Banging on the Table: Strategic Communication and the Discursive Construction of Greenlandic Sovereignty
(2026) SKOM12 20261Department of Strategic Communication
- Abstract
- Within the field of Strategic Communication, geopolitical rivalries are increasingly understood as struggles for narratives and discursive dominance. This thesis explores a critical juncture in this landscape: the period between late 2025 and early 2026, marked by US President Donald Trump’s renewed push to acquire Greenland, stating the US would take it “one way or another”. The study examines how Greenlandic political actors engage in discourse to negotiate and construct sovereignty and national identity in response to these asymmetrical US-Danish security and acquisition narratives. Specifically, it investigates how communication is operationalized as a primary, non-material resource for exercising power and resistance under structural... (More)
- Within the field of Strategic Communication, geopolitical rivalries are increasingly understood as struggles for narratives and discursive dominance. This thesis explores a critical juncture in this landscape: the period between late 2025 and early 2026, marked by US President Donald Trump’s renewed push to acquire Greenland, stating the US would take it “one way or another”. The study examines how Greenlandic political actors engage in discourse to negotiate and construct sovereignty and national identity in response to these asymmetrical US-Danish security and acquisition narratives. Specifically, it investigates how communication is operationalized as a primary, non-material resource for exercising power and resistance under structural constraints. Adopting a qualitative approach, the study analyzes media text from this escalation using Fairclough’s Critical Discourse analysis. The analytical framework is further developed through Critical Public Relations perspective, utilizing the concept of strategic framing to investigate how different political actors manage meaning, establish legitimacy, and contest interpretive dominance.
The findings reveal that the US operates as the primary agenda-setter leveraging its asymmetrical power to dictate the geopolitical discourse through aggressive transactional and paternalistic lenses, using real estate and humanitarian narratives like “the hospital ship”. In response to this externally imposed agenda, Greenlandic actors actively try to resist by re-framing the discourse around self-determination, dignity, and the strategic proclamation “we are not for sale”. Meanwhile, Danish communicative strategies focus on crisis management, attempting to de-escalate and stabilize the status quo within the Realm. The thesis concludes that strategic communication constitutes a vital site of ideological struggle, demonstrating how non-sovereign actors can strategically shift discursive boundaries to challenge dominant, agenda-setting power structures. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9246032
- author
- Helgertz, Lisa LU and Weng, Madelaine
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- SKOM12 20261
- year
- 2026
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Strategic Communication, Critical Public Relations (CPR), Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), Greenland, Sovereignty, Strategic framing, Identity, Organizational Communication
- language
- English
- id
- 9246032
- date added to LUP
- 2026-07-10 17:46:47
- date last changed
- 2026-07-10 17:46:47
@misc{9246032,
abstract = {{Within the field of Strategic Communication, geopolitical rivalries are increasingly understood as struggles for narratives and discursive dominance. This thesis explores a critical juncture in this landscape: the period between late 2025 and early 2026, marked by US President Donald Trump’s renewed push to acquire Greenland, stating the US would take it “one way or another”. The study examines how Greenlandic political actors engage in discourse to negotiate and construct sovereignty and national identity in response to these asymmetrical US-Danish security and acquisition narratives. Specifically, it investigates how communication is operationalized as a primary, non-material resource for exercising power and resistance under structural constraints. Adopting a qualitative approach, the study analyzes media text from this escalation using Fairclough’s Critical Discourse analysis. The analytical framework is further developed through Critical Public Relations perspective, utilizing the concept of strategic framing to investigate how different political actors manage meaning, establish legitimacy, and contest interpretive dominance.
The findings reveal that the US operates as the primary agenda-setter leveraging its asymmetrical power to dictate the geopolitical discourse through aggressive transactional and paternalistic lenses, using real estate and humanitarian narratives like “the hospital ship”. In response to this externally imposed agenda, Greenlandic actors actively try to resist by re-framing the discourse around self-determination, dignity, and the strategic proclamation “we are not for sale”. Meanwhile, Danish communicative strategies focus on crisis management, attempting to de-escalate and stabilize the status quo within the Realm. The thesis concludes that strategic communication constitutes a vital site of ideological struggle, demonstrating how non-sovereign actors can strategically shift discursive boundaries to challenge dominant, agenda-setting power structures.}},
author = {{Helgertz, Lisa and Weng, Madelaine}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Banging on the Table: Strategic Communication and the Discursive Construction of Greenlandic Sovereignty}},
year = {{2026}},
}