Abstract
The Scandinavian countries are often seen as a unity. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic striking differences on how the countries approached the crisis became evident. This quantitative-ethnographic (QE) study aimed to understand political and cultural similarities and differences between the three Scandinavian countries – Denmark, Norway and Sweden – through their crisis communications during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, we focused on how the health authorities of the three countries, in their press releases, treated information about COVID-19 and acted in four fields: reorganization of population behavior, containment of viral transmission, preparation of health systems, and management of socioeconomic impacts. As a methodology, the QE tools nCoder and ENA were applied, respectively: to code the press releases and to correlate the treatment of information with the four fields of action.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
- 3.
- 4.
- 5.
- 6.
- 7.
- 8.
- 9.
References
Allcott, H., Boxell, L., Conway, J., Gentzkow, M., Thaler, M., Yang, D.Y.: Polarization and public health: Partisan differences in social distancing during COVID-19. SSRN 3570274 (2020)
Bourdieu, P., Nice, R.: Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1977)
Christensen, T., Lægreid, P.: Balancing governance capacity and legitimacy - how the Norwegian government handled the COVID-19 crisis as a high performer. Public Administration Review n/a(n/a). https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13241
Coombs, T.: Parameters for Crisis Communication. Blackwell Publishing, Hoboken (2010)
Cuche, D.: La notion de culture dans les sciences sociales. La découverte (2002)
Dahl, R.A.: Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition. Yale University Press, New Haven (1973)
Eagan, B., Brohinsky, J., Wang, J., Shaffer, D.W.: Testing the reliability of inter-rater reliability. In: Proceedings of the ICLAK 2020, pp. 454–461. ACM, New York (2020). https://doi.org/10.1145/3375462.3375508
Holmes, B.J.: Communicating about emerging infectious disease: the importance of research. Health Risk Soc. 10(4), 349–360 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1080/13698570802166431
Hort, S.E.O.: Social Policy, Welfare State, and Civil Society in Sweden [elektronisk resurs], vol. 1 History, Policies, and Institutions 1884–1988 (2017)
Hua, J., Shaw, R.: Corona virus (COVID-19) “infodemic” and emerging issues through a data lens: the case of China. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 17 (2020). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17072309
Lee, S.H.: Welfare attitudes, political trust and its determinants in Sweden (2018)
Lindert, P.H.: Growing Public: Social Spending and Economic Growth Since the Eighteenth Century Vol. 1 The Story. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2004)
Nygren, K.G., Olofsson, A.: Managing the COVID-19 pandemic through individual responsibility: the consequences of a world risk society and enhanced ethopolitics. J. Risk Res. 0(0), 1–5 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2020.1756382
OECD: Government at a Glance 2017 (2017). https://bit.ly/2NKWjgU
Olagnier, D., Mogensen, T.H.: The Covid-19 pandemic in Denmark: big lessons from a small country. Cytokine Growth Factor Rev. 53, 10–12 (2020)
Olsson, U.: Folkhälsa som pedagogiskt projekt: Bilden av hälsoupplysning i statens offentliga utredningar. Ph.D. thesis, Uppsala University, Department of Education (1997)
Orso, D., Federici, N., Copetti, R., Vetrugno, L., Bove, T.: Infodemic and the spread of fake news in the COVID-19-era. Eur. J. Emerg. Med.: Official J. Eur. Soc. Emerg. Med. 27(5), 327–328 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1097/MEJ.0000000000000713
Ortiz, R.: A procura de uma sociologia da prática. Pierre Bourdieu: sociologia, pp. 7–29. Ática, São Paulo (1983)
Paek, H.J., Hilyard, K., Freimuth, V.S., Barge, J.K., Mindlin, M.: Public support for government actions during a flu pandemic: lessons learned from a statewide survey. Health Prom. Pract. 9(4\_suppl), 60S–72S (2008). https://doi.org/10.1177/1524839908322114
Brandt, P., Woerlein, J.: Government crisis communication during the coronavirus crisis: comparing France, Germany, and The United Kingdom (2020). https://www.sciencespo.fr/cso/fr/content/government-crisis-communication-during-coronavirus-crisis-comparing-france-germany-and-unite.html. Accessed 30 June 2020
Reynolds, B., Quinn, S.C.: Effective communication during an influenza pandemic: the value of using a crisis and emergency risk communication framework. Health Prom. Pract. 9(4\_suppl), 13S–17S (2008). https://doi.org/10.1177/1524839908325267
Rose, N.: The politics of life itself. Theory Culture Soc. 18(6), 1–30 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1177/02632760122052020
Saliou, P.: Crisis communication in the event of a flu pandemic. Eur. J. Epidemiol. 10(4), 515–517 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01719693
Shaffer, D.W., Collier, W., Ruis, A.R.: A tutorial on epistemic network analysis: analyzing the structure of connections in cognitive, social, and interaction data. J. Learn. Analytics 3(3), 9–45 (1994). https://doi.org/10.18608/jla.2016.33.3
Shaffer, D.W.: Quantitative Ethnography. Cathcart Press, Madison (2017)
Siegrist, M., Earle, T.C., Gutscher, H.: Test of a trust and confidence model in the applied context of electromagnetic field (EMF) risks. Risk Anal. 23(4), 705–716 (2003). https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1539-6924.00349
Strang, J.: Why do the Nordic countries react differently to the COVID-19 crisis? (2020). https://nordics.info/show/artikel/the-nordic-countries-react-differently-to-the-covid-19-crisis/
Ghebreyesus, T.A.: WHO director-general’s opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19 - 11 March 2020 (2020). https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---11-march-2020. Accessed 30 June 2020
Vaughan, E., Tinker, T.: Effective health risk communication about pandemic influenza for vulnerable populations. Am. J. Public Health 99(S2), S324–S332 (2009). https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2009.162537
van der Weerd, W., Timmermans, D.R.M., Beaujean, D.J.M.A., Oudhoff, J., van Steenbergen, J.E.: Monitoring the level of government trust, risk perception and intention of the general public to adopt protective measures during the influenza A (H1N1) pandemic in the Netherlands. BMC Public Health 11(1), 575 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-11-575
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Schnaider, K., Schiavetto, S., Meier, F., Wasson, B., Allsopp, B.B., Spikol, D. (2021). Governmental Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic - A Quantitative Ethnographic Comparison of Public Health Authorities’ Communication in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. In: Ruis, A.R., Lee, S.B. (eds) Advances in Quantitative Ethnography. ICQE 2021. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1312. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67788-6_28
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67788-6_28
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-67787-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-67788-6
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)