Kristy Beers Fägersten

Snuff Said! Conflicting Employee and Corporate Interests in the Pursuit of a Tobacco Client

This chapter presents an analysis of a thread of intranet postings from a Swedish web consultancy at the time of its pursuit of a tobacco company as a client. Prior to the data collection, the tobacco company was to launch a new brand of snus, or moist snuff, and invited online marketing proposals from various web consultancy firms. During the proposal writing process, the Creative Director from this study’s focus company, hereafter referred to as WEB, posted on the company-wide intranet a brief announcement of the proposal work along with a 25-question survey concerning the habits and preferences of snuff-using colleagues. It was via this post that other employees learned of the company’s intentions to pursue the tobacco company, hereafter referred to as SNUFF, as a client. While the original intranet post presenting the survey did not indicate or acknowledge any anticipation of conflict or debate, a number of employees immediately called into question, problematized or even vilified the pursuit of SNUFF as a potential client. Other employees posted in defense of WEB’s decision to submit a proposal, and in this way a specific conflict about the ethical issues of pursuing a tobacco company unfolded, and a general debate over corporate vision and goals as well as moral responsibilities emerged.

The use of English in the Swedish-language comic Rocky

The Swedish comic strip Rocky first appeared in 1998 in the national edition of Metro, a free newspaper distributed at points of public transportation, targeting morning commuters. Since this humble debut, Rocky has so far been published in a total of 17 collected volumes, been adapted for the stage, made into a documentary series of short films, and inspired a franchise of products such as t-shirts, skateboards, and calendars. Rocky is currently featured as the headlining comic strip of Sweden’s largest national newspaper, Dagens Nyheter, and has found distribution in Norway, Finland, Denmark, France, Italy, Slovenia and the United States. The strip’s writer, Martin Kellerman (born in 1973), has been awarded a number of prizes for Rocky, including the Urhunden award in 2000 from Serieframjandet (an association for the promotion and support of comic strips and artists) for his first published volume, Rocky I; the Bern’s Award in 2009 by Swedish PEN (an international association for Poets, Essayists and Novelists) for his contemporary depiction of Stockholm; and, most recently, the prestigious Bellman Award of 2010, an honorary distinction including a stipend awarded by the City of Stockholm.