Media Impact in the Public Service Sector

• Figenschou, Tine Ustad; Karlsen, Rune & Kolltveit, Kristoffer (2022). Between spin doctor and information provider: Conceptualizing communication professionals in government ministries. Public Administration. doi: 10.1111/padm.12869. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Communication professionals are increasingly found within government ministries. Based on classic work on bureaucracy and recent literature on mediatization and personalization, this article develops two ideal types: the government information provider and government spin doctor. These ideals are constituted by six dimensions: recruitment criteria, values, loyalties, reputational concerns, interactions, and tasks. A study of nonpartisan communication professionals in Norwegian ministries is used to illustrate the empirical relevance of the ideal types. The analysis shows that for loyalties and reputational concerns, Norwegian communication professionals resemble the government information provider. Regarding interactions and tasks, they resemble the government spin doctor. For recruitment criteria and values, the picture is mixed. The empirical application thereby illustrates a fruitful aspect of the framework as certain configurations will bring forth inbuilt tension in communication professionals' role. The framework allows a fine-grained approach to extend ongoing debates of appropriate and inappropriate practices of communication professionals in ministries.

• Karlsen, Rune; Kolltveit, Kristoffer; Schillemans, Thomas & Thorbjørnsrud, Kjersti (2020). Media and Bureaucracy: Investigating Media Awareness Amongst Civil Servants. Scandinavian Journal of Public Administration (SPJA). 24(3), s. 53–72. doi: 10.58235/sjpa.v24i3.8602. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Scholars claim that civil servants are increasingly having to engage in media management and be aware of how events are presented in the press, with this media awareness being said to threaten civil servants’ traditional bureaucratic values. In this article, we argue that media awareness is unevenly spread in public bureaucracies, and rather is contingent on individual and organizational characteristics. More specifically, we present the hypotheses that media awareness depends on the amount of media related work, the amount of media attention on the organization in which they work, as well as the civil servants’ fundamental views on the role of the media in society. To test the hypotheses, the article utilizes a large-N survey of civil servants in Norwegian ministries and agencies. The results show that the vast majority of civil servants care about how issues appear in the press. Further on, we find that civil servants’ media awareness coexists with traditional bureaucratic values, offering some relief to scholars who fear the disruptive effects of the media in public administration. As the hypotheses suggest, we find that this media awareness is linked to civil servants’ actual media-related work. However, the analysis shows that civil servants working in organizations with a lot of media attention are, in fact, are less aware of the media.

• Figenschou, Tine Ustad; Fredriksson, Magnus; Pallas, Josef & Salomonsen, Heidi Houlberg (2020). Under the influence of politics: Mediatisation and politico-administrative systems in Scandinavia. Nordic Journal of Media Studies. 2(1), s. 85–96. doi: 10.2478/njms-2020-0008. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This conceptual article extends three ongoing scholarly debates on the mediatisation of politics – the risk of media centrism, the tendency to see mediatisation as a linear process, and the preoccupation with elected officials. We argue for the need to identify, foreground, and systematise non-media dimensions of mediatisation processes. We also argue that actors encounter mediatisation as a set of dynamic ideas rather than a fixed logic. With a focus on government agencies and a comparison of the politico-administrative systems in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, this article gives certain attention to politicisation, autonomy, and accountability and suggests that the degree of freedom granted to agencies in Denmark and Norway is relatively limited compared with agencies in Sweden. Consequently, we present two propositions: 1) agencies in Denmark and Norway are less inclined to mediatise, whereas 2) Swedish government agencies will more likely mediatise and show conformity with widely accepted norms regarding media.

• Figenschou, Tine Ustad (2019). Social bureaucracy? The integration of social media into government communication. Communications. s. 1–22. doi: 10.1515/commun-2019-2074. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Figenschou, Tine Ustad & Thorbjørnsrud, Kjersti (2018). Mediated Agency, Blame Avoidance and Institutional Responsibility: Government Communication in a Personalised Media Landscape. Scandinavian Political Studies. 41(2), s. 210–232. doi: 10.1111/1467-9477.12117. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Figenschou, Tine Ustad (2017). Patient narratives: Health journalists’ reflections, dilemmas and criticism of a compelling journalistic tool. I Fonn, Birgitte Kjos; Hornmoen, Harald; Hyde-Clarke, Nathalie & Hågvar, Yngve Benestad (Red.), Putting a Face on it: Individual Exposure and Subjectivity in Journalism. Cappelen Damm Akademisk. s. 235–256. doi: 10.23865/noasp.28. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Media stories of health and illness are omnipresent. The plethora of available health stories not only inform and educate, they invite us to engage, identify and act, thereby priming basic feelings of fear, hope, identification and a sense of justice. In recent decades, the patient narrative based on the personal experience of individual patients, has come to represent a recognizable genre across hybrid media and popular culture. Patient nar - ratives are rhetorically powerful, but the patients themselves may be in a vulnerable state and in need of particular carefulness. For the 12 health reporters and editors interviewed for this chapter, exposing individual patient stories raises different ethical challenges than using professional sources, potentially altering the balance between professional empathy, involvement and distance. The chapter illuminates the professional dilemmas, ethical considerations and critical reflections that the health reporters experience in their use of personal patient stories as cases and journalistic tools.

• Figenschou, Tine Ustad; Karlsen, Rune; Kolltveit, Kristoffer & Thorbjørnsrud, Kjersti (2017). Serving the Media Ministers: A Mixed Methods Study on the Personalization of Ministerial Communication. The International Journal of Press/Politics. 22(4), s. 411–430. doi: 10.1177/1940161217720772. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  The personalization of politics has received much attention in both the political science and political communication literature, but the focus has almost entirely been on party leaders and prime ministers. This study investigates the personalization of ministerial communication in Norway, a type of decentralized personalization. It combines a survey of communication workers; in-depth interviews with politicians, communication workers, political reporters, and top-level civil servants; and ethnographic observation inside a ministry. The article goes beyond media-centered perspectives and identifies several potential drivers and barriers to personalization processes. Based on our mixed methods approach, we find that ministerial communication in Norway is strongly centered on the minister in both reactive media management and the proactive promotion of the minister and new policies. This decentralized personalization is driven by both demands from the media and the strategic adaptation by political and administrative actors within ministries. Based on the rich empirically grounded insights, the article discusses how the interplay between the logic of the contemporary commercial news media, political ambitions, internal administrative ambitions, and changes in executive government shapes the personalization of ministerial communication, and illuminates how these multiple drivers of personalization are mutually reinforcing.

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• Karlsen, Rune; Kolltveit, Kristoffer & Stoltenberg, Christina Hoelgaard (2018). Mediepåvirkning i offentlig sektor : Resultat- og dokumentasjonsrapport. Institutt for samfunnsforskning. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Rapporten dokumenterer og gjengir hovedfunnene fra spørreundersøkelsene om mediepåvirkning sendt ut til ledere, saksbehandlere og kommunikasjonsansatte i departementene, og i direktorater, ombud og tilsyn høsten 2015 og våren 2016.

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• Figenschou, Tine Ustad; Fredriksson, Magnus; Kolltveit, Kristoffer & Pallas, Josef (2021). Public Bureaucracies. I Skogerbø, Eli; Ihlen, Øyvind; Kristensen, Nete Nørgaard & Nord, Lars W. (Red.), Power, communication, and politics in the Nordic countries. Nordicom. s. 325–345. doi: 10.48335/9789188855299-16. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Kolltveit, Kristoffer; Karlsen, Rune & Figenschou, Tine Ustad (2020). Conceptualizing Communication Professionals in Public Bureaucracies: Ideal Types and Empirical Application. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Figenschou, Tine Ustad (2018). Den haltende valsen: Kilder og journalister i et medielandskap i sterk endring, Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Figenschou, Tine Ustad (2018). Sosialt byråkrati? Kommunikasjon i et hybrid medielandskap. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Kolltveit, Kristoffer; Figenschou, Tine Ustad & Karlsen, Rune (2018). Communication workers in ministries: Strategic links between politics and administration. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Figenschou, Tine Ustad (2017). Public sector communications and NGOs. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Figenschou, Tine Ustad (2017). Sosial byråkrati? Innovasjon, prøving og feiling. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Figenschou, Tine Ustad; Karlsen, Rune; Kolltveit, Kristoffer & Thorbjørnsrud, Kjersti (2017). Media influence on bureaucratic decision-making: Evidence from Norway and the Netherlands. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Figenschou, Tine Ustad & Thorbjørnsrud, Kjersti (2017). Social bureucracies? Government communication beyond the news logic. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Figenschou, Tine Ustad & Thorbjørnsrud, Kjersti (2017). Sosialt byråkrati? Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Figenschou, Tine Ustad & Thorbjørnsrud, Kjersti (2017). Helsebyråkratiets bevisste bruk av media. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Figenschou, Tine Ustad; Fredriksson, Magnus; Pallas, Josef & Houlberg, Heidi (2017). Mediatization in translation – the Nordic experience. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Figenschou, Tine Ustad & Thorbjørnsrud, Kjersti (2017). Dual Personalization: Government communication in an emotional media landscape. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv

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