Social mättnad, relationell hunger: strategisk kommunikation i förändring när matindustrin utmanas av folklig misstro

The purpose of the dissertation is to provide new knowledge on how strategic communication can be understood and practiced when companies and authorities are challenged by digitally organized citizens who mobilize dissatisfaction and question traditional experts. The dissertation is based on a relational perspective, which means interest in how different actors constitute themselves and relate to each other. The actors studied all have a common interest – food, how it is produced, distributed and consumed. The actors studied are an authority (The Swedish Food Agency), an industry organization (The Swedish Food Federation), a small number of producing food companies (ICA, Nestlé and Oatly) and a citizens' initiative on Facebook (Matfusket).
By bringing in theories from the field of social psychological, this study shows that concepts as social saturation and multi-being could be used in order to gain a better understanding of the communicative challenges of today. In the past, emotions have rarely been studied in strategic communication. This dissertation is a contribution to this potentially growing research topic.