Punching the Air? on the Contest of Framing Sweden's Aviation

Punching the Air? On the Contest of Framing Sweden’s Aviation Tax ______

Leo Nyström Political Science, Advanced Course C (Bachelor Thesis) Department of Government Uppsala University, Spring 2018 Supervisor: Johanna Pettersson Words: 12221 Pages: 38 Abstract

This paper set out to find out how actors have framed the tax on aviation, and compared the debates around the two times the tax has been enacted, 2006 and 2018. Connecting the specific issue of the aviation tax to the broader narrative on climate change, the framing process was formulated as a two-level game with both issue-specific frames and general master frames that have wider cultural resonance. The framing analysis was conducted observing the debates as a framing contest between frame sponsors (focusing on framing efforts from the aviation industry and the Green Party) in interaction with news journalists and opinion writers. The best way to describe the 2006 debate is that it was dominated by discussion of the tax from an economic standpoint, latching on to a master frame of economic consequences with regional impact. The

2018 debate focused on the environmental aspects of the tax, mostly disregarding the explicit effects of the tax and focusing on the harm of ﬂying, connected with a moral frame together with a responsibility frame towards the individual. As I interpret the debates, the actor who effectively connected their issue frame to a master frame had control of the narrative, which meant for example that the Green Party did not get to discuss environmental aspects in 2006, and that they did not need to discuss economic aspects in 2018.

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction 4 1.1. Purpose 5 2. Background 7 2.1. Environmental policy in Sweden 7 2.2. The aviation tax 8 2.3. The SOU report 9 3. Theoretical Framework 11 3.1. Previous Research 11 3.2. Frame Analysis 12 3.3. Framing contests, issue frames and master frames 14 4. Research Design 18 4.1. Material 18 4.3 Analytical strategy 19 5. Results and analysis 23 5.1. The 2006 debate 23 5.3. The 2018 debate 26 5.4. Analysis 29 6. Conclusion 32

3 1. Introduction Sweden is known in the literature as one of the global leaders in undertaking ambitious climate change policy. They have coupled economic growth with market interventions such as the tax on carbon, switched out their energy supply to mainly renewables, and taken a position of leadership in international negotiations (Sarasini, 2009). ”Sweden is unique in that the country will over implement its international commitments, while already having among the lowest per capita GHG emissions in the industrialized world” (Zannakis, 2009:18). Even then, according to a

2016 WWF report, the average Swede is overusing the world’s resources to an extent that it would take 4.2 planets to sustain the same lifestyle for all of the planet’s inhabitants (WWF,

2018). In the same report, WWF’s main suggestion for the future is strong political measures to lower carbon-heavy consumption. When one of the planet’s best hope is 3.2 planets away from properly adapting to our Pandora’s Box of new challenges, something needs to give. Some believe in taming the forces of the market in order to switch to a ”Green Growth”, some believe in disrupting those forces completely.

As this paper is being written, Sweden is in the zenith of the election year 2018. One of the election’s most hotly debated environmental issues is the aviation tax, which was implemented on the 1st of April 2018. The issue has gotten attention because it juxtaposes the two parties most proﬁled in environmental politics, the Green Party and the Centre Party. The Green Party, a currently governing centre-left party rooted in the 1980 environmental movement championed the proposal together with the Social Democrats, and the Centre Party with a centre-right progressivist ”Green Growth” approach are their most prominent opponents.

The proposal sets itself apart in that it has an outspoken aim to limit carbon-heavy consumption

(SOU 2016:83). It does not take the form of central investments to change market incentives like the country’s energy policy (Sarasini, 2009), it does not promote renewable alternatives like the carbon tax - the aviation tax is solely an effort to limit consumption. The issue is highly symbolic in that it sets economic development and CO2 emissions as direct alternatives, which depending on how it is received could open up for further taxation of carbon-heavy consumption, such as on red meat. It is intrinsically symbolic because the tax itself is likely to have no more than a

4 limited effect on its own: the state report’s prognosis is a decrease of 0.08-0.2 million tonnes of

CO2 equivalents, a mere drop in the water for the world’s carbon budget (SOU 2016:83). The symbolic nature of the aviation tax is why I believe there is a lot to learn from studying the debate around the proposal.

1.1. Purpose The only thing we can know of the ”aviation tax” without any context, is that it will put a fee on

ﬂying. As with anything at all, the meaning which will resonate with people is socially constructed. In studying that meaning, this case is especially interesting because we can draw from the fact that history has repeated itself. In 2006, which was another election year, an almost identical aviation tax was decided on in another budget proposition from a Social Democratic government with support from the Green Party. As was also the case in 2018, the centre right coalition vowed to tear up the decision if they took ofﬁce. They did, and the tax was withdrawn before it could be implemented, without much objection in the media (DN, 2006a). Today, things might be different. The Centre Party has vowed to remove the tax if they win the election, but polling says their electoral base have shifted to a clear majority that support the tax, and support among voters in general has gone up to 53% for the tax and 35% against, compared to last year’s

44% for and 36% against (Rosén & Kihlberg, 2018). When the tax was implemented in 2018, Per

Bolund, minister of Finance from the Green Party was asked to compare the current and earlier debate:

”It has never been an easy issue to debate, even more so back then when knowledge on

climate change had not come as far. There was a massive resistance and a ﬁerce campaign

against the aviation tax when the ﬁrst proposal was put forward” (Frisk, 2018).

Something might be different, and to ﬁnd out what has changed we are going to study and compare how the aviation tax has been framed. Framing is deﬁned as to ”select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text” (Entman, 1993). The aim of this paper is to answer the question:

”how have actors in Sweden framed the aviation tax in the media debate 2006 and 2018?”

5 In trying to answer that question, the purpose is to (1) gain knowledge on the reasoning behind climate action in the ”best case”-country on climate change (2) investigate on how actors can produce meaning in a dynamic framing process connected to wider cultural narratives. For the

first part, what can be said for Sweden as a ”best case”-scenario might have implications for the rest of the world. If we discover that the narrative of sacrificing for the environmental good shows no promise in Sweden, maybe we should abandon the perspective and look at how to focus efforts on the ”green growth” perspective instead. If the ”sacrificing” narrative is shown to work, there is something to learn in which context and framing is necessary for it to succeed.

That is where the second purpose of the paper comes in, to look at how actors construct meaning. To include actors in the analysis is important, because in the social construction of the aviation tax, different actors have different motives. Framing is a process that is both unconscious to participants and an dependent on active participation. Who says what is important to a situation where those involved have motives.

To answer the question at hand, I will study the news coverage and opinion pieces written on the aviation tax for four months in 2006 and four months in 2018. The framing of the aviation tax will be studied from a perspective used by Ihlen & Nitz (2008) describing the process as a ”framing contest”, where actors compete with promoting their issue frames and by latching on to ”master frames” that have a wider cultural resonance. The actors I focus on is the aviation industry, the

Green Party and journalists. The paper will begin with a short recount of environmental policy in

Sweden in general, and the history of the aviation tax. A presentation of the paper’s theoretical framework will follow, with a section for brief review of previous research on the environmental discourse in Sweden, and a section describing relevant framing research. After that I will present the methodological framework, as well as a discussion on relevant design choices. Finally the results and analysis will be presented, together with some concluding remarks.

6 2. Background This section provides relevant background information needed to give context and understanding of environmental politics in Sweden. We here assess that Sweden has a history of strong environmental policy on the national level as well as ambitious current climate goals, after which we evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the aviation tax.

2.1. Environmental policy in Sweden Sweden’s environmental policy comes from a context of a high level of trust for the government, as well as a high trust to the science of climate change (Christensen & Wormbs, 2017). The government has a long history of national engagement in environmental protection. National parks were ﬁrst established in 1909, grounded in legislation on the national level and sanctioned by the state, which is very early in an international comparison (Christensen & Wormbs, 2017).

The same year, the politically independent organisation ”The Swedish Society for Nature

Conservation” (Naturskyddsföreningen), was founded, and in 1967 the Environmental Protection

Agency was founded (Christensen & Wormbs, 2017:2). Along with the system of robust environmental institutions Sweden has a long history of international contributions in the ﬁeld.

Some notable milestones being Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius who was the ﬁrst to describe the greenhouse effect in 1896, the UN conference in Stockholm in 1972 which was the ﬁrst to garner momentum for NGO’s to engage in environmental issues as well as Bert Bolin’s contributions to form the IPCC in 1988 (Christensen & Wormbs, 2017).

Sweden is considered to be an anomaly in that it has over-implemented international commitments in order to ”go ahead” many other similar countries, with an intended effect of

”leading-by-example” for others to follow suit (Zannakis, 2009:233-235). Opposing voices against the science of climate change are few in Sweden’s political arena, and the discourse can generally be considered to be in line with the international scientiﬁc consensus presented by the IPCC

(Zannakis, 2009:233-235). Sweden’s ﬁrst policy aimed at GHG mitigation was decided in 1988 and called for immediate stabilization of emissions, and the country has since been active in progressive reform of their energy supply in order to reach those goals (Sarasini, 2009:637).

7 Around half of Sweden’s energy is renewable, and the hydro-nuclear-fuelled electricity supply is almost fully carbon-free (Sarasini, 2009).

The cornerstone for the country’s policy instruments for mitigation is the tax on carbon implemented in 1991, which has is considered to be an effective instrument in making emissions more costly and promoting renewables in the energy sector (Sarasini, 2009:640). More recently, the Green Party used their position in government to launch their ﬂagship piece of legislation ”A framework on Climate Policy”, which was enacted in the beginning of 2018. The framework included a goal to have net zero emissions by 2045, as well as milestone goals in 2030 and 2040

(Prop. 2016/17:146).

2.2. The aviation tax The 2006 proposal was put forward from the Social Democrats with support from the Green

Party and the Left Party. It was accepted as part of the fall budget proposition for 2006 (Prop.

2005/06:1). It was a tax that would make airlines obligated to pay a fee for every passenger traveling to and from a Swedish airport (transit ﬂights excepted). The amount was set to 94 SEK for all passengers ﬂying to or from destinations inside Europe and 304 SEK for outside Europe.

An exception was made for certain destinations within Sweden, mostly in the northern part of the country, where the tax was expected have a bigger impact (SFS 2006:909).

The 2018 aviation tax was put forward by governing coalition with the Social Democrats and the

Green Party, and was accepted as part of the budget proposal for the fall of 2018. The tax amount was increased this time, with three different categories of 80, 280 and 430 SEK to be paid, depending on the distance of the destination. A major difference to the 2006 tax was that the

2018 proposal did not include an exception for any regional airports. Another difference was that the 2006 proposal was decided on, but never implemented, since it was withdrawn by the centre- right coalition that won the same year’s election. The 2018 tax was implemented on the 1st of

April 2018.

8 An additional difference between the two proposals is that the early tax did not get a special report (SOU) evaluation. An SOU report is carried out with the help of independent experts in order to do a substantial evaluation of the effects of a proposition. In most decisions however, and in both of these cases, speciﬁc government agencies and organizations that might be affected by the proposal are asked to write an ofﬁcial statement (remiss) on the matter. In the lack of an

SOU report, these statements can provide a factual basis for debating an issue.

2.3. The SOU report According to the 2016 SOU report, the aim of the tax is to reduce the climate impact from aviation (SOU 2016:83). When it comes to how effective the tax will be, it is said to bring ”limited but positive effects for the climate through reduced carbon dioxide emissions and a reduction of other aviation climate impacts” (SOU 2016:83, p. 22). Taking into account the expected increase in other transport sectors, the net effect is calculated to be a reduction of 0.08-0.2 million tonnes of

CO2 equivalents. As there is a strong trend of increasing air travel in Sweden, the amount of departures will continue to rise, but by (an expected) 450 000-600 000 less compared to the situation of no tax was introduced. As a result of the tax, the demand for domestic flights is expected to be reduced by 3.6-4.8%, by 1.4-1.9% for flights within Europe, and 1.5-2.1% for flights outside Europe. An unknown portion of that demand is expected to go to airports outside of

Sweden instead (SOU 2016:83).

Economically, the proposal is expected to bring state incomes of around 1.75 billion per year.

Nothing definitive about the impact in terms of GDP change is said in the report, but it is expected to have ”limited” effect on Sweden’s competitiveness in both the national and international perspective, and only a minor impact on employment. In contrast to the 2006 proposal, no exception for specific regions is made, since the negative impact to specific airports is deemed to be small (SOU 2016:83).

Something the SOU report claims the proposal to be lacking is creation of progressive incentives in terms of energy efﬁciency, research and development on new technology and a switch to alternative fuels (SOU 2016:83). Something that could achieve this would be to put a tax on non-

9 renewable jet fuel. However, taxation of jet fuel is illegal according to international law established by the UN Chicago Convention, which was signed by 52 states and implemented in

1944 to harmonize regulation and promote international cooperation on aviation (ICAO, 1944). In a parliament interpellation in 2016, Minister of Infrastructure Tomas Eneroth was asked about his opinion on the convention, to which he responded that it would be desirable to change the convention, but that Sweden lacks international support to do so (Riksdagen, 2006).

The SOU report mentions that it would be optimal if more countries implemented an aviation tax in order to equalize competition (SOU 2016:83). The European countries that have a tax on aviation are France, Ireland, Norway, Germany and Austria. Denmark, The Netherlands and

Ireland have done the same but later removed the tax. According to the SOU report, the reason for the three countries to remove the tax was that it was seen as a threat to the economy, especially Denmark and The Netherlands saw a large amount of passengers flying from neighboring countries instead (SOU 2016:83). Only The Netherlands and Germany are mentioned to have implemented the tax in the context of green tax reform. While the report does not explicitly state the reasoning for every country, Norway and France are mentioned to have implemented the tax with strictly fiscal motivation (SOU 2016:83). Efforts to evaluate the environmental effect of the existing tax implementations are relatively few, offering different conclusions. One report showed that the tax in Germany decreased demand on fights with

1.2-2.8 percent, but earlier reports do not show such effect. In the UK, the demand was shown to decrease for shorter-distance ﬂights but not for longer distances (even though longer ﬂights are taxed heavier), but one report concluded that the demand was ”marginally” decreased, and consequently the emissions as well (SOU 2016:83).

10 3. Theoretical Framework This section aims to provide the theoretical background and the analytical tools that will guide the study. This includes a brief review on previous research on framing, an account of Ihlen and

Nitz’s ideas on framing contests, as well as a description of ﬁve master frames found by Semetko and Valkenburg.

3.1. Previous Research “Frames” is a key concept in the study of communication. In climate change- and environmental communication, there are numerous studies conducting frame analyses (Schäfer & O’Neill

2017:1). Most of the studies conducted on environmental frames, however, approach the subject from a perspective where climate change is the subject of framing (e.g. how action versus inaction is communicated), which leaves speciﬁc policy measures as only an implicit part of the analysis.

Shehata & Hopmann (2012) studied how climate change was portrayed in Swedish news media around the Kyoto and Bali summits, and Christensen and Wormbs (2017) studied how the

Copenhagen and Paris conferences were portrayed in Swedish news media. While the knowledge gained on environmental frames has been helpful for this study and others, I argue that a more speciﬁc approach is lacking. As Shehata and Hopmann (2012) themselves point out, international climate conferences tend to be reported through a consensus of hope for action. This probably has to do with the fact that the purpose of having the meeting is to reach an agreement on how to combat climate change, in which case it would not make sense to report from a climate-skeptic perspective (especially in ”elite” newspapers, which is what they studied). I would also argue that the focus in the scholarship on how to combat climate-skepticism is too centered on the american context, where that issue is more prevalent. In a country like Sweden, together with a majority of developed countries the science of climate change is a political consensus (Shehata &

Opmann, 2012). What is needed then is scholarship on how that consensus is communicated into actual climate policy, since those perspectives vary widely. That is the focus of this paper. To bridge between general frames and issue speciﬁcs, I take inspiration from Ihlen & Nitz (2008) on framing contests and master frames.

11 3.2. Frame Analysis The use of frames as an analytical tool is important in a number of different areas of research, from cognitive psychology to anthropology to economics, and many more (Van Gorp 2007:1).

Benford and Snow (1986) wrote on how frames are used to shape social movements, which laid the groundwork for how much of social movement research is carried out today. Erving Goffman

(1986) popularized the term ”frame analysis” in sociological research, which was later adapted and used in a large number of studies in the ﬁeld of media and communication (Schäfer &

O’Neill 2017:3). Since the intention of this paper is to analyze a discourse in the media, communication research will be given the most attention.

The communication scholar Robert Entman (1993) saw the framing paradigm as weak and fractured, in need of a more uniform approach. His deﬁnition of framing is the one most widely cited in the literature:

”To frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem deﬁnition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item

described.” (Entman 1993:52)

This is a key definition since it tells us that by selecting ”some aspects of a perceived reality” it will affect our perception of, and our reasoning around that reality. That reasoning is also defined in the above quote, divided into four aspects that follow logically from each other: a problem definition, a causal interpretation, a moral evaluation and a treatment recommendation (e.g. a solution). If you make an aspect of reality more salient by for example changing how you define the problem, the solution to the problem will follow naturally. Entman also describes what he means by making something more ”salient”, which is to make a certain aspect of the text more noticeable, meaningful and memorable to the reader (Entman 1993:53). The reader can gain knowledge of frames by:

“the presence or absence of certain keywords, stock phrases, stereotyped images, sources of information and sentences that provide thematically reinforcing clusters of facts or judgments” (Entman 1993:52)

12 A classic example on the power of frames comes from behavioral economists Kahneman and

Tversky (1984) who conducted experiments asking participants to imagine a disease that is expected to kill 600 people if nothing is done. Two different treatment programs are proposed: ”if program A is adopted 200 people will be saved. If program B is adopted, there is a one-third probability that 600 people will be saved and a two-thirds probability that no people will be saved” (Kahneman & Tversky 1984:343). Since people tend to be risk-averse, a large majority of participants selected program A (78%), as expected. In another experiment, participants are asked to choose between two new options, program C and program D, which are identical to A and B but framed differently. ”If program C is adopted, 400 people will die. If program D is adopted, there is a one-third probability that nobody will die and two-thirds probability that 400 people will die”(Kahneman & Tversky 1984:343). This reframing of the options led to drastically different results: now a large majority chose program D, an option that is identical to program B only phrased differently. What the now nobel prize-awarded1 experiments show, is that people are not inherently rational and freely thinking in all situations. Our understanding of the world is highly contingent on what is presented before us.

Kahneman and Tversky’s work gives an important link between frames and cognition, but frames are more complex than changing the wording of a hypothetical suggestion. We need a theoretical base as well, to which Social Constructivism is a good ﬁt. It is a diverse theory but it includes both ontological (what the world is like) and epistemological (what can be known of the world) premises on how our very beings are socially constructed. Brieﬂy summarized, it provides three claims.

(1) ”Meaning and knowledge is constructed in a social process. This means that the

material reality has to be interpreted, be made sense of, in order to be meaningful. […]

Language is necessary for our ability to express ourselves about the world and at the same

time central in the construction it (2) ”The social world is constructed […] Formal

institutions like the parliament and government is based on our collective understanding

of how decisions should be made.” (3) ”[There is an] interaction between the production

1 More speciﬁcally, the ”Swedish National Bank’s Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel”. 13 of knowledge and the construction of our surroundings. Since the material reality gets it’s

meaning when we give it meaning, conceptualize it, there is no clear line between reality

and how we interpret it.” (Erikson, 2011:19-20).2

The implication for framing analysis is twofold: it indicates that which frames are reproduced matter for individuals and society (including politics) as a whole, and that the outside world does not matter as much as our understanding of it. An empty description of the aviation tax, for example, is that airlines will have to pay the state a set amount of money for each ticket it sells. It is first when you fill that empty description with implications - problem definitions and causal interpretations - that the concept will be given meaning. For example if you define the aviation tax as an economic problem, it follows naturally that you would want to remove it since most people do not want negative economic consequences. On the other hand, if you define excessive

ﬂying as the problem, the solution of the aviation tax follows naturally.

3.3. Framing contests, issue frames and master frames I distinguish between studying frames and studying framing. Van Hulst & Yanow (2016) describes the distinction: ”’Frame’ signiﬁes a more deﬁnitional, static, and potentially taxonomizing approach to the subject; ’framing’ offers a more dynamic and, in our view, potentially politically aware engagement”. The dynamic approach is needed because it allows for a more context sensitive analysis which takes into account who is saying what and why.

Having an analytical focus on framing as a (more or less) strategic process gives more room do discuss different actors and their motives. As earlier stated, what I intend to do in this paper is to analyze how (1) actors (2) construct the meaning of the aviation tax (3) inside the cultural narrative on climate change. As scholars in the ﬁeld of strategic communication, Ihlen & Nitz

(2008) have a useful perspective on the actor-centered approach. They describe the process of constructing frames as a ”framing contest”, where different actors have the role of frame sponsors that promote a particular view. These frames can be analyzed on two levels. The issue frame can be read at ﬁrst glance in a text, and tells us something relatively explicit about something speciﬁc

2 The translation is my own. 14 (e.g. the aviation tax has economic consequences). The issue frame is analyzed on the micro-level, is intersubjectively constructed and understood as a statement on something speciﬁc which can be divided into a ”problem deﬁnition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation and treatment recommendation” (Entman, 1993). On a macro-level, actors are connected to a master frame, of which the communicator is less aware, are even more intersubjectively contingent and form how we understand the issue inside of a wider cultural narrative. As Van Gorp (2007) requested: ”bring the culture back in” - frames needs to be analyzed within their place in culture. The master frames are more abstract, can be used in many different issues and should be analyzed within their cultural context.

Referring to generally applicable frames (eg. ”master frames”), Semetko & Valkenburg (2000) describe the process of finding them to be very labor intensive. An inductive approach would mean having very loosely defined preconceptions of what frames are used in the media, and analyzing a large number of news stories with a ”tabula rasa” to gain knowledge on them. A deductive approach, on the other hand, uses previously defined frames as ”content analytic variables” to verify the extent to which these frames occur in the news (Semetko & Valkenburg

2000:94).3 This study uses the deductive approach for master frames and an inductive approach for issue frames (more on that in the ”design” section). As Semetko & Valkenburg (2000) already have done the job of ﬁnding ﬁve master frames for us, we will use them:

The Conflict Frame ”emphasizes conflict between individuals, groups, or institutions as a means of capturing audience interest” (Semetko & Valkenburg 2000:95). The frame often disregards the substantive political issues and focuses on conflict between political elites, a very typical frame to in reporting on presidential elections for example.

The Human Interest Frame ”brings a human face or emotional angle to the presentation of an event, issue or problem” (Semetko & Valkenburg 2000:95). Research has found this frame to be common in the news, especially in the increasingly competitive market where news sources struggle to gain readers.

3 Semetko & Valkenburg constructed a set of 20 questions used while coding their frames, which has helped my research as well. The questions are included on the last page of this paper. 15 The Economic Consequences Frame ”reports an event, problem, or issue in terms of the consequences it will have economically on an individual, group, institution, region, or country” (Semetko & Valkenburg 2000:96).

The Morality Frame ”puts the event, problem, or issue in the context of religious tenets or moral prescriptions” (Semetko & Valkenburg 2000:96).

The Responsibility Frame ”presents an issue or problem in such a way as to attribute responsibility for its cause or solution to either the government or to an individual or group” (Semetko & Valkenburg 2000:96).

As I understand these frames, they are relatively empty descriptions that can be filled with meaning inside a specific context. They are similar to issue-frames, but more general which means they can be connected to a broader context. A conceivable example is if the wider narrative on the aviation tax is placed within a responsibility frame that tells us that the government should take action on climate change. One could imagine a human interest frame focusing on how climate change affects the lives of people in far away places, a conflict frame report on the struggle between climate leaders to succeed in climate negotiations. Ihlen & Nitz

(2008) suggest that the success of framing is to a signiﬁcant degree dependent on which issue frame can latch on and resonate within a master frame. Culture is not a singular entity as it includes a multitude of differing values, but some ideas are more promoted than others, which is why we assume some master frames to be more effective than others based on the surrounding context. The hope for the analysis is ﬁnd the dominating master frame in both of the debates.

Based on a past study on Swedish news framings of climate change, we can speculate what might be found in the material. Christensen & Wormbs (2017) studied media framing around the

COP15 and COP21 conferences. Rephrased into our frames, they found and found that the

Swedish media relied heavily on a responsibility frame, urging the government to take action in both cases (which they connect to a high trust in government), that the media focused on more on moral appeals around the second conference (paired with a more catastrophic rhetoric), and that none of the coverage focused on the implications for local communities to a signiﬁcant extent (since they deemed that the environment in northern parts is less resilient). Since the time

16 perspective of their study is quite similar to mine (they compare 2009 to 2015), and the idea is that master frames span over a wide range of issues, we would not be misled to expect some degree of correlation.

To summarize, we have deﬁned frames and framing, and looked at the theory and arguments behind them. To answer the question ”how have actors in Sweden framed the aviation tax in the media debate 2006 and 2018?”, we will study the issue frames presented in the debate and which master frames that can explain the prevalence of the issue frames in a more culture-sensitive context.

17 4. Research Design In order to answer which framing is used by actors within the debate on the aviation tax, several news sources will be analyzed. This section describes what is going to be included in the material and the strategies that will be used to analyze it.

4.1. Material When choosing a time interval to study, three factors guides us, the most obvious one being that there is only room for a limited amount of material. That factor needs to be balanced against the goal to capture the essence of a debate that contains diverse perspectives and spans a signiﬁcant amount of time, so more than a few articles need to be included. Third, and most critical: since we are comparing two different time intervals (the 2006 and 2018 debate), the two time intervals need to mirror each other in order to spot the nuanced differences.

We can choose between studying the debate around two different times: either around the time when the decision was made to implement the tax, or the actual implementation of the tax.

However, for the 2006 case, it was never actually implemented. This could lead us to compare the situations when the decisions were made (which would be 2006 and 2017) but another factor to consider is the effect election years have on the debate. 2006, when the aviation tax was decided the ﬁrst time, was an election year, and so was 2018, when the second tax was implemented. We can assume that political debates get more outspoken during election years, and an initial reading of the 2018-2017 debates conﬁrmed that there was more being said 2018. For this reason, the time interval studied will be from the start of the year 01-01-2006 to a month after the aviation tax was decided 30-04-2006, and from the start of the year 01-01-2018 to a month after the aviation tax was implemented 01-05-2018.

News sources were chosen to cover a wide spectrum of journalistic types: an ”elite” national daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN), a daily tabloid newspaper Aftonbladet, as well as a regional daily newspaper Sydsvenskan. DN and Sydsvenskan describe their political leaning as independent liberal, Aftonbladet is independently Social Democrat. In terms of currently readership, DN is the biggest daily newspaper. Aftonbladet is the largest tabloid, and Sydsvenskan - based in the

18 southern region Skåne, is the biggest in that region. The reason why the latter is included is that a number of actors have voiced concern about the region regarding the aviation tax, since their airport Sturup in Malmö could lose business to the closely situated Kastrup in Copenhagen.

The material was retrieved from Mediearkivet, which is a database of online and newspaper sources stretching back several decades. Deciding the right search term when searching in the database is essential since the wrong term could include or exclude important sources. In the case of the aviation tax there is no such difficulty though, since been a strong coherence in which word the media uses, especially compared to english where ”aviation tax”, ”airline tax”, ”flight tax”, ”air travel tax” are all used interchangeably. A simple search of flygskatt* (to include different suffixes) should be able to cover all of it. Mediearkivet offers both print and online articles, both of which have been included in the analysis.

4.3 Analytical strategy This study is based on the understanding of the discourse as a framing contest where frame sponsors compete to formulate the dominating frame. From this understanding I have posed four questions that will guide the reading of the material.

1. Does the author focus on positive or negative aspects of the aviation tax?

2. Which is the main issue frame connected to the aviation tax, e.g. is the aviation tax discussed

in economic terms or in environmental terms?

3. Which actor is behind the issue frame?

4. Which master frame can be connected to the issue-frame?

The ﬁrst three questions will be coded and compared with simple quantitative measurements

(e.g. the regional frame was presented in x percent of articles). This will be done in order to give context to the analysis, not to generalize results. The weight in the analysis is given to a qualitative discussion on the frames that are present in the material, and how actors reason around those frames. That reasoning will also, as stated in question number four, be analyzed in the context of the ﬁve master frames presented earlier. This will be done in a qualitative manner

19 as well: ”the strongly abstract nature of frames implies that quantitative research methods should be combined with the interpretative prospects of qualitative methods” (Van Gorp, 2007:72).

In any qualitative analysis, the issue of reliability is something that should be discussed. In my analysis of the issue frames, the subjective interpretation is minimized by only having two categories (economic and environmental), and basing the discussion on what is explicitly said in the material. Analyzing master frames though, takes an attempt to ”read between the lines”, for which many interpretations are plausible. For this reason the results will be presented with caution to not overstate things.

The analysis will be based on the framing from three different actors. The ﬁrst two I call ”frame sponsors”, since they have a purpose to promote their organization’s framing of the aviation tax.

The first frame sponsor is the aviation industry, who come in the form of the industry interest organization ”Swedish Air Transport Society”4, and airlines such as Ryanair and SAS. They are chosen in order to represent the frame sponsor trying to oppose the aviation tax, as they are assumed to represent the interests of their industry if they appear in the media representing their organization. The second frame sponsor is the Green Party, whose mission in the media is assumed to be to defend the aviation tax, since it is in their interest to defend their own proposal.5 The third actor in the framing process is journalists. While I assume them to not have any ulterior motive on their own, they do operate within their own logic. They are both reflective of the frames presented around them, and active in constructing frames. As reporters on the state of things, they reflect reality as they understand it, but they also exhibit their own actorness. This is exemplified in Ihlen & Nitz (2008) where frame sponsors competed to the issue of oil expansion in Norway. Ignoring that, the media used their own ”Horse Race”-framing, reporting on the meta perspective of who was winning the conflict instead of the implications of oil drilling. The actorness is a more obvious part of this analysis, since writers of opinion pieces, Op-

4 Known as ”Svenskt Flyg” in Swedish.

5 Mentioning the ”interest” of a frame sponsor does not mean that my outlook is ”critical”, e.g. based in a presumption that actors are strictly self-interested defenders of their own good. I do not take a stance whether the Green Party defends their proposal for strategic reasons or from a place of genuine ambition, as it would not change my analysis. 20 Eds and editorials are included. The reason why they are included is that we are studying a debate, of which those writers are an important part.

Now, to the subject at hand. Based on an unstructured initial reading of the debate, two issue frames were formulated inductively. As earlier stated, since the frames are broad and issue speciﬁc, they are expected to offer sufﬁcient reliability.

The Environmental Frame highlights the environmental impact of the aviation tax in either a positive or a negative light. Examples of this could be to highlight that the tax is important to curb climate change or that the tax will not have a large enough impact on CO2 reduction.

The Economic Frame highlights the economic impact of the aviation tax in either a positive or a negative light. Examples of this could be to highlight that the tax will have a negative impact on growth, on a region’s development or people’s wallets.

The issue frames are simply the two main ways to discuss the aviation tax, both of which are highly relevant. Which of the frames a writer (re)presents is always decided by the writer - either consciously or unconsciously so. Either issue frame can be angled in a positive way or a negative way, an economic frame can tell the story of a tax that will have a detrimental effect on the economy or that it will lead to economic progress. The frames are operationalized in such a way that if both are present in one piece of writing, whichever frame is given most weight is considered to be the main frame and is the one that will be coded in the coding sheet. Special attention was given to what was expressed in headlines and preambles. Most articles gave weight to either of the frames without much ambiguity. The ﬁrst step in the analysis was to do an initial reading of the material for the purpose of removing irrelevant articles. The reading also guided a validity test to see if the issue frames were present in the material (which they were) and if there was need for an additional frame to be added (which there was not).6 10% of articles could not be categorized convincingly, but since they did not present any coherent theme of their own, they were placed in a catch-all category of ”other”.

6 In an initial phase of the research, I additionally included a ”regional frame” for articles that highlights consequences for a speciﬁc region. After they had been coded it was apparent that all of those discussed economic implications, which meant that the regional frame did not offer any additional insight, so it was removed and the coding was restarted. 21 In the search for articles 2006, 130 results came up. Of those, 64 were removed (a high number of articles were duplicates, posted both online and in print). Articles in which the aviation tax only takes up a very minor part of the article, and/or used as an rhetoric device to support a different point were also removed. For example, Ritzén (2018) writes (satirically) about how discussions on the aviation tax are unnecessary and that we instead should be talking about the incredibly expensive subway passes. In some cases identical articles were published in two or all three newspapers (often those that originated from the national news agency TT). Those were counted as separate instances. The 2018 search returned 190 articles, of which 105 were removed for the same reasons as previously (also, by then DN had introduced an online reader opinion-page which included a high number of reader opinions which were not included in the analysis). A second reading of the articles was done, where I coded all the answers to the analytical questions.

A third and ﬁnal reading was done three days later to code the answers a second time, trying to ensure consistent results. Only three articles (2% of the total) were coded differently between the two coding rounds which is sufﬁciently reliable. 66 articles from 2006 and 85 from 2018 were analyzed.

22 5. Results and analysis In the following section, the results on how each debate has been coded will be shown, as well as a description of the how actors have reasoned around the frames. After, I will analyze the results and connect them to master frames.

5.1. The 2006 debate

Positive Negative Neutral Economic Environmental Other 68 % 83 %

22 %

12 % 5 % 10 % POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE COVERAGE ISSUE FRAMES

The coverage was overwhelmingly focused on negative aspects of the aviation tax (83%), only a few focused on positives (12%), three articles (5%) appeared neutral. In 38% of the material aviation industry representatives were given the opportunity to present their frame either in quotation or as authors of an opinion piece. For Green Party politicians, the same number is 18%.

The economic frame was by far the most prevalent issue-frame in the 2006 debate, with 68% of articles highlighting economic aspects. The aviation industry tried to frame the tax as economically destructive to society (speciﬁcally to the Skåne-region), and unfair to the industry.

The (no longer existing) low-price airline FlyMe issued a press release published in DN titled

”Aviation tax with only downsides”. The CEO Fredrik Skanselid wrote: ”the tax is not an environmental tax, it is a tax meant to ﬁll in holes in the state budget” (Skanselid, 2006).7 The

FlyMe CEO continued saying the tax will bring a price increase of 20-50%, which would hinder

7 In presenting the material, all quotes are translated from Swedish by myself. The translation has been done from both trying being as close to the source material as possible, and trying to capture the perceived intent of the writing. 23 Sweden’s growth. He also promotes the role of low-price airlines in society as equalizing differences in income: ”we do not want class inequality in traveling”.

Other aviation industry frame sponsors were not as outspoken on projecting consequences for society at large, instead focusing on their own role in the local economy. One article with the headline ”Airport in danger” tells the story of airline representatives, airport representatives and the head of the Swedish Air Transport Society (Svenskt Flyg) together with Skåne-based Social

Democrat Ilmar Reepalu speaking out on the threat the tax poses to the Sturup airport in Skåne

(Sydsvenskan, 2006a). Their message was that the Sturup airport will lose business to the nearby

Copenhagen airport Kastrup. This means the region will lose hundreds of jobs, and moreover,

Denmark are in the process of removing their own aviation tax. Another point they stress is that

ﬂying will be much more expensive if the tax is implemented: 800 SEK more for a family of four

ﬂying Malmö-Stockholm both ways. This will lead to a decrease of 10-15% in the number of domestic departures, according to calculations from Swedish Air Transport Society. The head of the International Air Transport Association, Giovanni Bisagini, was reported to have claimed in a letter to minister of ﬁnance Per Bolund that the aviation industry are being ”milked like cattle” by irresponsible politicians (Pettersson, 2006). Something several industry frame sponsors suggest as an alternative to the aviation tax to include aviation in the market based EU emission trading system (EU-ETS). This will harmonize the rules, equalize competition and promote the use of more effective engines (Sydsvenskan, 2006a).

News reporting also adopted the economic frame as their main focus, with the angle of the tax being a threat to the local economy. An indicator that the economic frame could be classiﬁed as a consensus is observing how the aviation tax is described in short (or as Entman (1993:52) describes them: ”sentences that provide thematically reinforcing clusters of facts or judgments” ): ”The heavily criticized aviation tax” starts a preamble in Sydsvenskan (Magnusson, 2006), and ”Deep, expensive breaths” reads a headline (Avellan, 2006). Sydsvenskan often reported with warnings for negative effects on the local economy, with headlines in the style of: ”Ryan Air threatens to cancel ﬂights from Sturup” (Fagerström, 2006). To support the economic frame, several authors added that there is an uncertainty about (or a lack of) positive environmental effects. Those

24 claims were often supported by the ofﬁcial statement from the Energy Agency

(Energimyndigheten) who forecasted that the tax will have no impact on or actually increase CO2 levels (the reasoning for this was not elaborated on further) (DN, 2006b). Another ”add-on” to support the economic frame was that the ofﬁcial statement from the judicial council warned that the law would not be accepted by the EU commission, since the proposal has a provision that exempts airports in Northern Sweden from paying the tax, which could be seen as skewing competition (Aftonbladet, 2006).

Opinion pieces were mostly in agreement regarding economic consequences, with at least

Sydsvenskan establishing a consistent view focusing on the downsides for the region (Reepalu &

Müchler, 2006; Sydsvenskan, 2006b). Editorial journalist at Dagens Nyheter, Peter Wolodarski

(2006) branded the aviation tax as a ”reversed class struggle”, calling on how new low-cost airlines have allowed people on the low end of the economic spectrum to travel the world thanks to a ”low price revolution”. One opinion piece tried to counter the economic appeals by claiming politicians were in the pockets of lobby organisations, who fed the debate with exaggerated numbers (Engström, 2006). The piece also points out that parliamentary Christian Democrat Mats

Odell is at the same time chairman of the Swedish Air Transport Society, which he claims to be a lobby organization8.

The environmental frame was much less commonly used. The frame got most of its support from the Green Party, trying to defend their proposal, but they were not quoted as often as the aviation industry, and did not write many opinion pieces. The Greens had two opinion pieces published, both part of a struggle to counteract claims citing the Energy Agency that the tax is counterproductive. One of them presented calculations on the environmental effects of flying, in opposition to a text from airline executives who stated that flying is no worse than driving. That article was in turn a response to earlier statements from the Green Party on the harms of flying

(Roxbergh & Domeij, 2006). The other opinion piece was focused on proving the environmental impact in statistics, referring to a report carried out by the State Institute for Communication

8 Sweden does not have an oﬃcial registry for lobby organizations, and there does not seem to be consistency on whether the Swedish Air Transport Society should be called on or not, most referring to it as an ”interest organization” or ”industry organization”. Lately in 2018 there have been calls, for example by Political Scientist Bo Rothstien, for state-owned aiport enterprise Swedavia to leave the Swedish Air Transport Society, since he considers it to be a lobby organization (Kihlberg, 2018a). 25 Analysis (SIKA)9, who according to Karin Svensson Smith from the Green Party had concluded

”a few percent decrease in demand as well as a decrease in environmental impact” (Smith, 2006).

She claims SIKA to be the only party that as actually done calculations on the CO2 impact, but

Ilmar Reepalu responded saying the Energy Agency has made calculations with the opposite conclusion (Reepalu & Müchler,, 2006). In a Dagens Nyheter opinion piece, the aviation tax was described as a part of ”scattered and unimaginative” environmental efforts from the Green Party

(Molin, 2006). The environmental frame was not commonly used in news articles, which instead focused on the economic frame.

5.3. The 2018 debate

Positive Negative Neutral Economic Environmental Other

63 % 74 %

27 %

16 % 10 % 10 % POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE COVERAGE ISSUE FRAMES The coverage mostly focused on positive aspects of the aviation tax (63%), a minority on negative aspects (27%), and a few (10%) appearing neutral. In 14% of the material aviation industry representatives were given the opportunity to present their frame either in quotation or as authors of an opinion piece. For Green Party politicians, the same number is 20%.

The economic frame was only used as the main issue frame in 15% of articles. It was mostly presented in news reporting on how the tax had affected airlines, expressed in less sensational terms compared to 2006. One example is that SAS announced that the entirety of the tax will be added to ticket prices, which means a greater pressure on the airline, who already had experienced ﬁnancial losses (DN & TT, 2018). Compared to the 2006 debate, where most economic complaints were centered around a perceived regional impact, there was this time no

9 The institute was dissolved in 2010. 26 mention of Malmö Airport (formerly named Sturup). The one article where regional aspects were mentioned was an article in which aviation consulting professional Anders Lidman comments on the decline of Kastrup (Copenhagen’s airport) as an international hub, which is perceived as positive for the Malmö airport (Nilsson, 2018). Otherwise, even the formerly critical Sydsvenskan took to using an environmental frame, writing in an editorial: ”New technology is welcomed. But the green technological evolution can be helped through a well-meaning push forward by aviation taxes.” (Sydsvenskan, 2018). Unlike the 2006 aviation tax, the proposal this time around did not include an exception for northern airports. No mention could be found of this in the material, though.

The environmental frame was established as a consensus in 2018, presented as the main frame in 74% of the material (compared to 22% in 2006). When the aviation tax was discussed, it was mainly in terms of it’s environmental impact. It was most commonly critics that discussed the actual effects of the tax, and some proposed other (more ”aviation-friendly”) alternative measures.

Proponents of the tax mainly focused on the negative environmental impact of ﬂying in general, for which the aviation tax remained (fairly) unquestioned as an ameliorating solution.

In this debate, most were in agreement that the tax would have a positive CO2 impact to some degree, none claimed it would have a negative impact. The environmental impact was mainly discussed referring to the SOU state report on the tax, fairly unified on the prognosis that domestic flights were to decline by 4 percent, with a 1,5-2 percent decrease of air travel in general (TT, 2018). This was supported when the Transport Agency adjusted their prognosis on the increase in flying from 5 percent to 2,6 percent in a report (TT, 2018b). The Green Party formulated the environmental impact as a reduction of 180 000 tons of CO2, corresponding to emissions from almost 100 000 cars (Malmberg et al. 2018). A prominent critic was the Centre

Party’s climate-political spokesperson Rikard Nordin (2018): ”All the aviation tax will do is make

ﬂying more expensive for everyday people. It will not make ﬂying greener.”. This illustrates the consistently used ”Green Growth” policy approach of the Centre Party, who instead of trying to

27 restrict the growth of the industry suggest legislation that incentivizes increased bio fuel.10

Nordin calls the opposite approach ”placard politics” that only works to symbol progress on climate change rather than actual improvement. A frame sponsor that supported this view was the aviation industry, including the CEO of SAS who promoted the industry’s own initiatives including technology investments, reducing cabin weight to save fuel and minimizing the use of motors during take off and landing (Gripenberg, 2018). Niklas Nordström, chair of Swedish Air

Transport Society, was presented as a main opponent to the tax, urging for ”more carrot and less stick” in decision-making. He also uses the economic frame, disagreeing that the tax will have a positive effect on the environment, and says that since aviation is included in the EU emissions trading system (EU-ETS) which means aviation is ”handled in a climate politically correct manner” (Nordström & Dahl, 2018).

This frame did not see much success, though. Around March, a poll came which showed a turn in voter opinion, 48 percent being positive to the proposal and 33 percent negative. This strengthened the Green Party efforts, who in comparison to the 2006 debate did not have to focus on the speciﬁc implications of the tax. The focus was rather on the environmental impact of

flying in general. ”We do not need to fly five times a year to achieve relaxation” is the headline for

Green Party leader Isabella Lövin’s interview in DN’s election year interview series (Eriksson &

Bendjelloul, 2018). The aviation tax is only mentioned brieﬂy, as the focus is more on the be or not-to-be of ﬂying. In line with this idea, the Greens stressed the idea of the aviation industry as

”subsidized” in its current state, since it is not applied to the same carbon tax that driving is.

Following this logic, ﬂying needs to decrease since even if there is a total transformation to bio fuel it will have the same environmental impact if the industry continues to grow. It is a good thing that the industry are starting to realize they need to change, but that interest has come from the political pressure now put on them (Malmberg & Ericson & Pertoft, 2018).

Lövin is in the previously mentioned DN interview described as being ”happy that a rather moral debate about the climate damage of ﬂying has taken place for the election year” (Eriksson &

10 Policy instruments to promote bio fuel use in the aviation sector is under deliberation from a special investigator appointed by the current government planning to present the results on the 1st of March 2019 (Dir. 2018:10) 28 Bendjelloul, 2018). The environmental framing of the aviation had indeed latched on to a moral master frame, not necessarily through the efforts of the Green Party, though. ”The debate on

flying”, as it was dubbed by the media, started in January and continued on opinion pages for several months. It started from an opinion piece in DN from Sofia Ulver, researcher on social trends at Lunds University. Ulver wrote on how the contemporary middle class are conflicted in their ideals; traveling is on the one hand something that is marked with social status, but sacrificing some pleasures in order to take environmental responsibility is also promoted. ”It’s time we reevaluate the value of traveling as the highest form of experience” (Ulver, 2018).11 The following debate took place in a number of Op-Eds, editorials and television debates, several of which are not included in the material (most notably a string of Op-Eds in Expressen). However, the tone of the debate on flying spread to the aviation tax debate. Two weeks after Ulver’s article was published, Green Party leader Isabella Lövin took the opportunity to call out Centre-party leader Annie Lööf on her earlier statement that she believes it is possible for herself and the country to continue to increase their flying (Lövin, 2018). Lövin’s article has the headline ”Lööf, you sound like a climate populist”, where she claims that emissions from the aviation industry has increased 70 percent since 1990, which is incompatible with the sustainability goals the country has decided on. The aviation tax is the only policy instrument available to decrease demand on flying, and by opposing it Lööf is making future generations, and people in developing countries, pay for it.

5.4. Analysis The two most important ﬁndings are the changes that are the most apparent in the material: the

2006 debate was mostly negative to the aviation tax (83%) and the 2018 debate was mostly positive

(63%). The 2006 debate was fairly united on discussing the aviation tax from an economic frame

(68%) and the 2018 debate was almost completely united on discussing the aviation tax from an environmental frame (74%).

11 This article is not originally included in the material since it does not mention the aviation tax, but as it was mentioned in articles included in the material it was considered necessary to include. 29 The aviation industry focused in 2006 on the negative economic effects the tax was expected to have, with special attention to how it would affect the local economy and jobs around the Sturup airport. The economic issue frame latched on to the economic consequences master frame which resonated with especially news reporting, but opinion writers as well. The aviation industry seemed particularly active in shaping that narrative since they were given space as frame sponsors in 38% of the material. The attention paid to the economic consequences left little room to discuss the environmental beneﬁts of the tax or the environmental impact of ﬂying. A contributing factor in shaping the frames seems to be which ”expert” judgements are available.

The environmental frame was often shut down in 2006 by referring to ofﬁcial statement from the

Energy Agency that stated that the expected positive environmental impact of the tax is none or negative. The part that the tax perhaps could have a negative impact on emissions became an often repeated trope to strengthen the perceived ridiculousness of the proposal. I could not ﬁnd the original statement to investigate the reasoning behind The Energy Agency’s judgement, but no other instance has come to the same conclusion. The Energy Agency opposed the proposal in their statement for the second tax as well, with the reasoning that the tax does not promote alternative fuel use and that it does not have enough environmental impact (Energimyndigheten,

2017). The Energy Agency’s 2018 statement, or other alternative evaluations did not get much attention in the media, likely because there was an extensive SOU state report in 2018, which united the debate around the perceived effects.Why the Sturup airport was discussed so extensively in 2006 and barely mentioned in 2018 remains puzzling, but perhaps they have gone through other changes to secure the success of their business.

Even though the environmental aspects of the tax or of ﬂying was not discussed to extent in 2006, many suggested the alternative measure to include aviation in the EU emissions trading system that was launched in 2005. The EU-ETS is an innovative policy solution, utilizing market effects to discourage industry emissions. Aviation was included in the system in 2012, but so far in the system’s now thirteen year old life span it has been unsuccessful in putting a higher price on emissions due to an over-allocation of emission credits among other factors (Koch & Fuss &

Grosjean & Edenhofer, 2014). Expectations for the EU-ETS might have been lowered in 2018, which is why it might have not been mentioned so much.

30 The environmental frame had in 2018 taken over to be by the far the most popular (74%). This is even though the proposal’s environmental impact as described in the SOU report was perceived as rather small. Instead of focusing on that, the discussion latched on to a moral master frame.

Most agreed that the aviation tax would have a positive environmental impact (to some extent), so the focus could shift to the moral implications of ﬂying, combined with a responsibility frame that shifted responsibility to individuals (Annie Lööf being called a ”climate populist” for saying she can continue ﬂying as usual (Lövin, 2018)).This is interesting because one of Christensen &

Wormbs’s (2017) most important points is that Sweden, with a high trust in government and a long history of national engagement in environmental issues is a country that expects that the government should deal with issues like climate change. The calls for individual action could be an indication of a sense of increasing urgency regarding climate change. In the most recent of annual polls from the SOM-institute, which measures attitudes in Sweden, climate change was ranked as the number one worry (over terrorism) with 61% claiming they are ”very worried” (Kihlberg, 2018b).

31 6. Conclusion This paper set out to ﬁnd out how actors have framed the aviation tax in the debates 2006 and

2018. Through conducting a frame analysis that formulated the debates as a framing contest between different actors who acts as frame sponsors, the two debates have been compared. The best way to describe the 2006 debate is that it was dictated by discussing the tax from an economic standpoint, latching on to a master frame of economic consequences with regional impact. The 2018 debate refocused on the environmental aspects of the tax, with special attention to the environmental impact of non-restricted ﬂying, which was latched on to a moral frame together with a responsibility frame towards the individual. As I interpret the debates, the actor that connected their issue frame to a master frame effectively had control of the narrative, which meant for example that the Green Party did not get to discuss environmental aspects in 2006, and that they did not need to discuss economic aspects in 2018.

The difference between the two debates is striking. Based on the ideas that form the base of this paper, the best explanation is the cultural shift connected to the effectiveness of master frames and how actors have connected their issue frames to master frames. The cultural shift could have been exacerbated by an observed ”consensus culture” in Sweden (Levin, 1998), which could mean that the debate quickly mobilizes in one direction. This would have been further strengthened by the differing ”expert” evaluations available in the two debates (e.g. the Energy

Agency stating that the tax might have negative environmental effects). I question the media’s tendency to portray the aviation industry, more speciﬁcally the Swedish Air Transport Society, as unbiased participants in the political discussion on an issue in which they have a lot at stake.

Besides that there is something to read in the industry’s participation in the two debates. There was a particularly high prevalence of RyanAir, FlyMe, and other low-price airlines in the coverage

2006 (mostly in the role of commenting the news reporting). The presence of low-price airlines of the cultural effect from the expanse of low-price flying for newfound opportunities to travel, which might have had an impact on a more optimistic perspective on flying (folkflyget, ”people’s planes” was a tag line used by Woldarski (2006) and others). Dagens Nyheter’s Sofia Ulver (2018) points out the symbolic worth of travel as something of high status in our society, but sacrificing consumption for the greater good could increasingly challenge that ideal, this puts the moral

32 frame on ﬂying in a wider cultural perspective. Mixing personally vindicating moral with politics could perhaps be troubling to some (one party leader branding the other a ”climate populist” (Lövin, 2018)), but in the pressing challenge of climate change, that might be what is needed.

What can be said about the aviation tax is that it is a symbolic proposal by nature, which has both negative and positive implications. On the one hand, the increase of ﬂying is a great danger to climate change, for which there is a need for urgent action. On the other hand, the aviation tax is not going to have the environmental effect that many wish it would, and the Chicago

Convention hinders more progressive legislation. Despite the lack of possibility for strong measures to restrict the harms of flying, the fact that many can unite behind flying less - symbolic or not - shows promise. The result of the debate, together with the turn in the opinion polling shows that it might be more difficult to remove the tax for the politicians that win the election this fall, which could mean that Swedes are going to fly marginally less. The issue of choosing to

fly or choosing to not fly has filled the opinion pages recently because it boils down environmental issues to something graspable. What is important is that the fight against climate change does is not constrained to symbolic measures, that the Swedish ambition is translated into further policy measures in Sweden and abroad. That is why I urge for further research to continue to focus on the framing of concrete policy measures within the increasing awareness on climate change.

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Wolodarski, P. (2006, March 11). Skatten ﬂyger bort. Dagens Nyheter.

TTb. (2018, April 20). Färre ﬂygresor efter ﬂygskatt väntas. Dagens Nyheter.

TTa. (2018, April 1). Svårt se effekten av nya ﬂygskatten. Dagens Nyheter.

Sydsvenskan. (2018, April 2). Inte något klimatlyft. Inte än. Sydsvenskan.

Sydsvenskan. (2006b, March 18). Skatt ut i det blå. Sydsvenskan.

Sydsvenskan. (2006a, April 11). Flygplats i fara. Sydsvenskan.

Smith, S. K. (2006, April 19). Aktuella frågor: "Flygskatt behövs”. Sydsvenskan.

Skanselid, F. (2006, January 19). FlyMe Europe AB: Flygskatt med enbart nackdelar. Dagens Nyheter.

Roxbergh, C. & Domeij, Å. (2006, January 4). REPLIK: Flygskatt ger visst bättre miljö. Aftonbladet.

Ritzén, J. (2018, March 25). Jessica: Ge mig ett SL-kort platina med blippbonus. Dagens Nyheter.

Reepalu, I & Müchler, S. (2006, April 21). Aktuella frågor "Flygskatten hotar jobb”. Sydsvenskan.

Pettersson, C. (2006, January 13). Nuder får kritik för ﬂygskatteplaner. Dagens Nyheter.

Nordin, R. (2018, February 5). Du driver plakatpolitik om ﬂygskatten, Lövin. Aftonbladet.

Nilsson, O. (2018, March 2). Experten: Kastrups roll som Europa-hubb på väg att försvinna. Sydsvenskan.

Molin, K. (2006, April 18). Nuders löfte: `Vi har råd med ännu ﬂer reformer`. Dagens Nyheter.

35 Malmberg, N. & Ericson, A. J. & Pertoft, M. (2018, April 2). Ni sprider myter - men förgäves, Svenskt Flyg. Aftonbladet.

Magnusson, E. (2006, March 24). Vänsterpartiet hotar förhala nya ﬂygskatten. Sydsvenskan.

Lövin, I. (2018, February 1). Lööf, du låter som en klimatpopulist. Aftonbladet.

Gripenberg, P. (2018, February 21). SAS-vd hoppas att British Airways köper Norwegian. Dagens Nyheter.

Fagerström, A. (2006, March 10). Ryanair hotar lägga ner linjer från Sturup. Sydsvenska Dagbladet.

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37 APPENDIX Coding guide for Master Frames Attribution of responsibility Does the story suggest that some level of gov’t has the ability to alleviate the problem? Does the story suggest that some level of the government is responsible for the issue/problem? Does the story suggest solution(s)to the problem/issue? Does the story suggest that an ind. (or group of people in society) is resp. for the issue-problem? Does the story suggest the problem requires urgent action? Human interest frame Does the story provide a human example or “human face” on the issue? Does the story employ adjectives or personal vignettes that generate feelings of outrage,empathy-caring, sympathy, or compassion? Does the story emphasize how individuals and groups are affected by the issue/problem? Does the story go into the private or personal lives of the actors? Does the story contain visual information that might generate feelings of outrage, empathy-caring, sympathy, or compassion? Conflict frame Does the story reflect disagreement between parties-individuals-groups-countries? Does one party-individual-group-country reproach another? Does the story refer to two sides or to more than two sides of the problem or issue? Does the story refer to winners and losers? Morality frame Does the story contain any moral message? Does the story make reference to morality, God, and other religious tenets? Does the story offer specific social prescriptions about how to behave? Economic frame Is there a mention of financial losses or gains now or in the future? Is there a mention of the costs/degree of expense involved? Is there a reference to economic consequences of pursuing or not pursuing a course of action? Semetko & Valkenburg (2000:100)