Ympäristökeskustelun yhteiset arvot : diskurssianalyysi Enson ja  Greenpeacen ympäristökirjoituksista

Joutsenvirta, Maria

Ympäristökeskustelun yhteiset arvot : diskurssianalyysi Enson ja Greenpeacen ympäristökirjoituksista

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School of Business | Doctoral thesis (monograph) | Defence date: 2006-04-18

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Author

Joutsenvirta, Maria

Date

2006

Major/Subject

Markkinointi
Marketing

Language

fi

Pages

275 s.

Series

Acta Universitatis oeconomicae Helsingiensis. A, 273

Abstract

This study examines how businesses and environmental activists have debated about environmental matters. The focus of the empirical analysis is the Finnish debate about the use of forests. The study differs from earlier studies in which environmental disputes are seen as struggles between different subcultures and world-views. Drawing from a cultural approach this study is based on the assumption that despite the differences in interests and opinions the parties in the environmental debates share the same cultural reality and the same values existing in that reality. The study aims to discover how that reality manifests itself and influences the business-environmentalist debate. Culturally shared values of businesses and environmental activists are studied through discourses and subject positions. The study applies a discourse analytic approach that focuses attention on language use and its variation. The semiotic actant model of A.J.Greimas is used as a method of data analysis. The empirical data consists of environmental writings from the forest company Enso (nowadays Stora Enso) and the environmental organization Greenpeace during 1985-2001. The empirical analysis begins by identifying different 'types of talk' that Enso and Greenpeace have produced in their environmental writings. Two types of environmental talk are identified from Greenpeace's writings, principled talk and accusation talk, and three types of environmental talk from Enso's writings, defensive talk, change talk and competitive talk. The types of talk represent general argumentative construction of the writings and its variation. The central argument of the study deals with the shared cultural value base. When aiming at justifying their actions concerning the use of nature, the representatives of businesses and environmentalists have based their arguments on several culturally shared values and other premises. The four discourses that represent the shared value base are: the discourse of knowledge, the discourse of responsibility, the discourse of openness and the market discourse. Despite the structural continuum that certain cultural values seem to create the way the parties have stated their arguments about environmental protection has included situation specific variation and changes. Therefore, the study identifies subdiscourses that help to understand the different ways through which those cultural values have been produced and reproduced in various interactive and historical situations. The semiotic actant model helped to show, for example, the changes in many subject positions. The variation does not suggest sudden changes from one argumentative structure to another. Instead it has more to do with changes in certain discourses when one type of interactive situation is replaced by another. It also has to do with new elements entering in the discussion. Several findings of this study strengthen the earlier understanding of the environmental debates as disputes about expertise. The study also produces new information about the moral dimension of language use in the environmental debate and about corporate social responsibility.

Supervising professor

Uusitalo, Liisa, professor

Permanent link to this item

https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:952-488-013-X

Collections

[diss] Kauppakorkeakoulu / BIZ

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