Logotyp: till Försvarshögskolans hemsida

This thesis makes use of biopolitical theory to examine the governmental and organizational response to the covid-19-infodemic. It aims to answer the puzzling research question as to why the infodemic – whose inherent problem is an overabundance of information – is responded to and met with even greater amounts of information by governments and health organizations, and what implications these measures may have on the population. The analysis finds that the question can partly be answered by derivation to previous research within the field of crisis communication: the most efficient way to respond to mis- and disinformation is to respond with correct information and with counter arguments. To answer the question in full an analysis of the subject of security is conducted where what can be interpreted from the material, following a modified version of Carol Lee Bacchi’s “What’s the Problem Represented to be?” method, is that the human judgement can be understood as the subject of security. The idea is that by securing the human judgment through improving people’s health literacy, people can be taught to act in a manner which is coherent with the state’s biopolitical goals, i.e. to secure the survival of the population. The analysis also shows that while these measures are made in an effort to secure the population, the measures themselves risk becoming a threat to the very population it is supposed to protect.