In order to develop an ecologically sustainable society, we need to understand and critically discuss our own conceptions of nature (see Evernden, 1992). One way to approach the study of such conceptions is by looking at the culturally entrenched narratives—narratives shared by people within a cultural context—that we use when communicating about nature. Such narratives are used to make sense of the world (Jackson, 2002), especially when things happen that make us question the status quo, as is the case with global climate change.

In this article, we take a narrative approach to Swedish media texts regarding farming, forestry, and Sami[2] livelihoods—for example, reindeer herding and fishing. This approach highlights climate change through the lens of groups that depend upon nature in an explicit way for their livelihood. The main purpose of this work is to illuminate how a master narrative on climate change is shaped, activated, and put into practice in different ways in these different settings and contexts that each have their own specific goals. We call these adaptations of the master narrative conventionalized narratives, and these can be understood as versions or operationalizations of the master narrative that serve specific functions and goals. The complex interplay between different levels of narratives is exemplified and discussed, and some of the narrative dynamics that influence and shape collective representations of climate change are highlighted.

The research on media coverage of climate change has grown considerably during the last ten years and has developed into a separate field of research. The most common type of studies is case studies of media discourse in individual countries (see Schäfer & Schlichting, 2014, p. 155). Swedish national media discourses concerning climate change have been studied, for instance, by Stoehrel (2010), who finds and discusses such prominent themes as the relationship between developed and developing countries, consequences and measures of climate change, agricultural matters, climate change and nature, climate change skeptics, politics and law, and public opinion (p. 169).

Another example in a Swedish context is a study by Uggla (2008) about a climate campaign conducted by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency in 2002–2003 that involved newspaper advertisements, promotional films, advertising pillars, and leaflets. Uggla found that the campaign told a narrative on climate change that reduced the complexity of the problem and downplayed the issue of climate politics and climate change adaptation (pp. 730–731). Instead, the narrative focused on domestic climate mitigation activities on a personal level. However, this seemingly clear-cut narrative does in fact contain inconsistencies and ambivalence, and Uggla concludes that “climate change cannot easily be transformed into a single, coherent story” (p. 732).

Three prominent discourses on climate change in the Swedish agriculture press have been examined by Asplund, Hjerpe, and Wibeck (2013), including the contribution of agriculture to climate change, the impact of climate change on agriculture, and the impacts of climate policy on agriculture. The use of different metaphors has also been studied, and it has been found that war metaphors emphasize negative effects of climate change, such as damaged harvests and higher taxes, while gaming metaphors instead emphasize positive effects, such as higher yields and higher incomes (Asplund, 2011).

The idea of nature has changed over time, and modern western understandings tend to posit humans as apart from nature, which in turn is viewed as a machine ruled by natural laws and without its own agency (Evernden, 1992; Oelschlaeger, 1991). Current research, for example, within the field of environmental humanities, exposes the obsolescence of this nature/culture dichotomy and emphasizes the need to investigate environmental issues in relation to human practices, representations, and behaviors (Nye, Rugg, Fleming, & Emmet, 2013). In line with this approach, the focus of this article is on nature as a discursive construct and on the way that nature is articulated in narratives.

Relationships to the land have been observed in a Sami context by Rydberg (2011), whose work shows how the landscape is linked to the identity of the Sami in Handölsdalen sameby, that is, the administrative unit for reindeer herding in Handölsdalen. Elsewhere, the implications of resource exploitation on the traditional land of local people have been studied, and it has been shown, for instance, how globalization can foster conflicts between indigenous groups and international commercial interests (e.g., Tsing, 2005).

The field of environmental humanities strives to bring “questions of meaning, value, ethics, justice, and the politics of knowledge production” into environmental domains (Rose et al., 2012, p. 2). The field composes a “space of simultaneous critique and action,” that is, an “‘unsettling of dominant narratives” (Rose et al., 2012, p. 3) along with the application of knowledge for shaping better possibilities in these challenging times (see also Hutchings, 2014, p. 213). The present article, by seeking to expose narratives as modes of shaping, maintaining, and questioning representations about climate change and, therefore, about the environment, is a contribution to this critical perspective and, hopefully, a contribution to applicable knowledge about the effects of representations on action.

This study is part of a project that investigates how reindeer herders and farmers and foresters in northern Sweden construct their understanding of their relationship with nature in narratives. The broader project focuses on groups with divergent relationships to nature, and on the implications of the narratives for these communities.

The agriculture industry in Sweden employs more than 170,000 people (Jordbruksverket), and milk, beef, pork, and poultry are the main products. The forest industry provides direct employment to almost 60,000 people in Sweden, and forestry products are heavily export oriented (Swedish Forest Industries, 2013).

The Sami population, estimated to be about 80,000 to 95,000 individuals, is spread across Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia in urban areas as well as in the traditional Sápmi area. In Sweden, reindeer herding is regulated by the Reindeer Husbandry Act, and this law gives the right to herd reindeer exclusively to the Sami population. The exercise of that right requires that the herder is a member of a sameby, an economic form of cooperation within a specific geographical area. Of all the Sami in Sweden, only about 10% are members of a Sami village and are reindeer herders. Reindeer herding, along with fishing, handicrafts, and, more recently, tourism, are livelihoods that embed traditional Sami knowledge and modes of land use. As such, reindeer herding is a right, a way of life, and a traditional practice (Nordin, 2007) rather than an industry.

The empirical data cover the period from January 1, 2011 to February 24, 2014 and include texts containing the search string klimatförändring* [“climate change” and its inflected forms]. The data comprise two corpuses: the Farmers’ and Foresters’ Press (FFP) corpus with 77 texts, and the Sami News (SN) corpus with 52 texts. This time period was chosen based on convenience in relation to our research project, and coincides with the publication of a report from the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). Another factor of relevance was that the previous fall had been unusually mild, and consequently actualized narratives about climate change.

The FFP corpus contains texts from the magazines Land Lantbruk and Skogsland, which are leading Swedish trade publications covering farming and forestry, respectively, published weekly by LRF Media, a subsidiary of Lantbrukarnas Riksförbund (LRF). They contain chronicles, opinion articles, editorials, feature articles (on individual farmers, etc.), reports from meetings and conferences, and reports on new research, and they aim to provide the latest news for active farmers and foresters (Land Lantbruk & Skogsland, 2014).[3]

The SN corpus contains texts from the website of Sameradion [The Sami Radio], which is a separate channel of the National Swedish Radio. It is the main source of news in Sweden that covers the geographical Sami area (Sápmi) and topics of relevance for the Sami population. The mission of Sameradion is, as can be read on their website under the heading Sameradion och SVT Sápmi för Samefolket [Sami Radio and SVT Sápmi for the Sami People] (Sameradion, 2014b), to offer news, culture, sports, entertainment, discussion, and so forth, related to Sápmi and its inhabitants. News reports and commentaries broadcast on Sameradion radio are published as texts or transcriptions on the website. The production consists, therefore, of text-based articles to a greater extent than audio files.

The primary aim of this study is not to compare the media sources, but to gain insights into the narrative constructions of climate change in a variety of contexts where there is a direct link between nature and livelihood. However, the Sami are a national minority in Sweden and have been exposed to historical colonial injustices and there are special legal rights and limitations that control traditional Sami livelihoods—for example, reindeer herding, hunting, and fishing. This creates a situation where the Sami material needs, in many ways, to be understood against a different backdrop than the rest of the data, and therefore this material is comprised in a separate corpus, the SN corpus.

Through a close reading of the texts in chronological order, we identified what actors appeared in each text. Each corpus was read through anew, and sorted according to the role given to these actors in relation to nature, the environment, and other actors. As a result, we could identify a number of narrative patterns. Through the whole process, we worked in parallel with each corpus. In this study, we take a broad approach to climate narratives in a selection of media sources, and the texts in the corpus were not classified into or analyzed with respect to different genres.

The remainder of this article is structured in the following way. After this presentation of the contexts, data, and methods, we will present our analytical framework, which focuses on master narratives and the concept of conventionalized narratives, a concept introduced in this article. We then illustrate possible conventionalized narratives in the two corpuses, followed by a discussion of the interplay between narrative levels by closely examining the themes of conflicting narratives and struggle and competition. The article ends with a concluding section in which the main findings of the analysis are highlighted and further discussed.

In line with Bamberg (2005), we understand the concept of master narratives as collective cultural understandings or, as Hammack (2011a) defines the concept, “interpretations of historical events and collective experience” (p. 16; see also Mishler, 1995). Such master narratives are usually not realized linguistically as single narrative structures, but are more often found as preconceptions underlying and influencing written and oral texts. Master narratives are central to social categorization, and group members integrate them into their personal narratives (Hammack, 2011b, p. 313), appropriating some aspects while repudiating others.

We take as a point of departure a mainstream understanding of climate change widely promoted by mass media and we suggest that this constitutes a dominant master narrative of climate change in the Swedish context that we are studying. This master narrative involves a human cause of the changes—primarily through emissions of so-called greenhouse gases—and that the changes will have consequences— predominantly negative—for humans. One important source of this narrative, which is often referenced in mass media, is the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and its reports. One example is the Synthesis Report: Summary for Policymakers (IPCC, 2014), which states that “Human influence on the climate system is clear, and recent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are the highest in history. Recent climate changes have had widespread impacts on human and natural systems” (p. 2).

Although counter narratives (see Bamberg, 2004) are found within certain groups—for example, so-called climate skeptics who reject the whole idea of man-made causes of climate change—it is our assessment that the master narrative formulated above is a dominant master narrative in Sweden, against which other narrative levels need to be formulated and understood.

The analysis of the corpuses reveals that this master narrative is implemented in different ways. It is these operationalizations of the master narrative, here termed conventionalized narratives, that are the focus of our study. The approach is similar to Pruit’s (2012) study of the interplay between two dichotomous big narratives on human progress: one utopian and one dystopian. Pruit shows, through analysis of blogs, that these big stories, in the narrative environment of peak oil, are further divided into little stories that fill in the gaps between these two binary positions. Pruit’s big story of human progress is highly polarized and the little stories discussed in the article, although they nuance the two binary positions, are placed in a continuum between them. What we call conventionalized narratives are instead, for the most part, compliant with a single master narrative. In conventionalized narratives, certain parts of the master narrative are muted or highlighted, and different actors are given different roles. This approach also has similarities with Loseke's (2007) study of narrative identity, and the interplay between the cultural, institutional, organizational, and personal levels. Loseke illustrates the importance of analyzing relationships between different narrative levels, and at the same time highlights the difficulties involved in separating them.

The culturally entrenched narratives we are studying are, in various degrees, dominant within certain domains and they articulate various approaches to the master narrative. While master narratives are global to a great extent, conventionalized narratives are closely connected to specific cultural and social contexts and express possible ways of understanding external events, such as climate change in this case.

Another important aspect of the variation of the master narrative in conventionalized narratives is the level of agency the different actors are given. The concept of agency provides a fruitful angle of approach for analyzing narratives (Labov, 2001), and the concept is understood here as the capacity and/or obligation to act. The object under study in this article, however, is the representation of participants and agency, that is, how agency is construed in narratives (Bamberg, 2005). Nature can, for instance, become an actor with human-like intentions or a victim or a non-place—that is, a place whose identity and history is disregarded (Augé, 2009; Cocq, 2014).

In the following sections, different conventionalized climate narratives in the data will be suggested, starting with the FFP corpus and followed by the SN corpus.[4] The description focuses on the most prominent narratives in the respective corpus. After this description, the interplay between different conventionalized narratives and between different narrative levels is illustrated through the analysis of conflicting narratives in the FFP corpus and the theme of struggle and competition in the SN corpus.

Some of the conventionalized narratives in the FFP corpus seem to be in conflict with each other: for example, where the foresters or farmers are victims of climate change and where they are positively affected by climate change. Here we will investigate another apparent conflict, namely between the one where farmers are victims and the one where they are seen as part of the cause of climate change, hereafter referred to as the farmers-as-victims/perpetrators narrative.

This conflict is centered around farmers being passive and active, patients and agents. The farmers-as-victims narrative (legion in the FFP corpus) positions the farmers in a passive position vis-à-vis climate change and its effects. In those cases where the narrative is supplemented with suggested courses of action, the farmers in some cases regain initiative and agency—although in many of the examples, agency is handed over to politicians and administrative bodies. The position as one of the causes of climate change is, on the contrary, active, and in some ways expresses agency. This conflict is also a matter of responsibility and morality. As victims, farmers cannot be subjected to criticism and demands that they should change what they are doing; being an actor with agency, on the other hand, demands responsibility.

How then is the farmers-as-perpetrators narrative invoked and articulated in the texts? As pointed out earlier, this narrative is less common than the farmers-as-victims narrative, perhaps because trade publications like Land Lantbruk might avoid criticizing their primary audiences—that is, farmers. In addition, in several of the cases where the farmers-as-perpetrators narrative is found it is articulated as a more or less implicit accusation, and the focus is either on the response to such an accusation or on measures said to reduce the effects of agriculture on the climate.

One example that illustrates this is a text in which a food company with an ecological profile introduces a system where suppliers—that is, farmers—receive extra payment for their grain if they perform certain environmental actions that are focused “primarily on addressing climate change” (Land Lantbruk & Skogsland, 2012c). Here the farmers-as-perpetrators narrative, where grain growers have a negative impact on the climate, motivates the reward system implemented by the food company. An underlying narrative where farmers contribute to climate change legitimizes the implementation of a system that rewards those who reduce their climate impact.

A similar example is an article that describes a discussion of the EU's agriculture policy, a discussion that is said to center around “environmental programs that decelerate (lit. ‘break’) climate change” and that aims at so-called “climate measures” (Land Lantbruk & Skogsland, 2012a). Of course, the need to implement climate measures implies a negative impact on the climate to begin with. In the text, the measures themselves are said to potentially “decelerate” climate change—that is, not stop or reverse it, but cause it to slow down—which adds a notion of inevitability to the process of climate change.

Here we also want to mention the expression “climate compensation,”[6] that is used, for example, to describe a dairy company’s planting of trees in Mozambique (Land Lantbruk & Skogsland, 2012e). The wording itself refers to the farmers-as-perpetrators narrative because compensation is something that is done or needed in relation to previous negative actions—in this case, contributing to climate change.

It is particularly difficult for meat-producing farmers to come across as environmentally friendly because besides the conventionalized narrative that posits farmers as causing climate change the meat industry has often been singled out as especially responsible for CO ₂ emissions. There are few examples in the FFP corpus where the meat industry is in focus, but we want to highlight one of them in more detail, where it is argued that meat production has the potential to “become Earth's salvation.” This is a challenging position, indeed, given the just- mentioned conceptions of the relationship between meat production and CO ₂ emissions. The text argues against—and in that process also illustrates—these conceptions.

The author of the text in question, who is referred to as an “editorial writer/opinion editor” on the journal’s website, begins the article by commenting on a new report from the UN’s IPCC: “And as usual, when the climate issue is debated, voices are raised for decreasing meat-eating.” This is followed by a quotation from Professor Filip Johnsson of Chalmers University who says we have to get used to eating less meat in the future than we do today. “It's really strange,” the author continues, “that the engineers have been allowed to set the agenda for the Swedish climate debate. But there are dissenting voices, at least outside the borders of our country.” The author then refers to the biologist Allan Savory, who developed the method of “holistic care and planned grazing” that is said to be able to stop desertification and to bind carbon and methane into the ground—all through animal husbandry. A Swedish attempt to apply this method is given attention in the article, and this is followed by a final comment tied to a forthcoming Swedish visit by Allan Savory: “Perhaps the visit can attract attention and move the Swedish climate debate in a new direction. At least one can hope so” (Land Lantbruk & Skogsland, 2013g).

The farmers-as-perpetrators narrative is referred to both at the opening and closing of the article, and with a high degree of distrust in the writer’s tone, the agenda of this debate is attributed to “the engineers”—perhaps including researchers and other representatives of academia. The article can be seen as an attempt to chip away at this narrative by suggesting a completely opposite one, in which animal husbandry can be viewed as having positive climate effects.

There seems to exist a need to resolve the tension between these two somewhat conflicting narratives: that is, the one where farmers are victims and where they are perpetrators. Looking at a single text where both narratives are found gives some insights into this process. The article entitled “Farmers Are Hit First” gives voice to the LRF’s climate expert, who participates in the UN’s International Climate Conference of the Parties as part of the World Farmers’ Organization. When asked what their line of argument is, she replies:

Agriculture continues to be part of the solution and the problem. Farmers are often the first affected by the effects of climate change. Initiatives in investment, education, consulting, research, and new technology must be made for agriculture to meet the climate challenge at the same time as more mouths need to be fed. Agriculture’s full potential must be utilized, and when it comes to steps to take, resource efficiency measures are the single most important ones. At the same time, the level of knowledge needs to be raised regarding the fact that agriculture will always emit greenhouse gases because there are biological processes that are essential for us having something to eat. (Land Lantbruk & Skogsland, 2012f)

In the first sentence of the quotation, a narrative about agriculture as a perpetrator and climate saviour is evoked. These two conflicting narratives come together, thanks to the highlighting of agriculture’s importance for food production together with the promise that the development of agriculture—for example, through the use of new technologies—means that the industry is up to the “the climate challenge.” By referring to “biological processes,” the climate-changing activities of agriculture are framed as something natural. The dominant discourse of the farmers-as-victims narrative is also brought into the reasoning by mentioning that farmers are often the first to be affected by climate change—but this narrative does not play any real role in the arguments.

On several occasions, the farmers-as-perpetrators narrative is tied to the idea that Swedish agriculture is more environmentally friendly than agriculture in other countries. As a result, production in Sweden can be described as environmentally friendly—at least in a global comparison. This line of arguing is here exemplified in one text from the FFP corpus where a representative of the LRF describes a new report on Swedish agricultural developments (Land Lantbruk & Skogsland, 2012d). Swedish agriculture is said to be among the best in the world[7] in terms of a variety of factors affecting the environment (although several further improvements—for example, methane reduction—are suggested), and imports of food to Sweden from other parts of the world are said to result in “the export of environmental impact.” Impacts, especially negative impacts, on the climate are brought together with other environmental impacts, such as the leaching of nutrients from the soil from agricultural practices, and the conclusion is that investments should be made in Swedish agriculture.

In another article, a representative of an organization that, among other things, stands for labeling meat as “climate-certified,” concludes: “We are good at producing climate effectively here in Sweden, and this is an added value that we should be better at communicating, both in Sweden and abroad” (Land Lantbruk & Skogsland, 2012b). By raising the issue to a global level, Swedish agriculture can be characterized as an activity with positive effects on the climate.

This form of narrative strategy—that is, to raise a local issue to a global level—is also used in the narratives identified in the SN corpus. This occurs in texts that draw parallels between the Sami and other indigenous peoples in the world, and it creates a discourse of solidarity and responsibility towards each other, as well as towards global problems such as drought and famine. Thus, the Sami as an indigenous people are defined as being in an essential position when it comes to dealing and coping with climate change, or even as a solution to climate change as seen in an article about the benefits of pastoralism. The effects of climate change in Sápmi and the Sami livelihoods gain authority and significance when set in relation to a global level—for instance, when reindeer herders are given the role of problem solvers in the struggle against global warming.

This study contributes to a deeper understanding of a set of narrative strategies striving to make sense of the global, intangible and threatening phenomenon of climate change. As Olausson and Berglez (2014, p. 251) point out, issues of climate change exist in different media spheres—science, politics, economics, popular culture, law, and lifestyle —and these different spheres are related to one another in complex ways. This study shows that despite a master narrative about climate change that goes almost unchallenged, several conventionalized narratives work as operationalizations of the master narrative. These conventionalized narratives are closely tied to the cultural contexts, histories, and goals of different groups. Certain parts of the master narrative are highlighted and emphasized while others are hidden, and generic roles within the narrative are filled with different actors. Different conventionalized narratives create different understandings of what is really happening and why, and perhaps, most importantly, they support different courses of action. One example of this is the way in which the first part of the master narrative—which needs an actor whose actions cause climate change—is silenced; instead, focus is put on the second part of the narrative, in which a particular group is affected by climate change. By not recognizing who causes climate change—a category that most likely includes all humans— the conventionalized narrative can focus on affected groups and industries and argue for adaptation in order to increase—or at least not decrease— production, or to argue for economic subsidies.

The complex interplay between the master narrative and conventionalized narratives is shown, for example, through an analysis of the seemingly conflicting narratives of where farmers are perpetrators or victims. In this context, the local/global scale turns out to be of importance. By lifting the issue to a global level, Swedish farming can be understood as a positive force when it comes to climate change, because it positions food producers outside of Sweden as being less climate efficient.

The different narratives can be understood as layers of meaning that are in concordance and in conflict with each other (Shuman, 2012). The analysis of the SN corpus illustrates how narratives operate at several levels. At a local level, they are closely related to history and a specific cultural context, and globally, they are set in relation to other indigenous peoples. It is also clear in the corpus that narratives about climate change are not isolated from other narratives. A dominant narrative about how people in Sápmi are victims of a series of man-made causes—not the least the exploitation of resources—frames climate change as one of many factors that affect the population.

In both corpuses, the role of knowledge is enhanced for the understanding and awareness of climate change and how it must be adapted to. This valuation of knowledge is established through intertextual references and through the identification of “experts,” researchers as well as community members. Knowledge is described as something that gives agency, and thereby transforms, the one affected by climate change into the one who takes action.

The task of separating narrative levels from each other is indeed a challenging one, and the discussion will certainly continue on exactly what should be included in the different levels. We hope to have illustrated a narrative level—the level of conventionalized narrative—that on the whole is compliant with a master narrative, but that varies greatly in regard to different contexts and to different conditions and goals for different groups. And by doing this, we hope to have provided a tool to further explore the complexity of shared cultural narratives.