A conversation on milk : Exploring Swedish milk history on Arla's milk panels

Abstract: Sweden is one of the heaviest milk consuming countries in the world. The milk- and dairy ‘giant’ Arla, is the largest distributing company of milk- and dairy in Sweden. Since, 1975 Arla began to use the back of their own milk packages as a channel for advertisement, facts, and information. These milk panels have since, been distributed to generations of Swedes. In this thesis I explore the conversations Arla have been mediating through these panels and further how historical and contemporary debates have influenced and altered the conversations conveyed. Inspired by social semiotic theory, I approach the panels to analyse how language and societal debates changes have shaped discourses on the panels, but also how the panel's comments on and reshapes societal debates. The study has been confined study to five years, 1976, 1986, 1996, 2006 and 2016. In order to retrieve and analyse the empirical material I used discourse analysis (or as I prefer to call conversation analysis). The theoretical framework builds on ideas of modernisation using three key theories, Social semiotics, propaganda theory and also theories on nationalism. In the empirical findings of my study, I have distinguished key conversations which I think represent the material as well as societal and contemporary debates. The material shows that Arla on the on hand continue on a tradition of milk marketing in terms of subjects and themes appearing on the panels. On the other hand, Arla is also constantly reinventing themselves in their marketing adjusting to the debates and trends in society.