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Publications (10 of 67) Show all publications
Olausson, U. & Engström, A. (2025). ‘The road to the metaverse is not a straight one’: Social representations of virtual reality in the news media. Convergence. The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies
Open this publication in new window or tab >>‘The road to the metaverse is not a straight one’: Social representations of virtual reality in the news media
2025 (English)In: Convergence. The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, ISSN 1354-8565, E-ISSN 1748-7382Article in journal (Refereed) Epub ahead of print
Abstract [en]

The metaverse is considered by some to be the next big thing in the global economy. Despite technological progress and high expectations, scholars agree that a broader metaverse platform does not yet exist. Instead, it has been suggested that the metaverse exists mainly as an imaginary or a representation in various discursive contexts. However, studies that examine such representations are few, and the present study aims to – through the lens of social representation theory – critically explore how VR technology and the metaverse are discursively represented in Swedish news media. The analysis identifies three underlying themata: (a) The inevitability of technology, (b) The commodification of experience, and (c) The world of male pioneers. It is concluded that the news media?s representation of VR and the metaverse contributes greatly to maintaining the structural status quo. For traditional journalism to fulfill its democratic mission, a pervasive update of media logic is needed.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Sage Publications, 2025
Keywords
Critical media studies, digital media, discourse, metaverse, news journalism, social representation theory, tech industry power, tech journalism, VR, virtual reality
National Category
Other Social Sciences not elsewhere specified
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-67462 (URN)10.1177/13548565251325530 (DOI)2-s2.0-105000536674 (Scopus ID)HOA;;1946891 (Local ID)HOA;;1946891 (Archive number)HOA;;1946891 (OAI)
Funder
Forte, Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare, 2021-00660
Available from: 2025-03-24 Created: 2025-03-24 Last updated: 2025-04-15
Abalo, E. & Olausson, U. (2023). An environmental problem in the making: how media logic molds scientific uncertainty in the production of news about artificial turf in Sweden. Journal of Science Communication, 22(1)
Open this publication in new window or tab >>An environmental problem in the making: how media logic molds scientific uncertainty in the production of news about artificial turf in Sweden
2023 (English)In: Journal of Science Communication, E-ISSN 1824-2049, Vol. 22, no 1Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

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.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
SISSA Medialab, 2023
Keywords
Environmental communication; Representations of science and technology; Science and media
National Category
Media and Communications
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-59362 (URN)10.22323/2.22010201 (DOI)000920394900001 ()2-s2.0-85150825780 (Scopus ID)POA;;59362 (Local ID)POA;;59362 (Archive number)POA;;59362 (OAI)
Available from: 2023-01-11 Created: 2023-01-11 Last updated: 2025-02-07Bibliographically approved
Berglez, P. & Olausson, U. (2023). Climate irresponsibility on social media: A critical approach to “high-carbon visibility discourse”. Social Semiotics, 33(5), 1011-1025
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Climate irresponsibility on social media: A critical approach to “high-carbon visibility discourse”
2023 (English)In: Social Semiotics, ISSN 1035-0330, E-ISSN 1470-1219, Vol. 33, no 5, p. 1011-1025Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Human GHG emissions are entering networked everyday relations. On social media, users potentially "reveal" their carbon footprints when they post pictures of a beef-based dinner or intercontinental travel. As the increasing urgency of climate change coincides with people's increasingly online-oriented lifestyles, we suggest that social-media research should devote attention to the ways in which users overlook, hide, limit, or casually articulate their high-carbon oriented lifestyles in digital space. This would contribute important knowledge about the role of social-media communication concerning climate change as an individual responsibility, and requires a concentration on how status updates become loaded with ideological meaning (high-carbon visibility discourse). The purpose is to present a framework for critical analyses of visual disclosure of carbon footprints in social media use. Media theory, semiotics, network theory and critical theory are combined to theorize how users' activities on social media become high-carbon oriented; their promotion of a business-as-usual stance; and how this operates ideologically through reification, legitimation and unification.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Taylor & Francis, 2023
Keywords
Social media, visual social media, climate change visibility, climate shame, irresponsibility, critique of ideology
National Category
Media and Communications
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-54608 (URN)10.1080/10350330.2021.1976053 (DOI)000694744200001 ()2-s2.0-85114683776 (Scopus ID)HOA;;1593405 (Local ID)HOA;;1593405 (Archive number)HOA;;1593405 (OAI)
Funder
Swedish Research Council Formas, 2016-00570
Available from: 2021-09-13 Created: 2021-09-13 Last updated: 2025-02-07Bibliographically approved
Olausson, U. (2023). The ethics of sustainable communication: Overcoming the world of opposites. New York: Peter Lang Publishing Group
Open this publication in new window or tab >>The ethics of sustainable communication: Overcoming the world of opposites
2023 (English)Book (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

A well-functioning communication is a prerequisite for achieving sustainability. But how could this be accomplished in a world plagued by grave sustainability crises, where polarization proliferates and adds to a profound experience of fear and separation? To answer this critical question, an integrated ethical system that acknowledges all life as one is needed. The Ethics of Sustainable Communication elegantly interweaves theoretical and empirical knowledge from the social sciences with wisdom traditions from various parts of the world. This includes the world’s great religions, the knowledge of indigenous peoples, and the transcendent understanding of reality that artists of diverse kinds have always expressed. On this solid ground, the book argues for the necessity of a significant shift in human consciousness to achieve lasting sustainability. The book develops a communication ethics that aims at facilitating a genuine experience of the interconnectedness of all life through the expansion of trust. In a pioneering, intelligent, and eye-opening argument, including practical examples and advice, it demonstrates how the experience of separation in fact is a delusion. Our systems of thought and language have simply fettered us in a world of opposites – duality. The ethics helps us to overcome this illusory world, and when duality is dissolved, deep sustainability – caring for people, the Earth, and every lifeform – comes as an entirely effortless result.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
New York: Peter Lang Publishing Group, 2023. p. 112
Series
Global Crises and the Media ; 28
Keywords
Communication studies, Sustainability, Ethics
National Category
Media and Communication Studies Ethics
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-62213 (URN)10.3726/b20669 (DOI)9781433197321 (ISBN)9781433197291 (ISBN)9781433197307 (ISBN)9781433197314 (ISBN)
Available from: 2023-08-18 Created: 2023-08-18 Last updated: 2025-02-17Bibliographically approved
Lakew, Y. & Olausson, U. (2023). When We Don’t Want to Know More: Information Sufficiency and the Case of Swedish Flood Risks. Journal of International Crisis and Risk Communication Research, 6(1), 65-89
Open this publication in new window or tab >>When We Don’t Want to Know More: Information Sufficiency and the Case of Swedish Flood Risks
2023 (English)In: Journal of International Crisis and Risk Communication Research, ISSN 2576-0017, Vol. 6, no 1, p. 65-89Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

This study investigates the phenomenon of information (in)sufficiency in the context of flood risks. Individuals’ perception of how much risk information they need is a major trigger and driver of information-seeking behavior, and therefore it is an important part of creating effective preventive risk-communication campaigns. To understand factors that contribute to individuals’ sense of information (in)sufficiency, the roles played by prior experiences of floods and general risk sensitivity were analyzed using survey data from residents in flood-risk zones. The findings highlight that every third respondent reported a state of information sufficiency. Residents with prior experience evaluate their information sufficiency level based on their perception of consequences of future floods. But it is general risk sensitivity that best explains need for more information.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Nicholson School of Communication and Media, 2023
Keywords
information insufficiency, information need, risk perception, risk sensitivity
National Category
Media and Communication Studies
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-60331 (URN)2-s2.0-85153780058 (Scopus ID)POA;;878967 (Local ID)POA;;878967 (Archive number)POA;;878967 (OAI)
Available from: 2023-05-08 Created: 2023-05-08 Last updated: 2025-02-20Bibliographically approved
Olausson, U. (2022). Dualismens tyranni: nio etiska principer för hållbar kommunikation. Göteborg: Lassbo Förlag
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Dualismens tyranni: nio etiska principer för hållbar kommunikation
2022 (Swedish)Book (Other academic)
Abstract [sv]

Baksidestext: 

En fungerande kommunikation är grunden för att uppnå hållbarhet, såväl i våra nära relationer som professionellt och samhällsmässigt. Men hur skall detta ske i en tid då utmaningarna med ökad polarisering tar sig allt grövre uttryck?

Ulrika Olausson, professor i medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap, besvarar denna centrala fråga genom nio kommunikationsetiska principer som tillsammans syftar till en genuin upplevelse av allt livs sammanlänkning i Ett. I ett ögonöppnande och genomklokt resonemang, med många praktiska råd och exempel, visar hon hur upplevelsen av separation och polarisering i själva verket är en vanföreställning. Vårt tanke- och språksystem har helt enkelt fängslat oss i en värld av motsatser – dualism. De kommunikationsetiska principerna hjälper oss att överkomma världen av motsatser, och när dualismens tyranni upplösts blir hållbarhet – omsorgen om människorna, jorden och alla livsformer – ett naturligt resultat.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Göteborg: Lassbo Förlag, 2022. p. 200
National Category
Media and Communication Studies
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-56039 (URN)9789198719703 (ISBN)
Available from: 2022-03-15 Created: 2022-03-15 Last updated: 2025-02-17Bibliographically approved
Olausson, U. & Uggla, Y. (2021). Celebrities celebrifying nature: the discursive construction of the human-nature relationship in the ‘Nature Is Speaking’ campaign. Celebrity Studies, 12(3), 353-370
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Celebrities celebrifying nature: the discursive construction of the human-nature relationship in the ‘Nature Is Speaking’ campaign
2021 (English)In: Celebrity Studies, ISSN 1939-2397, E-ISSN 1939-2400, Vol. 12, no 3, p. 353-370Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

The nature conservation movement frequently relies on the lustre of celebrity personae to reach out with its message. As role models, celebrities exercise invisible power by representing certain norms and ideas while themselves being subordinate to social structures and discourses. Examining the case of Conservation International’s campaign, Nature Is Speaking, and guided by the methodological framework of multimodal critical discourse analysis, this study examines how celebrities, in alliance with the conservation movement, (re)produce certain ideas about nature and the human-nature relationship when discursively ‘celebrifying’ nature – turning nature into a ‘celebrity by association’ – by lending their celebrity properties to nature as represented in the campaign. The study identifies three ways of representing nature that the celebrification of nature produces in the campaign: nature as (1) eternal and magnificent, (2) caring and providing, and (3) mighty but delicate. Together these representations constitute a discourse that reproduces certain naturalised values and worldviews connected to the human-nature relationship. The paper concludes that the diversification of celebrity into new fields such as the natural is constitutive of the overall celebritisation of society, and it discusses the implications of the celebrification of nature in terms of reproduction of the human-nature dichotomy and obscuration of the structural aspects of environmental degradation.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Taylor & Francis, 2021
Keywords
Environmental communication, multimodal critical discourse analysis, celebrity, nature conservation, nature representations
National Category
Sociology (excluding Social Work, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology) Media and Communications
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-45127 (URN)10.1080/19392397.2019.1626749 (DOI)000681573200001 ()2-s2.0-85067580222 (Scopus ID)
Available from: 2019-06-26 Created: 2019-06-26 Last updated: 2025-01-31Bibliographically approved
Adjin-Tettey, T. D., Garman, A., Krüger, F., Olausson, U., Berglez, P., Tallert, L., . . . Fritzon, V. (2021). Towards sustainable journalism in sub-Saharan Africa: Policy brief. Kalmar: Fojo Media Institute
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Towards sustainable journalism in sub-Saharan Africa: Policy brief
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2021 (English)Report (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

In sub-Saharan Africa, Fojo Media Institute, Wits Journalism and four other organisations are jointly promoting independent journalism and protecting the space for civil society organisations and human rights defenders in the CHARM programme. Bringing together academics, media practitioners and researchers from four universities in South Africa and Sweden, the main objective of this policy brief is to introduce the concept of sustainable journalism, defining what the concept could entail in sub-Saharan Africa and investigating the implications for media development in this context. Stakeholder discussions on the subject matter were held with relevant media actors in four countries within sub-Saharan Africa. The findings, which provide clear policy recommendations, are shared in this report.  

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Kalmar: Fojo Media Institute, 2021. p. 36
National Category
Media and Communications
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-52988 (URN)978-91-89283-83-1 (ISBN)
Available from: 2021-06-09 Created: 2021-06-09 Last updated: 2025-02-07Bibliographically approved
Olausson, U. (2020). Making Sense of the Human-Nature Relationship: A Reception Study of the "Nature Is Speaking" Campaign on YouTube. Nature and Culture, 15(3), 272-295
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Making Sense of the Human-Nature Relationship: A Reception Study of the "Nature Is Speaking" Campaign on YouTube
2020 (English)In: Nature and Culture, ISSN 1558-6073, E-ISSN 1558-5468, Vol. 15, no 3, p. 272-295Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Gaining knowledge about laypeople's representations of nature is crucial to meeting the sustainability challenges ahead. However, the ways laypeople discursively construct nature in digital settings have received scant attention. Guided by Stuart Hall's theory of encoding/decoding and multimodal critical discourse analysis, this study aims to contribute knowledge about the ways laypeople construct the human-nature relationship on social media. This is accomplished through a reception study of YouTube users' discussions about two of the films in the campaign "Nature Is Speaking." The results show that the human- nature dichotomy largely prevails notwithstanding the pluralist nature of YouTube users' interpretations, but also indicate the (embryonic) potential of social media to open up for a politics revolving around new visions of the socio-environmental future.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Berghahn Journals, 2020
Keywords
cultural studies, ecoculture, encoding-decoding, environmental communication, meaning-making, multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA), post-politicization, social media
National Category
Media and Communications
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-51036 (URN)10.3167/nc.2020.150303 (DOI)000585167500003 ()
Available from: 2020-11-24 Created: 2020-11-24 Last updated: 2025-02-07Bibliographically approved
Berglez, P. & Olausson, U. (2019). Global journalism. In: Tim P. Vos & Folker Hanusch (Ed.), The international encyclopedia of journalism studies: . Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Global journalism
2019 (English)In: The international encyclopedia of journalism studies / [ed] Tim P. Vos & Folker Hanusch, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2019Chapter in book (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

Global journalism appears to become increasingly important in the field of journalism studies, however, there is no agreement about how it should be applied in research. This entry presents four perspectives: the global-mapping perspective, which is concerned with mapping and analyzing how journalism works in different parts of the world; the media-technology perspective, which focuses on the potential of cross-border media technology to facilitate the creation of a global public sphere; the ethics perspective, which deals with how journalism should approach other cultures in order to reduce the distance between "us" and "them" and minimize stereotypical depictions of the Other; and the discourse perspective, which associates global journalism with reporting that sheds light on the multitude of cross-border interdependencies between people, processes, and events. The entry also discusses the positions of "globalists" and "skeptics" in the media globalization debate and the role of journalism education in the development of global journalism.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2019
Series
The Wiley Blackwell-ICA international encyclopedias of communication
Keywords
global media, global public sphere, journalism, media globalization, transnational journalism, transnational media
National Category
Media and Communications
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-43772 (URN)10.1002/9781118841570.iejs0175 (DOI)9781118841679 (ISBN)9781118841570 (ISBN)
Available from: 2019-05-27 Created: 2019-05-27 Last updated: 2025-02-07Bibliographically approved
Organisations
Identifiers
ORCID iD: ORCID iD iconorcid.org/0000-0002-1011-7726

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