The dynamics of hydrogen discourse in Finland

The goal of the thesis was to explore how hydrogen discourse evolved in Finland in the past years. The work used a modified version of argumentative discourse analysis, and focused on discourses about hydrogen in local newspapers in four areas of Finland, reviewing the newspapers Helsingin Sanomat in the South, Kaleva in the North, Satakunnan Kansa in the West and Etelä-Saimaa and Karjalainen in the East. The results indicate that there are noticeable differences in discourse, conceptualizations and state of “hydrogen hype” between the regions.

Time sequenced discourse analysis of Kaleva and Helsingin Sanomat were done to observe changes in tone regarding economic, social, technical and environmental storylines in the past years. This part continues an earlier work that evaluated the discourses between 2021 and beginning of July 2024. Tracking the changes in storylines allows to follow the state of “hydrogen hype” in these regions. The results indicate that hydrogen discourse in Helsingin Sanomat follows the progress of the Gartner hype cycle theory. The “peak of inflated expectations” occurred at the beginning of 2023, after the inclusion of hydrogen to national climate and energy strategy. The discourses in Kaleva and Eastern Finland newspapers do not follow the same trajectory. In both Helsingin Sanomat and Kaleva, the “through of disillusion” path is observable as tone has become more negative, when describing the social and economic impacts of hydrogen developments. This can be seen as a positive development, if the challenges and barriers are discussed openly, which can help rebuild trust and social acceptance.