| Summary: | The United Nations originally established the term sustainable development through the Brundtland commission and became a frontrunner and global actor within the field. Information has initially been described as an invaluable aspect of successfully achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by the UN itself. Therefore, the lack of current references to information and communication in relation to the execution of the SDGs has to be examined in an attempt to fill this research gap. Therefore, this thesis investigates in what way their external communication, more specifically their press releases regarding the SDGs, are executed in order to promote sustainability. This is done by performing a qualitative text analysis on press releases as empirical material. A question this thesis attempts to answer is how the press releases of the UN have changed after the evolved SDGs. Also, in obedience with their own strategic documents, how are the UN concerned with making their public communication shed light on the implementation of the SDGs. These questions are relevant considering the growing interest for the issue of sustainable development. The analysis draws on theories of organizational communication and strategic communication. The thesis reveals that the SDGs and sustainability are cohesively presented throughout the press releases. However, a change in inclusiveness of the audience was observed after the implementation of the SDGs. This thesis indicates that there is potential for improvement in terms of how the UN communicates sustainability issues and promotes the SDGs.
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