My master’s thesis Formation of Environmental Consciousness in Estonia from the end of the 1980-ies to 2005 aims to provide a conceptual framework of the theories of modernity and reflexivity in order to analyze the development of environmental consciousness in Estonian society. The sociological and theoretical focus of the work is original to Estonian context as the previous research in the field of environmental consciousness originates from socio-psychological tradition. The first chapter of the thesis provides the reader with an overview of the scientific terms used in the theoretical and empirical context. The second, theoretical chapter explains the logic of modern societies and its consequences on nature through the inner functioning of social systems (according to Niklas Luhmann). The aim of the chapter is to explain the influences of instrumental rationality and (confrontational) reflexivity on the society and its natural environment. The chapter distinguishes two stages of the modern society (according to Ulrich Beck) – firstly, the simple modernity, where control and security provided by the expert systems run our everyday life, and secondly, the reflexive modernity, where risk and insecurity become the part of systems normality. The functional systems of the society are not able to provide us with expertise, because the modern expertise and technology are linear by nature and they cannot follow the complexity they have caused to their environment. The two stages of modernity have different views on nature and natural environment, which originates from their inner logic. The first modernity rationalizes nature as a resource and a threat, the resources are brought in the center of the system and the environmental problems will be rationalized behind its borders. The reflexive modernity breaks the border, so nature becomes a part of the system again, but in the shape of constant risk. According to the modern nature concepts three paradigms of environmental consciousness can be distinguished: social paradigm (denying individual), environmental paradigm (rationalizing individual) and ecological paradigm (suspicious individual). The beginning of the third chapter provides the empirical analysis with the periodization of Estonian late history (from the silent and denying Soviet period and rapid transition to nowadays). The third and the fourth chapters concentrate on empirical analysis of the influential communications of environmental consciousness – society and its functional systems (bureaucracy, business world, environmental movement, environmental cases), communication culture, environmental values, environmental media, environmental problems perceived by the individual, public environmental information, etc. The thesis assumes that the development of modernity and its traces in people’s environmental consciousness can be followed by the analysis of different communications. It can be concluded from the master’s thesis that both the Soviet and western modernity provided us both with comparable environmental damage. But the environmental consciousness and action had different features – the environmental information as well as the environmental movement acted as compensatory communications, environment was considered soft, non-political issue. The Soviet system provided individuals with compensatory (intentional) communication – soft environmental issues instead of serious environmental questions, environmental communication in general instead of political debates. Still, the systems structure amplified suspicion against the communication – there were controversies between the rationality of the system and the rationality of its intentional communication. As the public silence legitimized the risks in individual lives, the Soviet system was somehow comparable to risk society. The transition society legitimized economic rationalization; the western goods were taken for granted. The collapse of the old system forced individuals to follow their own paths, take their own risks, so they had to create their own rationality. The individualization period lost environmental communication from the system until the end of transition period. Nowadays the environmental hazards and risks are taken under attention to respond to the rationality of the European Union. The environmental regulations have emerged in a forced manner, the legitimization of environmental problems has been chaotic and irrational for individuals who long for certain rules and correct answers to express their environmental identity (through consumer behavior or activism). Although society does not support reflexive communication or critical dialogue, confrontational reflexivity still appears on the level of individuals, reflexivity has its roots in the perceived bads, which accompanied the rapid economic transition that denied the problems it caused. The peculiarity of Estonian society is that the ecological consciousness – enlightenment – appeared before the actual reflexity of the system
