Deliberation or Manipulation? The Issue of Governmental Information in Sweden, 1969–1973

Norén, Fredrik

doi:10.7560/ic55203

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…(Kjellgren 2002, 295-300). This discussion should be understood as part of a general discourse around demands for increased citizen participation in society, in which information was regarded as a tool for emancipation (Norén 2020). Similar arguments also echoed in countries where the discussion only centred on the accessibility of public documents, for example, in West Germany (Vismann 2017(Vismann [2001, 280).…”

Section: The Expansion Of Governmental Informationmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…[-] Therefore, we are in need of constructive, imaginative proposals regarding how to push the propaganda. 1 This rhetoric was an echo from the ongoing public discussions about improved governmental information (Norén 2020). One important reason for this approach, the Director General argued, was to show how health information could ease the increasing cost of healthcare.…”

Section: Initiating Collaborations Between the National Board Of Healmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Cultural policy as a governmental proxy tool for improved health: the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare’s collaborations with cultural workers 1970–1975

Diurlin

Norén

2020

International Journal of Cultural Policy

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This article highlights cultural policy as a governmental proxy to address political matters beyond the cultural domain-here civil health-and the need to problematize and historicize 'arts in health' policies. The article centres on the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare's collaborations with cultural workers 1970-1975, framed by three contextual developments: politicization of the cultural sector, call for innovative governmental information, and changing character of health information. Theoretically, the article draws from the field of cultural policy research, with an emphasis on historiographical perspectives. The result shows that despite interdependence, the collaborations were an arena where interests clashed. The main conflict lay in what art should seek to change for the better: society or its citizens? However, the conflicts were also due to a mixture of roles: the agency suddenly found itself a patron of the arts, and the cultural workers producers of governmental information.

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Section: The Expansion Of Governmental Informationmentioning

confidence: 92%

Section: Initiating Collaborations Between the National Board Of Healmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cultural policy as a governmental proxy tool for improved health: the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare’s collaborations with cultural workers 1970–1975

Diurlin

Norén

2020

International Journal of Cultural Policy

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“…By contrast, the 1970s can be described as a transition period that saw the emergence of a new view on government agencies' communication. In the public debate, scholars, bureaucrats and public intellectuals criticised one-way public information for being manipulative (Norén, 2020). At the same time, critics called for two-way communication, where increasing activity and problem awareness was the main ambition (as opposed to pre-specified, goal-oriented campaigns of previous years).…”

Section: Objective Information As An Ideal and A Nascent Informal Ten...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Government public relations, audiovisual communication and the informalisation of Sweden

Stjernholm

2022

Critical Studies in Television: The International Journal of Te

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This article addresses the role of television as a ‘new media’ in government public relations. Drawing on sociological theories on informalisation, this study analyses three features of the Swedish public information programme Anslagstavlan during the 1970s and 1980s: first, formal techniques such as editing, pacing and use of animations; second, narrative strategies including the utilisation of celebrity advertising and intertextuality; and last, the rhetoric of public information. The study shows that the engineering of informality was a key communication strategy for government agencies and that televised information contributed to the conversationalisation and personalisation of government agencies’ communication in medium-specific ways.

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The rise and fall of ‘propaganda’ as a positive concept: a digital reading of Swedish parliamentary records, 1867–2019

Jarlbrink

Norén

2022

Scandinavian Journal of History

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Based on digital readings of all records from the Swedish parliament 1867-2019, we examine how the concept 'propaganda' was used in the debates. To track the concept, we have extracted word window co-occurrences, bigrams, and keywords. Research on the history of propaganda in liberal democracies has emphasized that the meaning of the concept was open-ended before WWI. By 1945, it had been contaminated by authoritarian propaganda, and its negative connotations were cemented at least by the 1960s. Our analysis, however, shows that 'propaganda' was used mainly in a negative sense from 1867 to 2019. Nevertheless, it was also possible to use 'propaganda' in a positive and neutral sense between the 1910s and 1980s. We suggest that a period of deideologization in Sweden post-WWII made it possible to use 'propaganda' as long as the issues were seen as non-controversial. The radicalization in the late-1960s meant that authorities and previously non-controversial issues became contested. To suggest one-directional 'propaganda' in order to implement what politicians had decided was in people's best interest became difficult in this context. In this new communication setting, 'information' was a more flexible term in contexts where 'propaganda' had previously been used in a neutral or positive sense.

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Deliberation or Manipulation? The Issue of Governmental Information in Sweden, 1969–1973

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

Cultural policy as a governmental proxy tool for improved health: the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare’s collaborations with cultural workers 1970–1975

Cultural policy as a governmental proxy tool for improved health: the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare’s collaborations with cultural workers 1970–1975

Government public relations, audiovisual communication and the informalisation of Sweden

The rise and fall of ‘propaganda’ as a positive concept: a digital reading of Swedish parliamentary records, 1867–2019

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