Government public relations, audiovisual communication and the informalisation of Sweden

This article addresses the role of television as a ‘new media’ in government public relations. Drawing on sociological theories on informalisation, this study analyses three features of the Swedish public information programme Anslagstavlan during the 1970s and 1980s: first, formal techniques such as editing, pacing and use of animations; second, narrative strategies including the utilisation of celebrity advertising and intertextuality; and last, the rhetoric of public information. The study shows that the engineering of informality was a key communication strategy for government agencies and that televised information contributed to the conversationalisation and personalisation of government agencies’ communication in medium-specific ways.