Visions of Utopia: Sweden, the BBC and the Welfare State

Drawing on manuscripts and transcripts of BBC programme output, and material from the Radio Times, and the BBC’s The Listener magazine, this article analyses radio talks and programmes that focused on Sweden in the immediate years after the Second World War when the Swedish model was widely popularised abroad. The article argues that BBC output entangled domestic politics and transnational ideas around post-war reconstruction and welfare. Sweden was used as a lens through which a modern welfare state could be visualised and justified. This was however Utopia in two senses since the image of Sweden presented was in itself a highly idealised representation

Knowing the demos : Gender and the politics of classifying voters in the aftermath of universal suffrage

Concepts like voter and electorate are fundamental in all states practising democratic representation. However, the construction of these concepts following the introduction of universal suffrage is rarely studied. Swedish parliamentary debates on election statistics and sex-segregated ballots in 1921 and 1922 offer an illuminating opportunity to do that. Thus, this article argues that these key democratic concepts were in part constructed through the production of election statistics and in debates about what should be known about the respective political preferences of male and female citizens. Both sides in the debates emphasized sex as a fundamental category for understanding voters. But the debates also feature incompatible ways of representing the electorate – as individuals, as a unified whole, and as target groups – entailing conflicting visions of democratic politics. Thus, rather than being solely remembered as attempts to denigrate women's votes and hence limit democracy, these debates should be understood as ways of dealing with the conceptual implications universal suffrage

Visions of citizen audiences : Media and social reform in the 1930s

This dissertation investigates how progressive social reformers in Sweden used mass media in order to encourage the general public to take part in discussions on contemporary social and political problems. Two cases are studied in detail: the population debates of the mid-1930s, and the Modern Leisure exhibition in Ystad 1936. How were audiences – readers, radio listeners and exhibition visitors – invited to participate in these media events? Which tasks were assigned to audiences and according to which criteria were they evaluated? Why, according to social reformers themselves, was audience participation important? The aim is to contribute to our understanding of the early formation of Western democratic culture. The investigation shows how possibilities of civic action were created. The Swedish population was conceived of as a question to discuss, and the role of citizens was to form new opinions based on their political views and current social scientific knowledge. In contrast, modern leisure was conceptualized as a new problem. The task given to exhibition visitors did not include taking a stand in a political debate. Rather, visitors were encouraged to make well-informed individual choices and to form new domestic habits. In both instances citizens were encouraged to contemplate the social and political consequences of their own actions. The dissertation offers new insights into the history of social engineering. In a Swedish context, Alva and Gunnar Myrdal are understood as a paradigmatic case. This investigation shows, however, that their arguments and actions do not fit very well with some aspects of the standard understanding of social engineering. Their insistence on the need for public discussion, opinion formation and universal education for active citizenship are cases in point. This study also highlights previously under-researched aspects of interwar democratic activism. The actors studied in this dissertation were not primarily discussing or educating people about the danger of authoritarian ideologies. Instead, they were preoccupied with creating conditions in which democracy could survive and prosper. Creating citizen audiences was a way of defending democracy

Visions of citizen audiences : Media and social reform in the 1930s

This dissertation investigates how progressive social reformers in Sweden used mass media in order to encourage the general public to take part in discussions on contemporary social and political problems. Two cases are studied in detail: the population debates of the mid-1930s, and the Modern Leisure exhibition in Ystad 1936. How were audiences – readers, radio listeners and exhibition visitors – invited to participate in these media events? Which tasks were assigned to audiences and according to which criteria were they evaluated? Why, according to social reformers themselves, was audience participation important? The aim is to contribute to our understanding of the early formation of Western democratic culture. The investigation shows how possibilities of civic action were created. The Swedish population was conceived of as a question to discuss, and the role of citizens was to form new opinions based on their political views and current social scientific knowledge. In contrast, modern leisure was conceptualized as a new problem. The task given to exhibition visitors did not include taking a stand in a political debate. Rather, visitors were encouraged to make well-informed individual choices and to form new domestic habits. In both instances citizens were encouraged to contemplate the social and political consequences of their own actions. The dissertation offers new insights into the history of social engineering. In a Swedish context, Alva and Gunnar Myrdal are understood as a paradigmatic case. This investigation shows, however, that their arguments and actions do not fit very well with some aspects of the standard understanding of social engineering. Their insistence on the need for public discussion, opinion formation and universal education for active citizenship are cases in point. This study also highlights previously under-researched aspects of interwar democratic activism. The actors studied in this dissertation were not primarily discussing or educating people about the danger of authoritarian ideologies. Instead, they were preoccupied with creating conditions in which democracy could survive and prosper. Creating citizen audiences was a way of defending democracy

Propagandastudier : Kooperativa förbundet, demokratin och det fria tankelivet på 1930-talet

Propaganda Studies: The Swedish Cooperative Union, Democracy, and Free Thinking in the 1930s This article investigates educational efforts of the Swedish Cooperative Union (Kooperativa förbundet, KF) during the late interwar period. It focuses on how KF dealt with the fact that propaganda could be a very effective tool of persuasion – e.g. as commercial advertising – but that it also could undermine democracy. For KF, a prolific and innovative advertiser as well as a strong proponent of democratic ideals, this was a real conundrum. Using study guides, books and journals published by KF as sources, this article investigates how members of its study groups were instructed to think about propaganda and its role in society. It is argued that members were taught a form of critical acceptance of propaganda, one that not only legitimized its role in the market, but in democratic public life as well