Bloggar som informationskälla : om mat som miljöproblem

Abstract: This thesis focuses on how environmental information concerning food issues is situated and communicated on Swedish environmental blogs. Social media as a form of communication is a current society phenomenon and the Internet is a dominating source of information. A total of 11 Swedish environmental blogs were studied. Five of them function as main objects of information and the six remaining function as additional support sources. Selected blogs were studied through qualitative methods. We used three combined methods which were observations based on netnography, text analysis and structured asynchronous e-mail interviews. The sociocultural theory of human learning was used as a theoretical framework. A use of social media and blogs can be seen as a sociocultural practice in which users are taking part in a communicative interaction where people learn from each other. As another theoretical framework we used consumer culture theory, with focus on ethical consumption, as a way of understanding contemporary culture. We found that blogs emanate from a subjective point of view applied on one´s own family and domestic areas. Consumption and production were the dominating categories on the blogs. These were introduced as information about ethical consumption and a desire to teach others their skills. Concerning sources, the bloggers chose other blogs, social media and organisations with an environmental focus. Social media is often used as a source of information. Credibility and reliability determine the source to use and critical thinking of information from a blog is up to the reader. Social media, including blogs, are powerful sources of information which is problematic because it could be improperly used. Therefore, it is important to deal with critical source evaluation when blogs are used as information sources.