National discourses in (de)legitimations of the Swedish COVID-19 strategy

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Sweden’s way to handle the crisis was referred to as ‘the Swedish strategy’ and regarded as unconventional. Most studies of the Swedish strategy have focused on politicians’ legitimations, but not on the discursive negotiation in a media context. The objectives of this critical discourse study are to examine how the Swedish strategy was (de)legitimised in Sweden’s largest newspaper, Dagens Nyheter, during 2020, and what role national discourses played for discursive framings of the Swedish strategy. Using legitimation analysis combined with affect as a discourse analytical concept, we examine 71 newspaper articles. The findings show how a nationalistic framing highlights trust and responsibility as key aspects of the strategy, but also how trust and responsibility are used in delegitimations with additional frames, such as consequences for individuals’ everyday lives, or the frame of an international scientific community. The findings shed new light on the role of national discourses in the initial internal debates about Swedish COVID-19 management, and on the usefulness of an analytical approach that considers an elaborated analysis of different delegitimation strategies and the importance of affect for discourses and (de)legitimations.