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In this chapter, we utilise a framing analysis to compare Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish government communication during the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020. The results show that the perceptions of the seriousness of the crisis and the expected challenges facing Scandinavian societies were shared by all three governments, but they framed their communications slightly differently. Though based on common perceptions of an extraordinary threat to society and efforts to demonstrate national solidarity, a key component of the differences between the three Scandinavian prime ministers’ framing of the crisis was related to the issue of political control: One prime minister had come to office with the intention of assuming full political control in crisis situations, another framed management of the crisis in accordance with the delegation of power, and the third sought balance between expert agencies and political control through transparency and openness.

Unlike other global crises, the COVID-19 pandemic offered researchers a unique opportunity to better understand the ways in which journalistic practices in the digital era could be adapted to handle new challenges. In this chapter, we are concerned with practices related to investigative journalism and social media use among journalists.

In this article we explore how Swedish citizens perceive security threats, and how threat perceptions overlap with ideology, trust and demographics. The results show that concerns over security threats are foremost connected to an authoritarian outlook. In addition, four typical groups of security orientations were identifed. On the one end of the spectrum, we found one group with anti-immigrant, anti-feminist and anti-egalitarian opinions and low confdence in media and institutions. At the other end, we identifed a group dominated by women with university degrees, who believe in egalitarian tolerance and display trust in societal institutions. Even though the findings are in line with previous research on the radical right globally, we were intrigued by the existence of a clearly defned group of respondents that oppose feminism to the extent that it is even seen as a security threat. This is particularly striking given that Sweden is thought of as one of the most equal countries in the world, with a government pursuing a feminist foreign policy.

Projection of strategic narratives to gain competitive advantages is a central feature in the global competition for status and power. This article presents a comparative narrative analysis of how the Russian state sponsored news platform Sputnik narrates Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden 2014–2019. The objectives are to uncover what negative work strategic narratives can perform and to decipher how adverse narratives are constructed. The findings suggest that Sputnik uses a mix of standard strategies and tailor-made narratives, working to destruct, direct and suppress the Nordics. The analysis exposed distinct differences as Sputnik narrated Sweden and Denmark more negatively than Norway and Finland. The narratives can serve to divide and weaken the Nordics and the EU, and undermine international reputations of each state. The strategy of division through narratives is particularly problematic as polarization challenges Western democracies and the EU. The article furthers narrative research by testing a recently crafted analytical framework and by presenting findings that indicate a need for a broadened research agenda. Whereas previous research has primarily centred on how malign information influence can harm democracy, our results indicate that narratives can cause a broader variety of harms.

In managing and communicating crises, the responsibilities of government far exceed those of private organizations. This chapter is therefore taking a closer look at the ability of public organizations to handle a crisis. This chapter introduces frames for public administration and public communication management as a starting point for the understanding of public organizations’ practice of crisis communication. It also pays attention to how the emergence of networks and use of social media affect public organizations’ crisis communication. From these viewpoints, the chapter presents both practical and normative challenges for future crisis communication work in public organizations.

Gender differences have been observed regarding many political and social issues, yet welack comprehensive evidence on differences in perceptions on a wide range of securityissues increasingly important to voters: military threats, criminality, and terrorism.Previous research suggests that when women are highly politically mobilized, as they arein Sweden, gender differences in political opinion are large. On the other hand, Swedishpoliticians have worked hard to reduce gender stereotypical thinking. This prompts thequestion: Are there gender differences in attitudes on security issues in Sweden, and if so,in what ways do the attitudes differ? This study is based on comprehensive data from focusgroups and a large-scale survey. The results show that women were more prone to respondwith an “ethic of care,” across security issues. Women were more inclined to understandsecurity problems as structural, explained by macho culture, segregation, and injustice.Women tend to support preventive measures that provide individuals with opportunities tochoose “the right path,” such as education and economic investment in deprived areas.When asked about national security, women believe more in diplomacy and dialogue. Ingeneral, women are less inclined to support various repressive solutions.

Terror attacks are moments of chaos and destabilization. From a journalistic perspective, terror attacks disrupt everyday news work where journalists find themselves struggling to restore order and report the event at hand as accurate and speedy as possible. From the perspective of the affected audience, journalism fills vital functions in making sense of the attack, by responding to a complex and rapidly changing mix of social needs. In this article, we explore how such disrupting events as terror can contribute to newsroom innovation in terms of journalistic processes, journalistic products, and even journalistic genres. We use the terror attack and massacre in Norway on 22 July 2011 as a case study, as it to a large extent forced journalists to think outside the box in order to meet the audience’s informational and rhetorical needs. The study shows that innovation is tightly connected to the development of the rhetorical situation through three phases: shock, start-up, and transformation. The analysis is based on qualitative interviews with journalists who covered the attack, as well as a rhetorical exploration of the evolving situational context and the texts that were created in response.