Abstract

At the University of Helsinki, Finland, the social representations about co-operation between authorities were explored by sociolinguistic text analysis method. The research was performed during Spring 2010, and was concentrated on textual analysis of legal and other official texts, which control and guide the action of authorities. It was found that both the hierarchy of authorities and knowledge-based co-operation emphasized the existence of an information chain between authorities. This information chain was presupposed to be ready for emergency situations, although the importance of co-operation and information change had to repeat several times- as if it would be not self-evident for different authorities. What should be reconstructed after this research is the organization of leadership, the effect of media, and the diversity of societies.