Healthy mistrust or complacent confidence? Civic vigilance in the reporting by leading newspapers on nuclear waste disposal in Finland and France

Abstract

Trust and confidence have been identified as crucial for efforts at solving the conundrum of high‐level radioactive waste management (RWM). However, mistrust has its virtues, especially in the form of “civic vigilance”—healthy suspicion towards the powers that be. This article examines civic vigilance in the form of “watchdog journalism,” as practiced by the leading Finnish and French newspapers—Helsingin Sanomat (HS) and Le Monde (LM)—in their RWM reporting. Although both countries are forerunners in RWM, Finland constitutes a Nordic “high‐trust society” while France has been characterized as a “society of mistrust.” Employing the methods of frame analysis, key RWM‐related news frames were identified, consisting of varying combinations of confidence, skepticism, trust, and mistrust. LM's mistrust‐skepticism‐oriented framings reflect the classical watchdog role, in sharp contrast with the confidence oriented framings of HS, which tends to reproduce government and industry framings. Explanations for the observed differences can be sought in historically constituted political and media cultures, as well as national nuclear “regimes”. For further research, we suggest two alternative hypotheses concerning the implications that these distinct models of civic vigilance have for democracy.

Trust, mistrust and distrust as blind spots of Social Licence to Operate: illustration via three forerunner countries in nuclear waste management

“…Finns also show greater tolerance than their western neighbours to authoritarian governance and leadership style. (Kettunen 2012, 78;Pettersson and Nurmela 2007, 22-26), and the Finnish press frames nuclear waste issues in a more consensual tone than its Swedish and French counterparts (Kojo et al 2020;Lehtonen et al 2021).…”

“…Active and institutionalised practices of mistrust in the form of 'civic vigilance' (e.g. Lehtonen et al 2020Lehtonen et al , 2021 -control, oversight, analysis, and questioning -can be vital for SLO. In France, this has taken the form of nuclear-sector counter-expertise, whose roots date back to the 1970s (e.g.…”

“…Despite the practically identical technical repository concepts in the two countries, only in Sweden has lively debate ensued concerning the potential premature corrosion of the copper canisters that constitute a central element of the 'engineered barrier system' . The Swedish media has given a voice to a broader range of civil society actors, while the Finnish media has primarily reproduced industry and government views on the topic (Kojo et al 2020;Lehtonen et al 2021). Government funding has helped Swedish NGOs to disseminate research findings by independent 'counter-experts' highlighting copper corrosion problems (Litmanen et al 2017b).…”

The role of trust and risk perception in current German nuclear waste management

“…International surveys suggest that currently, some countries’ citizens lack a high level of trust in institutions responsible for HLW disposal, which may be due to cultural differences, among others (Lehtonen et al., 2021). “Organizations involved in managing nuclear waste are not often trusted by members of the public” (Ramana, 2018, p. 7).…”