In postmodern globalized societies, we face an almost continues feed of new information every day. How-ever, at the same time, the world seems increasingly complex and the consequences of our actions appear incalculable. It seems as if the in-depth information, we seek, becomes lost in the chaos of communication. This challenge people’s ability of act upon their needs and values and, thus, actively navigate in their own lives. To gain a prospect of wellbeing, we must understand the phenomenon, and its relation to other phe-nomena, as both the sender and receiver in a communication situation perceive it.
The purpose of this master thesis is to study how to structure information on well-being to meet the need for human understanding. My methodological approach is hermeneutic. Thus, I acknowledge that even though we sense experiences in a similar manner, our interpretations of the experiences and texts may vary; based on the different contexts we are part of during our lives. Still, the information on basic psycho-logical needs and relations regarding wellbeing point towards essential preconditions influencing people’s lives across cultures, nationalities, gender, age etc.
In the thesis, I elaborate on theories from Lars Brodersen, Eric Arnould, Nathan shedroff and Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi to gain an understanding of the users’ way of approaching information. Based on this I discuss the conditions a sender must take into account when communicating about wellbeing. One of the key points is to understand that people gain new understandings through experiences. We then compare the new information to our prior experiences and knowledge. Afterwards the interpretation of the infor-mation form new conceptual understandings of the perceived phenomena.
However, because people’s contexts, experiences and emotional sensitivity vary from each other, we are likely to attribute different meanings to the same concepts, depending on our prior understandings. For instance, due to the use of a different language in this abstract compared to the following thesis, there is a risk that the different readers will understanding the texts in different ways. Thus, prior to communication a sender must identify the communicative context and adjust the relevant information according to this, in order to meet the needs of the potential receivers of the information.
With this thesis, I aim to demonstrate that you can structure in-depth information to become more under-standable for different users. However, the wider the audience, the harder it will be to ensure common understandings of the concepts used. Furthermore, in order for people to act upon the communication, the information must refer to context of meaning and interest to them.