Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

This thesis explores communication on waste management to the newly-arrived immigrants. Communicating waste sorting to the newly-arrived immigrants is challenging because it involves multiple senders and multiple receivers, where culture, knowledge and language needs to interplay. The thesis shows how different groups of immigrants get information in waste sorting and suggests how other groups may be left out without being communicated. There is information gap between the sender and the receiver, and also between different receivers.

Waste sorting is a normalised, social practice in Sweden. However, many immigrants tend to sort the waste without being fully informed on how to sort and the importance of waste sorting. During exploration of the message and its channels of communication, the themes of culture, knowledge and language reacted as noises in the communication of the waste sorting to the said receivers. The study concludes that not all immigrants get the knowledge on waste sorting and if the themes are taken into account, they can facilitate the message to reach the receivers.