This thesis consists of three essays in the field of information economics. The first essay studies manipulation of information by partisan media. The recent increase in partisan media has generated interest in what drives media outlets to become more partisan. I develop a model to study the role of diffusion of information by word of mouth. In the model, a media outlet designs an information policy, which specifies the level of partisan slant in the outlet’s news reports. The news spread via a communication chain in a population of agents with heterogeneous preferences. The slant has an impact on whether the agents find the news credible and on their incentives to pass the news to others. The analysis elucidates how partisanship of media can be driven by political polarisation of the public and by the tendency of people to interact with people with similar political views. The second essay, co-authored by Jakub Redlicki, investigates falsification of scientific evidence by interest groups. We analyse a game between a biased sender (an interest group) and a decision maker (a policy maker) where the former can falsify scientific evidence at a cost. The sender observes scientific evidence and knows that it will also be observed by the decision maker unless he falsifies it. If he falsifies, then there is a chance that the decision maker observes the falsified evidence rather than the true scientific evidence. First, we investigate the decision maker’s incentives to privately acquire independent evidence, which not only provides additional information to her but can also strengthen or weaken the sender’s falsification effort. Second, we analyse the decision maker’s incentives to acquire information from the sender. The third essay analyses competition between interest groups for access to a policy maker. I study a model of lobbying in which two privately-informed experts (e.g., interest groups) with opposite goals compete for the opportunity to communicate with a policy maker. The main objective is to analyse the benefits which competition for access brings to the policy maker as opposed to hiring an expert in advance. I show that competition for access is advantageous in that it provides the policy maker with some information about the expert who did not gain access and gives the experts an incentive to invest in their communication skills. On the other hand, hiring an expert in advance allows the policy maker to use a monetary reward to incentivise the expert to invest more in his communication skills.

The Swedish Armed Forces as a big public actor own different media channels and promote life as a soldier from different angles. They create marketing campaigns, which are available widely on YouTube or Facebook. The increased activity on social media platforms, especially Facebook, have created a field for research. There are multiple Facebook pages, from which one can acquire information regarding life at a given regiment. They can be divided into official and unofficial Facebook pages. The fascinating aspect of this division is how differently each of the Facebook pages approaches the audience and how differently they are shaping their strategic communication and reputation, despite owning officially issued guidelines on how the Swedish Armed Forces ought to be presented in the online world. Through multimodal analysis with a shift towards the systematic linguistic in the framework of Machin and Halliday, official Facebook page of Livgardet and unofficial Facebook page of 12:e motoriserade skyttebataljonen have been analyzed to see whether the messages that the Swedish Armed Forces are conveying are aligned. Adding netnography in the frame of Kozinets, the audience has been studied to inquire whether there is a different purpose of using the official and unofficial Facebook page.  The results of this study shows, that the unofficial Facebook page is coherent in a different way, they might not be following the strategic communication guidelines strictly, but they are coherent in their actions and posts, whereas the official Facebook page, which is strictly following the strategic communication guidelines and does not appear as coherent with their actions. At the same time, the audience is using the unofficial Facebook page reconnect with the memories they have from when they did their duty. On the other hand, the official Facebook page is used by the audience as a place to show their appreciation and pride in the Swedish Armed Forces.

nÃo hà / Em um mundo globalizado, onde as informaÃÃes fluem de maneira veloz, a comunicaÃÃo ocupa um papel fundamental em todos os tipos de organizaÃÃo, incluindo as InstituiÃÃes de Ensino Superior (IES). Contudo, para obter bons resultados, à fundamental nÃo apenas a existÃncia de um setor de comunicaÃÃo profissional, mas o envolvimento da administraÃÃo superior dessas instituiÃÃes na Ãrea. Os dirigentes devem autorizar a transformaÃÃo da comunicaÃÃo em um instrumento de qualificaÃÃo dos processos e da identidade organizacional, participando tambÃm desse processo A partir desse panorama e da constataÃÃo da pouca atenÃÃo dada ao comportamento dos gestores das IES em relaÃÃo à comunicaÃÃo na literatura acadÃmica, o objetivo deste trabalho à analisar o papel da comunicaÃÃo institucional na perspectiva dos integrantes da administraÃÃo superior da Universidade Federal do Cearà (UFC). A revisÃo teÃrica articulou conceitos relacionados à comunicaÃÃo integrada, à gestÃo da comunicaÃÃo, à comunicaÃÃo estratÃgica, entre outros. Para conseguir atingir o objetivo estabelecido, foram realizadas entrevistas semiestruturadas com integrantes da administraÃÃo superior da UFC. Utilizando uma abordagem qualitativa, os dados foram transcritos e analisados seguindo o mÃtodo de anÃlise de conteÃdo. Os resultados indicam que os gestores da UFC entrevistados reconhecem a comunicaÃÃo como algo fundamental no relacionamento com os diferentes stakeholders, com destaque especial para o pÃblico interno. Para eles, as aÃÃes de comunicaÃÃo sÃo instrumentos que auxiliam na prestaÃÃo de contas e na transparÃncia, permitindo que a sociedade saiba qual à o trabalho desenvolvido pela UFC. Mas apesar do reconhecimento da importÃncia, para a grande maioria dos gestores, a comunicaÃÃo ainda ocupa uma dimensÃo instrumental, mais relacionada ao seu papel de divulgadora das decisÃes tomadas. / In a globalized world, where information spreads fast, communication plays an important role in all kinds of organizations, including Higher Education Institutions (IES). However, in order to obtain good results, not only the existence of a professional communication sector, but also the involvement of the superior administration from these institutions with the area are fundamental. The leaders must authorize the transformation of communication into an instrument for the qualification of processes and also of organizational identity, also taking part in this process. Based on this panorama and on the observation that little attention is given to the behavior of the leaders of higher education institutions with relation to communication in the academic literature, the goal of this study is to analyze the role of institutional communication under the perspective of the senior management staff at the Federal University of Cearà (UFC). The theoretical review articulated concepts related to integrated communication, to communication management, to strategic communication, among others. In order to reach the established goal, semi-structured interviews with senior management members at UFC were accomplished. Making use of a qualitative approach, the data were transcribed and analyzed according to the method of content analysis. The results indicate that the UFC managers who were interviewed recognize communication as something fundamental in the relationship with different stakeholders, especially for the internal public. According to them, the communication actions are instruments that help in the legal reporting and in transparency, allowing society to know what the work developed by UFC is. But despite the acknowledgment of its importance, for the great majority of the leaders, communication still occupies an instrumental dimension, more related to its role of announcing the decisions made.

El proceso de formación de un gobierno –que, según algunos de los conceptos que se manejan sobre cohesión social, permitiría avanzar por la senda del progreso de la sociedad– carece de procesos articuladores que permitan su funcionamiento eficiente en la práctica. En ese sentido, se hace necesaria la creación de mecanismos que permitan el ejercicio comunicacional entre la población y sus instituciones públicas, de modo que la ejecución de proyectos se acerque al objetivo último que debería ser el bien común. Este trabajo propone un modelo que busca la efectividad comunicacional entre ciudadanía y organismos públicos, sobre la base de una conceptualización de la cohesión y articulación social desde una mirada comunicacional, considerando los aspectos, procesos y presunciones con los que actualmente actúan algunas instituciones públicas peruanas. Se plantea el concepto de desfragmentación organizacional, el cual contribuye a entender las brechas que alejan a la sociedad de la cohesión / The process of forming a government -which, according to some of the concepts that are handled on social cohesion, would advance along the path of progress of society- lacks articulators processes to function efficiently in practice. In that sense, is necessary the creation of mechanisms enabling the communication exercise between the population and public institutions, so that project implementation to the ultimate objective should be the common good approach. This paper proposes a model that seeks the communicational effectiveness between citizens and public institutions, based on a conceptualization of cohesion and social articulation from a communicational glance, considering the aspects, processes and assumptions with currently operating some Peruvian public institutions. The concept of organizational defragmentation arises, which helps to understand the gaps that keep society cohesion.

Denna studie undersöker hur kommunikatörer arbetar med strategisk kommunikation i Sveriges högsta ishockeyliga SHL. Uppsatsen är inriktad på sociala medier och hur kommunikatörerna arbetar med de möjligheter som detta medfört. Uppsatsen undersöker även vilken roll kommunikatören får i organisationen Vårt syfte är således att skapa en förståelse för kommunikatörens roll i organisationen och hur de genomför sitt arbete ur en strategisk synvinkel.           För att komma fram till ett resultat har vi använt oss av kvalitativa intervjuer med kommunikatörer anställda av de ishockeyklubbar som tillhörde SHL under säsongen 2016/2017. Gemensamt för respondenterna är att samtliga är ansvariga för respektive klubbs användning av sociala medier.          Resultatet visar att klubbarna arbetar med sociala medier strategiskt för att bygga sitt varumärke men att de övergripande kommunikationsmålen inte skiljer sig från andra kommunikationskanaler. Strategierna mellan de olika sociala medierna skiljde sig dock från varandra i arbetet med att nå olika målgrupper. Det finns en efterfrågan om att kunna ha fler anställda som jobbar med kommunikation. Det skulle ge möjligheten för kommunikatörerna att kunna fokusera på färre medier samtidigt vilket skulle resultera i bättre kommunikation och högre kvalitet på materialet som produceras. / This study examines how communication officers work with strategic communication within the highest tier of the Swedish ice hockey league (SHL). We look into the communicator’s role within the organization. This essay also focuses on social media and how the communicators work with the opportunities that social media brings to the clubs. The purpose of the essay is therefore to examine how the communicators work with strategic communication and to create an understanding of the communicator’s role within the organization.           To reach a result we conducted qualitative interviews with communicators who are employed by the different clubs that made up the SHL during the season 2016-2017.  All communicators who were interviewed all had in common that they were responsible for their clubs social media use.           Results show that the communicators work with social media strategically to improve their trademark. These strategies are divided between different social mediums to reach different target groups. Another finding showed that communicators expressed a desire to have more people employed working with communication. This would give the communicators the opportunity to focus on fewer mediums which would result in better communication and a higher quality of the material that is produced.

Organizations increasingly use communication as a strategic function to maneuver in a challenging, complex, and demanding social landscape. Based on assumptions of centralized control and planning, the strategic communication concept aims for coordination and consistency of communication. Implied is a view of actors as intentional, rational, and deliberate decision makers. Such a conventional view on strategic communication, however, cannot satisfactorily explain the underlying characteristics of communication practices in contemporary organizations. Nor does it explain how organizational members in their everyday work interpret and relate to such practices. This thesis adopts neo-institutional theory and the translation approach to study how strategic communication operates along an institutionalized recipe for communication that through various translations is reformulated to fit local organizational contexts and preferences of the people occupying these contexts. To illustrate the process of both following and adapting the institutionalized recipe of strategic communication, qualitative and quantitative material on the role of social media in sixteen Swedish universities are examined. The material is generated and gathered through an ethnographically inspired approach and includes: interviews, a six-month observation period, the study of documents, and a content analysis of Vice-Chancellor blogs. The findings show that work with social media is pervaded with inconsistencies and contradictions, but simultaneously relating to a shared recipe for communication. Shared elements for communication at the universities include the purposes for communication, notion of one university and integration. However, in translations people rely on local organizational conditions, personal values, ambitions, and experiences. This produces tensions between: control and independence, centralization and decentralization, and one voice and multiple voices. The findings suggest that translations differ across universities and between communicators on different levels, some being more “true” to the recipe than others. Thus, differences are inevitable, underscoring the issues of managing and controlling communication in the conventional approach of strategic communication. As a result, the empirical and theoretical concept of strategic communication benefits from acknowledging its social embeddedness and local recontextualization. Strategic communication is like dancing to music. Everyone hears the music, but the dance varies with each dancer ́s experiences, ambitions, and opportunities. / Strategiska universitet på kunskapens marknad?

The strategic conception of the communication is an approach in constant evolution, which according to the kind of organization acquires particular aspects. This research describes the communication management of 49 local governments in the Province of Lima and Callao in Peru, analyzed from the strategic communication perspective, starting with the analysis of the documents that establish their institutional policy and the appreciations from direct sources. The context is studied taking into account that these organizations, being public institutions, are subject to specific conditions, which define the communicative dimension supported by setting goals and objectives oriented to encourage good relationships with the diverse audience and with the vision of ensuring the transparency and the access to the information by all the citizens; in this context the organizational policies and guidelines, as well as the performance and responsibilities of the persons in charge of managing the communication areas, play a fundamental role, therefore considering the communication management from strategy requires a distinguishing approach which makes sure that the process develops efficiently. This study brings conclusions that help to understand the current situation and also to recognise opportunities of improvement in this specific scenario.

Social movements focusing on environmental issues experienced a renaissance in September 2018, and concurrently the environmentally focused social movement Extinction Rebellion was founded. Previous research reveals that social media has become an important tool for social movements for both mobilising and spreading knowledge and information. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine Extinction Rebellion Sweden's strategic communication and work processes during the campaign Novemberupproret (The November revolt), and to identify what characterized the posts on Extinction Rebellion Sweden's Facebook during the campaign. The theoretical frameworks used in this study was Grunig's two-way symmetrical and asymmetrical communication (Falkheimer & Heide 2014), Habermas theory regarding social actions (Falkheimer & Heide 2018) and ultimately semiotics by Barthes (1977). The findings are based on interviews with two members of Extinction Rebellion Sweden, along with a qualitative content analysis and a semiotic analysis. The findings of this study reveal that Extinction Rebellion Sweden mainly focuses, both in terms of strategies and work processes, on content regarding information and knowledge sharing, rather than mobilising content. The empirical material shows that the posts with two-way asymmetrical communication have generated more interaction in terms of likes, comments and sharing on Facebook, which opposes Grunig's theory regarding two-way communication. Further, it is revealed that Extinction Rebellions Sweden's most frequently used communication strategy during Novemberupproret were consciously hidden strategic actions. Lastly the findings show that the movement´s work process during Novemberupproret was built on democratic and collective principles both between Extinction Rebellion Sweden's internal project groups and within the national media group.

The United Nations originally established the term sustainable  development through the Brundtland commission and became a   frontrunner and global actor within the field. Information has initially  been described as an invaluable aspect of successfully achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by the UN itself. Therefore, the lack  of current references to information and communication in relation to  the execution of the SDGs has to be examined in an attempt to fill this research gap. Therefore, this thesis investigates in what way their   external communication, more specifically their press releases  regarding the SDGs, are executed in order to promote sustainability.  This is done by performing a qualitative text analysis on press  releases as empirical material. A question this thesis  attempts to answer is how the press releases of the UN have changed  after the evolved SDGs. Also, in obedience with their own strategic  documents, how are the UN concerned with making their public communication shed light on the implementation of the SDGs. These questions are relevant considering the growing interest for the issue of sustainable development. The analysis draws on theories of  organizational communication and strategic communication. The thesis reveals that the SDGs and sustainability are cohesively presented throughout the press releases. However, a change in inclusiveness of the audience was observed after the implementation  of the SDGs. This thesis indicates that there is potential for improvement in terms of how the UN communicates sustainability issues and promotes the SDGs.

År 2020 är året då Covid-19 bröt ut och företagare kom till insikt att den digitala transformeringen är viktigare än någonsin. Det har medfört att allt fler företag eftersträvar att anpassa sig efter det ”nya normala” genom att digitalisera snabbt. Företagen är därmed mycket angelägna att på ett framgångsrikt sätt genomföra affärssystemsinföranden. Den digitala transformeringens framfart och fokuseringen på att införa affärssystem har kommit att ge IT-avdelningen en central roll inom verksamheten. Detta har i sin tur bidragit till att en fungerande interaktion mellan IT-avdelningen och verksamheten är viktigare än någonsin. Det är vanligt förekommande att verksamheten inte upplever att IT-avdelningen levererar i den takt och kvalité som motsvarar förväntningarna. Detta tenderar till minskad tilltro och samarbete. Vid en dysfunktionell interaktion mellan IT-avdelningen och verksamheten är risken stor att felaktiga beslut och förfaranden blir till verklighet. Det är därför viktigt att företagen skapar goda förutsättningar för en fungerande kommunikation och undersöka vilka faktorer som kan minska de tvetydigheter som kan uppstå mellan olika parter i verksamheten.   Kandidatuppsatsens huvudsyfte är att identifiera och beskriva framgångsfaktorer för att minska tvetydigheter vid kommunikation mellan systemutvecklingsavdelning, produktägare och redovisningsekonomer under affärssystemförändringsprojekt. Baserat på huvudsyftet är bisyftet att föreslå ett förbättrat kommunikationssätt som främjar att de tre parterna kan arbeta holistiskt vid affärssystemsförändringsprojekt. Vid utförande av denna studie har en litteraturstudie genomförts, en litteraturbaserad analysmodell och fallstudiemetoden tillämpats. Dessutom har fem personliga intervjuer med medarbetare som representerar den interna triaden på fallföretaget har utförts. Uppsatsstudiens viktigaste slutsatser är; ledningens förmåga att inneha transparens vad avser viktig verksamhetsinformation, att den interna triaden innehar hög involveringsgrad under hela affärssystemsförändringsprojekten och att samtliga parter innehar helhetstänk för att säkerställa att rätt systemfunktioner införs. Dessutom är det viktigt att det finns ett enhälligt kommunikationssätt, att det tydligt framgår vilken information ett systemförändringsförslag ska innehålla och att uppföljning av affärssystemförändringsprojekten kontinuerligt sker i syfte att uppnå kunskap inför kommande projekt.