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In:Remedies against the Pandemic: How politicians communicate crisis management
Edited by Nadine Thielemann and Daniel Weiss
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 102] 2023
► pp. 20–43

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How Scandinavian political leaders appealed to cognitive or affective-based trust during the Covid-19 pandemic

 | Norwegian School of Economics
Published online: 24 July 2023
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https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.102.01ryg
Abstract
Trust is important if people are to be willing to follow leaders during a crisis. This study examines how the prime ministers of Norway, Sweden and Denmark endeavoured to appeal to either cognitive-based or affective-based trust during the first eight months of the Covid-19 pandemic. These two types of trust stem from management studies but have some similarities with concepts introduced in political linguistics about competence face, which appeals to the mind (logos), versus affective face, which appeals to the heart (pathos). This study attempts to operationalise these frameworks by conducting a discourse analysis of sixteen of the prime ministers’ important political speeches during the pandemic, and to identify how they thematically and linguistically appeal to different types of trust. Although there are some differences between the three prime ministers, the similarities are more noticeable, which might reflect the social, cultural and institutional similarity between the three Scandinavian countries. The prime ministers appeal to both competence and affective-based trust. However, compared to some other studies of political crisis communication during the pandemic, these prime ministers kept themselves in the background, and their affective faces were not displayed through informal language or personal anecdotes but by appealing to collective values and shared responsibility.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theory
    • 2.1Political leadership communication during some past major crises
    • 2.2Political leadership communication during Covid-19
    • 2.3The focus of this study
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Data from Denmark, Sweden and Norway
    • 3.2Analytical frameworks and procedures
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Thematic analysis
    • 4.2Linguistic analysis
      • 4.2.1Vocabulary
      • 4.2.2Narratives
      • 4.2.3Emotion-laden words with significance for people
      • 4.2.4Emotion-laden words related to country-specific values
      • 4.2.5Repetitions
      • 4.2.6Simplified messages
      • 4.2.7Personal pronouns
      • 4.2.8Verb choices
  • 5.Discussion
  • References
  • Appendix
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