Call for Abstracts: Tillid og mistillid i offentlig kommunikation

With this call, MedieKultur invites contributions to a special issue on trust and distrust in public communication, with particular attention to the Scandinavian welfare model.

In the Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland), there is not only a long tradition for and experience with a prioritised welfare model and a comprehensive public sector; these societies have also been able to take pride in strong public support and trust in their institutions (Petersen et al. 2011). Such trust may be considered an essential foundation for the legitimacy of the welfare state and the public sector. As citizens, we pay taxes to the welfare state on the assumption that it has the competence and expertise to provide welfare, that it delivers what it is obligated to deliver — or what can reasonably be expected — and that it does not primarily act in its own interest, but in the interest of citizens and society as a whole.

Citizens’ trust is therefore a crucial social and economic resource for the welfare state and has always been a precondition for the endurance and legitimacy of the public sector.

This trust can arguably be said to be, to a significant extent, ideological or tradition-based in nature, just as it depends on structural forms of security such as low or non-existent corruption, traditions of transparency and accountability in public administration, and confidence in democratic institutions. However, trust is also to a large degree nurtured, maintained, and nuanced through communication with public authorities, either in the form of personal encounters and experiences with the public sector — the state, the municipality, the healthcare system, schools, professional experts and practitioners — or through mediated and retold narratives and representations thereof.

However, the Scandinavian public systems have also undergone profound transformations in recent decades. Political, communicative, and especially media-technological dynamics have increasingly fuelled desires or needs for change that challenge and reshape the public sector and its relationship with citizens. These include economic pressures and political ambitions of reduction and efficiency; a political prioritisation of market-oriented administrative systems and logics, sometimes at the expense of professional expertise; PR-driven communication; and, not least, the digitalisation and automation of communication, relations, workflows, and decision-making. All these transformations are to a significant extent expressed and negotiated through mediated communication.

Scandinavia has long been characterised by high levels of trust in the public sector. Yet it is now necessary to ask whether — and how — this trust is being unsettled, displaced, or transformed as welfare societies change, and with what potential consequences. We already see signs of weakened trust or even direct distrust in institutions, practices, professions, and forms of communication that previously enjoyed high levels of public confidence, grounded in professional quality, credibility, and reliability (Almlund 2024; Vecht 2023). These tendencies are visible in communication from public authorities, in science and expert communication, in health communication, in schools and universities, and elsewhere. At the same time, it is also relevant to ask whether scepticism, distrust, and controversy might function as constructive forces in situations where the welfare state or democratic systems appear skewed or even eroded. And is trust always a positive force in contexts marked by conflict, global social change, professionalised communication, digitalisation, and new technologies such as artificial intelligence?

These — and many more — questions guide this special issue of MedieKultur: What communicative forms do trust and distrust take in the challenged welfare state? What is changing, and what remains stable? How does media use shape these processes? How is citizens’ trust in public institutions affected or transformed — and how is institutional trust in citizens influenced in turn? How is trustworthiness established, articulated and communicated, and how are trust and distrust established, negotiated, and challenged in concrete situations, media, and interactions? What are the consequences of shifting relations of trust, and what possible paths forward can be imagined?

We encourage submissions that focus on the following topics, or on other topics within the broader issue of changing trust in public communication. The topics listed below should include, or otherwise engage with, a medial aspect, whether this concerns chatbots, other forms of digital communication via media technologies, social media, television programmes (live or streamed) — for example genres such as documentary, debate, news, etc. — or non-technological media formats.

• Citizens’ trust as a social resource for the welfare state — and how this trust is changing
• Personal encounters with public institutions (state, municipality, healthcare system, professional experts), including through mediated stories and representations
• Technology and trust: digitalisation and automation of communication, including chatbot technologies as interfaces between citizens and the public sector
• Trust and distrust: where is the boundary? How do trust and distrust operate in processes of change in public communication, or in situations where citizens find themselves caught within the system?
• Politicisation and negotiation of trustworthiness in crisis situations
• Artificial intelligence and trust in public institutions

Invitation

For this special issue, we invite proposals for research articles focusing on trust and distrust in public communication in a Scandinavian or comparable context. The thematic focus is grounded in the assumption that these countries have comparable welfare states that are significantly affected by similar structural and technological developments (Hellman 2021; Greve et al. 2021). Articles may be written in English, Norwegian, Swedish, or Danish.

Abstracts

Abstracts may be up to 500 words, plus references. They should include relevant research questions, theoretical and methodological approaches, and preliminary conclusions.
Please submit abstracts as a Word document to abstracts-trust@ruc.dk.

Deadline for abstracts: 1 September 2026. Authors will be invited to submit full articles based on the focus and quality of their abstracts.

Deadline for full articles: 17 January 2027. Notification of acceptance will follow shortly thereafter.

The special issue is expected to be published in late 2027.

Editorial team

The special issue is edited by Associate Professors Susanne Kjærbeck, Sanne Knudsen, and Niels Møller Nielsen, all from the Department of Communication and Arts at Roskilde University.

References

Petersen, M. B., Slothuus, R., Stubager, R., & Togeby, L. 2011. Deservingness versus values in public opinion on welfare: The automaticity of the deservingness heuristic. European Journal of Political Research, 50(1), 24-52.

Almlund, Pernille.  2024. Tillid til offentlig forvaltning – sociologisk afklaring. Dansk sociologi 2, 49-73.

Vecht, Nya. 2023. Tema – Retssikkerhedsanalysen 2023: Kun hver tredje borger har tillid til kommunerne.  Advokatsamfundet.  https://www.advokatsamfundet.dk/nyheder-medier/tidligere-artikler/2023/advokaten-4/2023-advokaten-4-tema-retssikkerhedsanalyse-kun-hver-tredje-borger-har-tillid-til-kommunernec/

Greve, B., Blomquist, P., Hvinden, B. & Van Gerven, M. 2021. Nordic welfare states – still standing or changed by the COVID-19 crisis. Social Policy Administration, vol. 55 (2), 295-311. https://doi.org/10.1111/spol.12675

Hellman, M. 2021. How is the Nordic welfare state doing? Contemporary public constructs on challenges and achievements. Nordisk Välfärdsforskning| Nordic Welfare Research, (3), 160-179.