Eli Skogerbø

In an unprecedented situation of uncertainty, the COVID-19 pandemic tested the public crisis communication capacity. Using focus group data, this study analyzes public reactions to COVID-19 policies in Scandinavia. In line with the “rally around the flag” hypothesis, trust in public health authorities remained high in all three Scandinavian countries throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. We asked how people assessed the trustworthiness of authorities, and how they discussed reasons for complying with regulations and recommendations. Our findings suggest that the trustworthiness of experts and leaders was continually negotiated, manufactured, and renegotiated, producing critical and conditional trust. Willingness to and reasons for complying with measures to curb the disease were expressed and justified by participants from Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, notwithstanding the national policies consisting of harsh regulations and mild pressure.

Over the past decades, truth-telling commissions aimed at uncovering, confronting and providing justice for the past treatment of children have been established in many countries, including the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (RCIRCSA 2013-2017) and the Norwegian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) (2018-2023). Journalism plays important roles both in triggering commissions of inquiry and in attracting public attention to their work and findings. This paper investigates media reporting on the RCIRCSA and the TRC. The Commissions were not similar in scale, scope or legal powers, however, they both generated spaces for public listening to stories about the consequences of past policies and present practices of child removal, abuse and racism that potentially could change the grand narratives of each nation. Our findings suggest that future commissions should pay particular attention to the structural power of news logics and mediation. We find, despite the widely different cases, consistent patterns of uneven and hierarchical media reporting and overshadowing of First Nations voices and aspirations.

Political leaders play a crucial role in shaping societal perceptions and citizens’ expectations of gender roles. Through their self-presentation on social media, political leaders have the power to either reinforce or challenge existing gender stereotypes, thereby influencing how citizens perceive and interpret gender norms. However, research on how women and men politicians present themselves on social media is scarce. This comparative study contributes to remedying this research gap by content analysing the official Facebook and Instagram pages of 18 political leaders during the 2021 national election campaigns in Germany and Norway. In contrast to earlier research on gendered presentations of politicians in the news, we did not find strong evidence of gendered self-presentations in either country, neither in terms of personalisation nor in terms of gender issue ownership. This could be because gender roles in Germany and Norway have become more fluid, or because the successful politicians we have analysed have been successful due to their ability to “walk the double bind” of needing to conform to both masculine and feminine gender expectations. Our study calls for more comparative research into this field, including studies of lower profile politicians and politicians in countries with lower degrees of gender equality.

For citizens to make well-informed decisions, they require information on diverse policy issues, which, among others, are publicized on political parties’ social media accounts. However, as strategic actors, parties carefully weigh which issues to highlight and which to play down, rather than addressing a full range of issues in their campaigns. We investigated the hitherto neglected question of which issue diversity parties prioritize on their social media accounts and which factors influence this choice. We conducted a standardized content analysis of the official Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts of 10 Norwegian parties and their leaders during the 2021 national election campaign. The results of our analyses indicate that issue-related campaign strategies influence parties’ issue diversity more systematically than parties’ governing/opposition statuses and their choices of social media platforms.

Social media has contributed to the spread of populist political communication, yet we still lack systematic knowledge of the contextual factors affecting its use. In this study, we investigated how and to what degree platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) and party characteristics (populist vs. non-populist parties; political ideology) affected the use of populist communication by Norwegian political parties on social media during the 2021 national election campaign. Based on a tripartite conceptualisation of populist communication consisting of people-centrism, anti-elitism, and the exclusion of out-groups, we conducted a standardised content analysis of the official social media accounts of nine parties and their party leaders. Populist communication was overall rather rare, being most widespread on Facebook and least widespread on Twitter. Which parties used populist communication the most depended on the platform, and it was not always the populist Progress Party [Fremskrittspartiet] that communicated in the most populist manner. Parties located towards the fringes of the political party spectrum used more populist communication. Anti-elitism was more widespread among left-wing parties, and almost exclusively the right-wing Progress Party excluded out-groups.

The Norwegian Parliament appointed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in 2018 to investigate past injustices inflicted by the Norwegian state upon Norway’s Indigenous people, the Sámi, and two national minorities, the Kvens and the Norwegian Finns, as well as to create a foundation for reconciliation between these minorities and the majority population. This study investigates the media coverage of the TRC from 2016 to 2021. We found shrinking and uneven media coverage over time. Whereas news logics in minority and local media favoured TRC news and debates, coverage in nationwide mainstream news media was rare. While some explanations for these differences relate to marginalisation of Indigenous and national minority voices in media, others can be linked to the TRCs work methods and practices, which are designed to not attract journalistic attention until the final report is published in 2023.

The concept of transparency has been problematized in risk research. This exploratory study contributes to the risk literature by considering an established three-dimensional transparency framework (information substantiality, accountability, and participation) and discussing the opportunities for and challenges to risk communication in relation to the framework. Furthermore, we examine the strategies of Scandinavian health authorities during the COVID-19 pandemic and the different levels of public trust in these authorities. In general, Norwegian authorities received higher levels of trust than their Swedish and Danish counterparts. We argue that this was partly due to differences in transparency management. Our findings support the importance of the three transparency dimensions and indicate that transparency regarding uncertainties positively impacts levels of trust.

Denne boka er den tredje i en rekke av studier av sametingsvalg i Norge. Med utgangspunkt i velgerundersøkelser og kvalitative studier behandler boka ulike sider ved sametingsvalg generelt og valget i 2017 spesielt. Gjennom ni kapitler ser boka både på velgeradferd og valgresultat og på mer grunnleggende spørsmål om samepolitikkens oppbygging. Boka har fem hovedtemaer. For det første, samisk identitet og forholdet til valgmanntallet. Hva skal til for å oppfatte seg selv eller andre som same? Når er man «samisk nok» til å melde seg inn i valgmanntallet? Disse spørsmålene angår selve grunnlaget for samepolitikken: hvem som skal tillates å velge representanter på vegne av det samiske folket. For det andre, det samiske sivilsamfunnet. Hvordan forholder organisasjoner som representerer samer og samiske interesser seg til Sametinget? For det tredje, valgdeltakelse. Hvordan kan man forklare hjemmesitting i et system der man – i motsetning til andre valg i Norge – aktivt må registrere seg på forhånd som velger? Og hva med det faktum at velgere i kommuner med færre enn 30 manntallsførte må forhåndsstemme – bidrar dette til å trekke ned valgdeltakelsen? For det fjerde, det partipolitiske landskapet. Hva skiller velgerne til de ulike partiene? Er det tydelige forskjeller som gjør det lett for velgerne å se forskjell på partiene? For det femte, valgkampen og velgernes informasjon. Hvor henter velgerne sin informasjon om valget fra? Vi ser særlig på hvordan partier og velgere finner hverandre i Sør-Norge, en valgkrets der sametingsvalget nesten ikke dekkes i mediene. Sametingsvalg: Tilhørighet, deltakelse, partipolitikk henvender seg til alle som er opptatt av ulike sider ved det å ha et samisk demokratisk system i Norge, men særlig til studenter, forskere, journalister og samepolitisk aktive. Synopsis in English: This book is a study of elections to the representative organ of Norway's indigenous people, the Sámi. Based on quantitative and qualitative research, the anthology examines various aspects of elections to the Sámi Parliament, both in general and regarding the 2017 election in particular. The nine chapters delve into a wide range of topics, from voter behaviour and election results to more fundamental questions regarding indigenous representation and organizing in Norway. The book covers five main themes. First, Sámi identity and criteria for voter registration. What are considered acceptable grounds for claiming to be Sámi, and what criteria do people use when judging others as Sámi or non-Sámi? When is one ‘Sámi enough’ to qualify for the right to vote? These questions have a bearing on the very core of Sámi politics: who should be allowed to choose representatives on behalf of the Sámi people? Second, Sámi civil society. How do organizations that represent Sámi persons and Sámi interests relate to the Sámi Parliament? Third, voter turnout. How do we explain non-voting in a system where, unlike those for other elections in Norway, one must actively register in advance to be able to vote? And what about the fact that voters in municipalities with fewer than 30 registered voters must vote in advance? Do these circumstances depress voter turnout? Fourth, the party-political landscape. What differentiates supporters of the different parties? Are there clear differences that make it easier for voters to identify the distinctions between the parties? Finally, elections and voter information. Where do voters find information about this election? We look specifically at how parties and voters find each other in South Norway, the largest constituency in the country, and yet one in which Sámi parliamentary elections are rarely covered by the media. Sámi Parliamentary Elections: Identity, Participation, Party Politics will be relevant for everyone interested in indigenous representation and participation generally, and the Sámi democratic system in Norway particularly, especially students, academics, journalists and those who are actively engaged in Sámi politics.

During election campaigns for the Sámediggi – the representative organ of the Indigenous Sámi – candidates in the South Norway Constituency face special challenges: How do they communicate with potential voters residing within a large group of non-voters and spread over a large area, when the constituency’s news media barely cover the election? The chapter looks at different means of reaching voters under such challenging conditions. The candidates prioritized getting traditional media coverage to a very little degree. Social media were seen as important and used actively, particularly Facebook, although only a few parties had developed more advanced strategies for utilization of this tool. Some parties created and implemented a special visual identity to communicate their values and attract attention, and one of the constituency’s parties achieved extra media attention because of their style. The existence of physical spaces for Indigenous politics in the constituency’s central urban area was of importance, not least because the 2017 election featured a special project to make the Indigenous election visible, which should be possible to replicate elsewhere. The utilization of organizational and social networks was important and gave a special advantage to established party organizations with registered members. Targeted campaign mailing was of key importance to counterbalance the problematic aspects of the constituency.