Disinformation and crisis communication in multicultural environments: - New roles for communication professionals in changing communication landscapes

Abstract

This thesis is a study of the information campaign targeting the social services during 2022 and how communication professionals at the social offices and at Socialstyrelsen combated the disinformation spreading about the social services. The campaign highlighted how a changing information environment with an increased amount of disinformation makes new demands on the role of the communication professional in the public sector. The campaign specifically targeted the Swedish Muslim minority population, adding a multicultural aspect of the campaign and subsequent crisis communication. In the wake of the campaign, demands for countering and mitigating disinformation were made by the Swedish government to Socialstyrelsen by an official decree. The efforts to combat the disinformation made by the social offices and Socialstyrelsen will be analyzed using frameworks from previous crisis communication research about the crisis types paracrisis and moral outrage inducing crisis. Relevant previous research concerning crisis communication in multicultural environments is also applied to the material. In addition, this thesis will conduct an actor analysis on the actors mentioned in the interviews using the rhetorical arena theory. Finally, the thesis aims to place the crisis followed by the campaign in relevant crisis communication crisis types. The material in this study is composed of in-depth interviews with seven communication professionals at Socialstyrelsen and social offices at the municipality level. Five communication professionals are working at the municipality level in different parts of Sweden, both in major cities and smaller municipalities. Two communication professionals are managers at different levels at Socialstyrelsen. The study found that there are differences in how Socialstyrelsen and the municipalities work towards mitigating the disinformation originating from the campaign. Socialstyrelsen has a much more strategic way of working towards combating the disinformation. Socialstyrelsen has through a governmental decree received a significant boost in funding which makes it possible for Socialstyrelsen to hire translation agencies and market on social media. The municipalities view their role as more supportive towards the core function of the social services, the social workers, and the work they conduct at the service. At the municipality level, there was an outspread aversion to using social media more actively to combat disinformation. The worry was based on the sensitive nature the social services conduct, and that if the social services would increase their presence on social media, sensitive information might be reported on social media. Overall, there is a need for increased language skills at the communication departments of both Socialstyrelsen and the municipalities since both parts are reliant on third-party translations or rely on co-workers outside of the communication departments. The language issue is especially noticeable in the problems the communication professionals had when conducting environmental scanning on social media before the crisis. Due the campaign primarily spreading in Arabic speaking groups on social media, the social services had no possibility to spot early warning signs. Regarding actors in the crisis, the study found that the media were seen as the actor that alerted the social services to the campaign. Several communication professionals described how increased media reporting and media questions were the initial signals that something was happening. The psychological defense agency (PDA) is an actor viewed with admiration and is highly valued by several of the communication professionals. Due to the unprecedented nature of the campaign and the occurrence of the disinformation, many communication professionals expressed relief when the PDA made statements and confirmed the social services in their situation. Finally, the unusual combination of disinformation, public sector crisis communication, and moral outrage makes this a hard crisis to place within existing crisis communication frameworks and crisis types, especially when it comes to suggested actions. More research is required to be able to provide advice and guidance to public organizations who are facing a moral outrage crisis sparked by online disinformation.