on an analysis of five environmental risks in the Baltic Sea – marine oil transportation, chemicals, overfishing, eutrophication and alien species. We address questions about how risks are framed and communicated and also analyse the role of communication in the governance process. Our main focus is on risk communication with the public (e.g. existing institutional arrangements and procedures of risk communication), but we also relate this analysis to discussions on communication with a broad range of actors and issues of stakeholder participation and communication. In the study we have identified some examples of relatively well-working risk communication with parts of the organised public in the Baltic Sea region (BSR), such as in fisheries or eutrophication, but also a number of different barriers and obstacles. Our key result from this study is that BSR consists of many national institutions for risk communication, but that there are hardly any centralised institutions for risk communication activities relating to environmental governance in the region. Another key conclusion is that public risk communication in this array of cross-national environmental risks is restricted mainly to (one-way) information. Against this backdrop and from our empirical and theoretical knowledge of risk communication and the role of the public, we finally suggest some ways for improvement.

How to achieve sustainable procurement for “peripheral” products with significant environmental impacts

Abstract Departing from previous theoretical and empirical studies on sustainable supply-chain management, we investigate organizational commitment (drivers and motivations) and capabilities (resources, structures, and policy instruments) in sustainable procurement of “noncore” products. By focusing on chemicals in textiles, the article explores the activities of differently sized organizations and discusses the potentials and limitations of sustainable procurement measures. The study is based on a qualitative and comparative approach, with empirical findings from 26 case studies of Swedish public and private procurement organizations. These organizations operate in the sectors of hotels/conference venues, transport, cinema, interior design, and hospitals/daycare. While this work demonstrates major challenges for buyers to take into account peripheral items in sustainable procurement, it also identifies constructive measures for moving forward. A general sustainability/environmental focus can, as an effect, spill over to areas perceived as peripheral.