Mediated Agency, Blame Avoidance and Institutional Responsibility: Government Communication in a Personalised Media Landscape

Abstract

This article explores how personalisation, blame avoidance and institutional constraints collide in contemporary government communication practices. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in a Norwegian ministry, it analyses how a central government agency manages the media during critical news campaigns featuring individuals suffering from inadequate public health services. To provide a comprehensive analysis of the particular limits and aims of government communication, the article combines perspectives from public agency studies with media research on personalisation. It finds that the need to be visible and demonstrate agency in the media drive personalisation strategies towards a strong focus on government leaders, while simplifying the representation of complex government organisation and processes. At the same time, institutional constraints and the formal delegation of responsibility limit the communication repertoire available for public agencies when critical human interest stories dominate in the media. This results in a standard type of unconvincing media performance, where incumbents appear to evade direct personal responsibility. The case study provides new knowledge on dilemmas, negotiations and strategies behind government communication, illuminating how competing interests play out in a rapidly changing media landscape.

How to blame and make a difference: perceived responsibility and policy consequences in two Swedish pro-migrant campaigns

“…Secondly, and highly related to the first point, our comparative approach was designed to study the effects on perceived responsibility of differences in the institutional arrangements of accountability within a policy sector. We found, in accordance with previous studies (Hinterleitner and Sager 2017;Figenschou and Thorbjørnsrud 2018) that clear and transparent arrangements of accountability decreased power holders' possibilities to deflect responsibility with preserved credibility. However, through our primary focus on blame-makers instead of blame-avoiders, we also found that activists' possibilities to attribute personal blame to power holders in a credible way decreased when arrangements of accountability became complex and diffused.…”

“…Despite there being a number of relevant contextual aspects influencing blame-games, the most decisive factor found in previous blame-game research seems to be the institutional context (Hinterleitner andSager 2015, 2017;Figenschou and Thorbjørnsrud 2018). Figenschou and Thorbjørnsrud studied how Norwegian Ministers responded to public blame-attributions and concluded that 'future studies should include the institutional constraints as a key condition to understanding communication in various public sector organisations ' (2018, 229).…”

“…However, the cases differ in terms of how responsibility within the asylum policy sector was perceived. Previous research (Hinterleitner and Sager 2017;Figenschou and Thorbjørnsrud 2018) demonstrates that perceptions of responsibility may differ depending on how the institutional arrangements of accountability within a policy sector are structured, and this, in turn, may determine the opportunities for power holders to avoid blame. With clear and hierarchical arrangements of accountability within a policy sector, the opportunities for power holders to deflect blame, with preserved credibility in the eyes of the public, deteriorate.…”

“Hey there in the Night”: The Strategies, Dilemmas and Costs of a Personalized Digital Lobbying Campaign

“…At the same time, personalized networked campaigns initiated by non-professional actors, do raise both legal and ethical dilemmas for the professional actors and institutions that are directly involved in or confronted by the personalized criticism (Figenschou & Thorbjørnsrud, 2018). For established news organizations, working with and on patients' personal stories can challenge ethical codes 2 since these narratives can test the professional balance between empathy (to listen and understand), engagement (to get involved in the story) and distance (to keep a critical overview) (Glück, 2016;Larssen & Hornmoen, 2013).…”

“…For political and medical authorities, privacy laws and principles of confidentiality in operational activities must be respected. Public authorities can neither freely comment on individual cases nor present solutions that are not anchored in due policy processes (Figenschou & Thorbjørnsrud, 2018). Professionalized interest groups and patient organizations are responsible for acting in the interest of their members -as public authorities, they must attend to privacy laws as well as prepare and brief those individuals who represent the organization in public debate (Thorbjørnsrud & Ytreberg, 2020).…”