Logo: to the web site of the Swedish Defence University

This thesis explores how the Swedish Psychological Defence Agency presents and communicates about the individual citizen’s responsibility for digital security through their official campaign “Don’t be fooled”. Moreover, it examines the underlying governance rationalities in the agency’s campaign using a theoretical framework grounded in Foucault's governmentality, responsibilization, and moralization. To address this, the study employs a qualitative content analysis and an analytical framework grounded in Varaa’s et al. (2006) five legitimation strategies, including normalization, authorization, rationalization, moralization, and narrativization. This framework is then applied to all the public material concerning the campaign, both the official website and the handbook. The analysis showed that the agency’s campaign used a combination of legitimation strategies to present a normalized digital threat image reflected in a narrative of national values under threat, where the recipient is attributed a moral obligation to be vigilant of unconfirmed information, which is then further reinforced through the institutional authority of the agency. Moreover, the study demonstrates that the campaign presents the individual with an increasing responsibility to protect their own digital security and, by extension, the nation’s security as well. From this analysis, it can be concluded that the agency’s campaign communication individualizes and moralizes the citizens’ responsibilities for digital security, which corresponds with the logics of neoliberal governance rationalities. The study contributes to the field of governmentality and responsibilization studies, which previously mainly has been analyzed in material contexts. Therefore, this study provides a new approach to the research field through its unique focus on moralization of citizen responsibility in the digital era.