Abstracts Communications and the Arts

Strategical Communication; Reception analysis and sense-making within a focus group

by Hodzic Lejla Vehabovic

This study departs in a fictional climate change campaign, The Vitus Foundation, where the positive benefits of global warming is illuminated for the public. The project aims to investigate how the campaign is perceived and made sense of, based on conducted focus group interviews. The project entails qualitative interviews by Steinar Kvale and Svend Brinkmann’s methodological approach. Further on, a reception analysis within Kim Schrøder’s Multidimensional model is applied and connected to Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus and Theodore Schatzki’s practice theory. By applying these theorists, the analysis uncover the underlying social structures, which on a deeper level describes the processes of sensemaking from the informants in our focus group interview. Finally, the study concludes that three distinct discourses was found and a tendency of skepticism towards the campaign’s message. This tendency was caused by the conventional, negative discourses one finds within the climate debate. The study ultimately states that a positive reception is extremely difficult to obtain, if even possible. Improvements in the campaign could be a solution to this matter, by optimizing the campaign with a more neutral expression in the slogan. Advisors/Committee Members: Asmussen, Hans Christian (advisor).