To restore a disrupted situation to a stable status quo goes back to the very essence of how narratives are understood. It might be a way to reach closure in the story and is, narrative methodology aside, known to be a much-used format in news journalism. However, in the context of disinformation and harmful narratives, the resolution of the story might serve an especially pertinent purpose by showing that closure is impossible or a new status quo unattainable. This reinforces the view of a dysfunctional society for which there is no remedy. In coding for how solutions were depicted in the plots, it was found that attention had to be paid to a reverse position of problem and solution, as news reports assigned the solutions to the original position or status quo (the starting point of the plot/the sequence of events) and the rupture to the new position. This was a way to narrate social decline and the downfall of a state. The solution was presented as a call to return to old values and traditions, and to restore society to what it once was. When coding for solutions as a feature of the plot, it was therefore important to keep an open mind about solutions being depicted as an unattainable status quo that had been left behind.

#### *Temporalities: Past, Present, and Future*

Projections of temporalities are key to the plot as these descriptive features are the very foundations and building blocks that drive the story forward or allow a look over the shoulder to what has passed, which can also be a kind of driving force for a story. The question here was therefore not whether the narrative contains temporality, or expressions of time, but how that temporality played into other features, such as the confict/solution dynamic. It asked whether the news item depicted a problem of the past that had been resolved in the present, or what used to be unproblematic or even an asset had become a problem that called for a solution. Attention was also paid to depictions of the future and visions for Sweden, as well as threats on the horizon and pending conficts that have not been addressed by the authorities.

#### *Narrator*

To the fve similar narrative features to those used by Somers (1994) was added a sixth: the narrator. The narrator is the storyteller and answers the question of from whose perspective the story is told. The choice of narrator appeared to be connected to the choice of actors brought into the story and of what sources to use. The narrator was not evident or even relevant in every news item and in some plots was an external voice telling the story, such as the reporter leading the reader through the unfolding of events or giving voice to the different actors as part of the plot. In other plots, one of the actors was the narrator, so the story was told from his or her perspective while other voices responded, adding supportive or adversarial comments. The coding for the role of the narrator was thought to be especially useful in order to show how Sputnik and RT colored their plots with the anti-establishment attitudes that both are known to favor. Analyzing who the narrator was and the position the narrator was assigned in the plot clarifed the relationships between the actors, the weight of their arguments, which values they promoted, and the positions prescribed to elites or ordinary citizens. The positions from which actions and reactions were reported were also noted. This added to the interpretation of how actors were classifed in the plots.

# In Sum

This chapter outlines the methodology of the study—narrative analysis and explains its suitability for a study of disinformation by Russian stateaffliated news media. The narrative analysis is centered on both the content of the constructed messages and how they acquire meaning through the way in which the stories are told. The narrative analysis is complemented by a framing analysis, which is an in-depth content analysis that focuses on the way in which a problem or issue is defned. The framing analysis therefore shares with the narrative analysis the ambition to explore how messages come to take on meaning. The narrative analysis, however, sees messaging as storytelling and places emphasis on how the story unfolds through the sequence of events. Seven key features of the narrative that guided the coding of the news material were presented: sources; actor; space; the problem or confict; implied solution, or how the status quo can be restored; temporalities, past, present, and future; and narrator. The narrative analysis itself involved taking all of these features into consideration in demonstrating what and how meaning is produced. With the exception of narrator, these were taken from the work of Somers (1994) and from their application in a similar empirical study by Wagnsson and Barzanje (2021).

# References

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# Sources and Frames

# Introduction

This frst part of the empirical analyses presents the sources used and how the news stories were framed. This provides an overview of what the coverage looked like across topics and which sources the stories were built on. The sources were of special signifcance since Sputnik in particular, but also RT, base their stories on material from other media. Sputnik rarely dispatches reporters to the location of an event, and RT only occasionally. The latter usually relies on experts invited to the studio.

The framing analysis was structured according to the three themes discussed in Chap. 4: public health, climate change, and moral values and ethics. It included all the news items sorted under these themes published or broadcast between July 1, 2019, and January 31, 2021. The theme "moral values and ethics" was later found to be too broad, and therefore divided into gender, culture, and anti-liberalism in order to better refect the content of the news. With the exception of the news items about climate change, the same news coverage was used for the narrative analysis. In Sweden, climate change was not used to the same extent as the other themes for disinformation purposes. This was to a large extent linked to its focus on the world famous environmental activist, Greta Thunberg, who featured in the vast large majority of the coverage of climate change and

© The Author(s) 2024 123

M. Hellman, *Security, Disinformation, and Harmful Narratives: RT and Sputnik News Coverage about Sweden*, The Palgrave Macmillan Series in International Political Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-58747-4\_5

the environment. Although her Swedish background was mentioned, Greta was only rarely positioned in the narratives as a representative of Sweden. Nor was Sweden depicted in connection with her activism or with environmental concerns. Climate change is, however, included in the framing analysis.

# Sources

The sources were not just used for items of information, facts, or fgures. More importantly, they seemed to infuence or even set the agenda on what events to cover and for quotes and depictions of actors. Articles were thus often built around a few statements by the authorities made in a broadcast or published in traditional media. In many cases, it was diffcult to distinguish between actor and source. There were also instances where an authority of some kind was said to have made a statement but where the original source of the statement was not mentioned. Some articles in Sputnik were reworked, edited, or copied from Swedish conservative or right-wing media.

As can be seen from Table 5.1, a high proportion of the sources were from Swedish domestic media, with an emphasis on public service broadcasting (television and radio) and the national daily broadsheets. A frequent way for RT and Sputnik to refer to the broadcast media was "state-controlled"; other terms were "state television" and "state media". This was defned as having strong leftist and left-green leanings at odds with the distribution of political views among the Swedish public. In one article, the Swedish television broadcaster was depicted as:

largely modelled after the BBC and sharing many traits with its British counterpart. It is funded by a public service tax on personal income. Previous surveys have indicated a massive left-wing slant at SVT. Over 50 percent of its staff reportedly supports the left-wing Green Party, which only got 4.4 percent of the votes in the 2018 general election, barely passing the 4 percent threshold to enter parliament. (Sputnik, October 7, 2019e)

Public service broadcasters and broadsheets were used to make reference to various types of Swedish organizations, political parties, individual politicians, and government ministers, as well as representatives of government and other agencies, business leaders, and so on, which were often

**Table 5.1** Sources of plots used by RT and Sputnik

collectively referred to as the establishment. The voices and opinions of citizens, or "ordinary people", were most often quoted from social media, such as individual tweets or Instagram posts (quotes from netizens). Tweets and Facebook items were most often published as screenshots pasted into the articles. There were also articles referencing surveys conducted by Swedish polling institutes such as Novus. The use of these sources was at times confusing and the fgures were often presented using dramatic and exaggerated phrases.

# Dominant Frames Depicting Sweden

The framing analysis was undertaken to identify the problems and possible solutions presented in the coverage. Coding for frames entailed identifying the key issues and how they were constructed by way of their contextualization and textual composition. In contrast to a topic, which denotes the subject of the news item, or answers the question of what the news item is about, a frame connotes the problem posed by or key issue of the item and answers the question of how the issue is being depicted. The same topic can thus be framed in different ways or take on different connotations. Each news item in the sample was described with reference to what the problem revolved around. Having coded all the news items, patterns were sought among the frames described and framing categories were developed for each theme. The distribution of frames identifed for each theme is presented below, starting with the distribution of gender frames (Table 5.2. Each section exemplifes the content of a different framing category).

## *Gender*

# *Gender (In)equality*

Several news reports were centered around gender equality and inequality, both of which might have been considered problematic depending on the

**Table 5.2** Distribution of frames in the theme of gender in Sputnik and RT, July 2019 to January 2021

Note: Each article was coded for a maximum of two framing categories

context. Some articles reported on equality issues with reference to statistics and surveys and just presented the results—at times without making any explicit point (Sputnik, July 17, 2020m; Sputnik, February 26, 2020e). There were news items about discrimination against and sexual abuse of both women and men, and also targeted at LGBTQ+ groups (Sputnik, July 9, 2019a; Sputnik, October 8, 2019f). The #metoo movement was frequently used to stress gender conficts, but especially to make a point about threats to masculinity (see e.g. Sputnik, July 9, 2019a; Sputnik, October 29, 2019i). Men were depicted as victims, and said to be frequently targeted with unfounded and false allegations or accusations. According to RT and Sputnik, Sweden was the country "hardest hit", or even "totally engulfed", by the #metoo campaign, and was now plagued by internal divisions between men and women with no strategy for how to move forward.

#### *LGBTQ+ (Sexuality, Homophobia, Sexual Minorities)*

Similarly, the Swedish establishment was depicted as a tenacious defender of the rights of LGBTQ+ people to fulfl and express their sexuality. There were reports about a new hymnal developed to be inclusive of LGBTQ+ groups, a bill passed in parliament removing the obligation on HIV infected persons to inform their partners and several articles about gender reassignment surgery to give individuals the gender of their choice.

However, embedded in most of these reports were resistance to and divisive views on LGBTQ+ communities, and news topics aroused strong comments on social media, which were published in the articles. A hockey player criticized her teammates for beginning a lesbian relationship, negatively affecting the quality of their play; the Minister of Equality was looking into removing the terms "mother" and "father" to promote gender neutrality. One topic said to have provoked great controversy in domestic politics was participation by the Swedish armed forces in the Stockholm annual pride event. Critics argued sarcastically that the Swedish defense forces should not be engaged in political activism. The armed forces were accused of being reckless with taxpayers' money and ignoring their main tasks. The media coverage used the tension between the armed forces' marketing sexual liberalism and the public's dislike of such campaigns to expose internal conficts and stress the alleged weakness of Sweden's defenses.

## *Migrants and Muslims Threaten Equality and Feminism*

The gender issue was frequently framed as connected to immigrants, and especially Muslims. This frame focused on the subordination of women in Islamic societies and how this was infuencing the Swedish way of life. This was expressed using a relatively limited set of phrases, some of which were identical across a number of articles, and was combined with statements about the large increase in the number of Muslim migrants to Sweden. Muslim women were reported as posing a diffcult dilemma for Sweden, whose politicians and offcials believed that they were defending freedom of religion when in fact they were defending Muslim subordination and the oppression of women. Much attention was given to heated debates about the veil and the hijab. There were reports of heated disputes between politicians (especially at the municipal level) fueled by suggested or imposed regulations on wearing the veil in public. Engaged politicians and netizens positioned themselves as for or against, and argued strongly for their point of view. The Swedish authorities were accused of gullibility by citizens who argued that the Islamic faith was incompatible with Swedish legislation and liberal values, and who expected leaders to defend Swedish law and values. Immigrants, mainly from Arab countries, were portrayed as a burden, capitalizing on Swedish welfare, increasing the cost of social services because of Arab women's needs (e.g. subsidizing Muslim migrants' driving licenses) and posing a threat to women by exposing Swedish and Arab women to abuse and violence.

## *Swedish Feminist Policy1*

RT and Sputnik's portrayal of the relationship between men and women in Sweden was one of tension and polarization. Sweden was depicted as suffering from an ongoing gender war that the national leadership had failed to control or prevent. Sweden was said to pride itself for its progressive ideas on gender and equality in general, and its feminist foreign policy in particular. It was described as having a naive belief that promoting feminism was the answer to all social ills. Critics argued that Sweden was way off when it came to gender equality concerns; and that feminists and feminist policies were overly radical, absurd, and even unethical—doing more harm than good. Sweden's relationships with other countries, such

1 Included in the term feminism here are issues such as equality between men and women, feminist policy, the struggle to include women (or men) in areas where they are underrepresented, and gender neutrality.

as Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco, had deteriorated as a result of Swedish feminist and gender politics. Swedish men and women were also negatively affected, although it was not made clear how. The stories covered alternated between discrimination against men and discrimination against women.

### *"The Unsexy Space"*

This study found news coverage framed in line with what Wagnsson and Barzanje (2021) termed in previous analyses of Sputnik "the Unsexy space". Sputnik and RT frequently published stories in which the Swedish authorities or public fgures sparked strong reactions by expressing—in statements or through policies—liberal views on sexual intercourse. When Swedish artists, infuencers, and business representatives were reported as celebrating feminism and empowering women's sexuality, they were hailed by some and rejected by others. Critics argued that such views were inappropriate or offensive, and in some cases that these were expressions of hate against men. The items almost exclusively comprised controversial events that it was reported had provoked outrage from the general public, such as artworks with genitalia-related motifs or social issues centered on women's menstruation. Issues around prostitution, human reproduction, abortion, pedophilia, and gender dysphoria among children were also part of the coverage, and used to demonstrate the harm that a preoccupation or "near obsession"—with sexuality had caused. Taken together, Sweden's liberal sexual attitudes were made to appear highly contentious, and as serving as a breeding ground for crime and mental illness.

#### *Culture*

The frame culture analyzed the ways in which Sweden was talked about with regard to identity (both national and personal) and national image. This also included ways of life and expressions of national symbolism, as well as art and music, national traditions and ceremonies, and reports on the sense of belonging of explicit ingroups and outgroups (Table 5.3).

#### *Selling Out Sweden*

Articles framed as "selling out Sweden" depicted a fear of how the Swedish authorities talked about Swedish traditions, values, habits and heritage, and their reluctance to deal with "deviant" or harmful religious and criminal practices. Religious radicals and criminals who violated the social

**Table 5.3** Distribution of frames in the culture theme in Sputnik and RT, July 2019 to January 2021

Note: Each article was coded for a maximum of two framing categories

contract were said to be allowed to roam free while victims of crime and abuse had to manage for themselves, receiving no support or sympathy from the state. Immigrants and villains (the difference between two was often blurred), on the other hand, were treated as sensitive creatures rather than perpetrators, and were seldom convicted or punished. Referencing countless allegations and angry comments from people on social media, public dissatisfaction with the Swedish political and legal authorities was portrayed as severe, and it was stated that the general public found their state institutions and government too passive and sometimes easily fooled. The articles expressed views about a dysfunctional undemocratic system that was bleeding fnancially and culturally, but was still handing out taxpayers' money and pushing Swedes and their traditions aside for the sake of Muslims and foreigners. This idea was amplifed in coverage that reported allegations as facts, and stated that the Swedish church was "leaking membership at an alarming rate" (Sputnik, December 11, 2019o), that it could no longer sustain or maintain its churches and that in the long run it would be unable to fulfll its obligations to preserve cultural heritage. The Church of Sweden was also accused of supporting Muslim political activism and providing room for oppressive religious movements.

## *Islamic Takeover of the Swedish Way of Life*

An overwhelming proportion of the material on culture in RT and Sputnik concerned Muslim infuences on Swedish society and how the Swedish authorities responded to or managed these. Overall, Sweden was portrayed as a country facing severe threats to national core values and national unity due to "mass immigration" (Sputnik, February 19, 2020d), primarily from countries in the Middle East and the Arab world. Immigrants were portrayed as troublemakers and reported as overrepresented in the crime statistics, engaged in subversive activities, profting from the Swedish welfare system, and cheating Swedish agencies and bureaucracies. People who had lived in Muslim societies described what kind of a threat Muslims were to secular and Christian societies, that the ideology would bring radicalism to Sweden and the existence of socalled sleeper cells, which were just biding their time before they would move into action and take over Swedish society (see for example Sputnik, December 2, 2019l). Muslims were said to disrespect liberal and secular values, recklessly assert their rights and demand that their norms and habits should be the norms and habits of Sweden, despite the clash between these and the Swedish way of life. These alleged developments were said to cause resentment in the population, which had been made victims in their own country. The situation was described as deplorable and desperate, leaving honorable citizens concerned and fearful, frst and foremost for the sake of the children which was a group, the reports argued, that was particularly exposed and affected. Non-Christian and pro-Muslim activities in schools and homes, such as Islamic role-play, were a sign of ongoing Islamifcation and indoctrination, and were leading families to leave Sweden (see for example Sputnik, August 29, 2019c). Using comparisons to the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when over one million Swedes left for the United States, it was reported that emigration was an increasing trend in Sweden, and that 2015 (same year as the European migrant crisis) was a "bumper crop".2

#### *Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism*

A smaller but highly relevant proportion of the news articles on culture and identity concerned the relationship between national and cosmopolitan values. It was reported that landmark institutions and large corporations, such as SAS and IKEA, were abandoning their marketing strategies and aligning themselves with cosmopolitan values (Sputnik, February 13, 2020b; Sputnik, October 31, 2019j; February 27, 2020f). These corporations had traditionally served not only as national brands, but also as important symbols of Swedish and Scandinavian national identity,

2 Statistics Sweden (2023) states that "during the 1990s and since the late 1990s , about 10,000 Swedish-born persons emigrated every year. The number increased during the 1990s and since the late 1990s around 20,000 Swedish-born persons emigrated every year. However, the number of emigrants has decreased during the last decade". The fgure for 2019 was around 8000 for Sweden-born persons.

including Christian values and traditions. Outraged citizens were quoted as claiming that such political correctness was ridiculous, that it had gone too far and, above all, that it was contributing to a downplaying and deconstruction of such values and traditions. These responses were spurred, for example, by a report that IKEA had decided to refer to its December sales campaign as the "Winter season" rather than "Christmas". The tensions and conficts between progressive multiculturalists and traditionalists—who tended to express nationalistic views—were also on display in news about right-wing extremist parties in Scandinavia, which were reported to be multiplying and taking action to bring about a purely white Sweden freed of immigrants and cleansed of traces of multiculturalism. This tied in with the theme of anti-liberalism (Table 5.4).

### *Anti-liberalism*

### *Anti-establishment*

As part of their attacks on liberalism, RT and Sputnik coverage frequently expressed anti-establishment views. Articles stressed the level of discontent and upset among the general public about the workings of the "statefunded media", Swedish Television and Radio. Plots told how state media outlets had violated fundamental principles they themselves claimed to be guided by. There was talk of state media not living up to their selfproclaimed moral standards; for instance, by banning what they defned as racist words only to be found using these same words later (Sputnik, December 4, 2019m). Leading media organizations were said to be driven by status seeking and self-promotion, leading them to exaggerate events and situations and to deviate from the truth, or to make stories up such as

**Table 5.4** Distribution of frames within the theme of anti-liberalism in Sputnik and RT from July 2019 to January 2021

Note: Each article was coded for a maximum of two framing categories

on Islamophobic hate crimes (see for example Sputnik, October 18, 2019g). In response, netizens had accused the outlets of hypocrisy, lack of transparency, and applying double standards. Similarly, it was alleged that the Swedish authorities were mistrusted by various groups, such as rightwing voters. Leading media organizations were said to have a left-wing bias and to be engaged in left-wing activism, such as by giving opinions on whether people's eating habits were healthy or sustainable (see for example Sputnik, December 4, 2019m).

#### *Freedom of Speech*

Controversies regarding freedom of speech were a recurring topic in the material. The coverage depicted the Swedish people as deeply divided on what or who should be protected and restricted in the public space. The Swedish government and the authorities were said to exercise dictatorship and to be hypocritical for arguing for the protection of freedom of speech while at the same time forbidding views to be expressed that deviated from the mainstream (Sputnik, September 15, 2020o). The role, status, and rights of racists and controversialists were portrayed as "a hot potato" that the government felt best left alone. Articles often consisted of opinions expressed in social media by members of the public who were negative about what they saw as the "Åsiktskorridoren" (opinion corridor), or the room for oppositional views, being narrowed, and calling for it to be widened (Sputnik, August 18, 2020n; Sputnik, July 2, 2020l).

#### *Xenophobia*

When topics linked to the extent of ethnic and religious discrimination were broached in the coverage, the stories tended to be framed around uncertainties over whether xenophobia should be seen as a big problem in Sweden. Native Swedes and ethnic minorities were depicted as opponents that lacked respect for one another, with one seeking to cause harm to the other on the basis of race and ethnicity. There were, for instance, reports about Nazi raids (Sputnik, November 12, 2019k) and so-called dominance crimes intended to humiliate Swedes (Sputnik, March 23, 2020h; Sputnik, December 18, 2019p). News reports referred to evidence that discrimination and attacks against members of minority groups with non-Christian beliefs were on the rise in Sweden, but native Swedes were also shown as victims.

**Table 5.5** Distribution of frames in the public health theme in Sputnik and RT, July 2019 to January 2021

Note: Each article was coded for a maximum of two framing categories

a 5 of the "other" frames are about Greta

# *Public Health*

The coverage on public health was centered almost exclusively around Covid-19. However, medical issues such as risk factors, symptoms, treatment, and infection tracing were not the focus. The coverage was framed around Sweden's Covid-19 strategy, national governance, crisis management, public opinion, and international reaction (Table 5.5).

# *The Swedish Government Is Inept and Hypocritical; The Public Ignorant and Careless*

One issue that was often reported was how the Covid-19 crisis had affected the relationship between the Swedish government (state institutions) and the people. This issue was repeatedly framed as Swedish governance being dysfunctional, and how the leadership was weak and indecisive about what to do to stop the spread of Covid-19. Disagreements over the Covid-19 strategy, demonstrated by civil protests, domestic political opposition, and scientists calling for tougher measures, were used to "puncture the myth" that Sweden was a stable and respectable country. Sweden was said to hold an exaggerated belief in itself, making claims to strong social cohesion as a society permeated by solidarity, loyalty, and morality. Sweden had lulled itself into a false sense of security with a leadership that argued it was well prepared to manage the pandemic. Stories of youths intentionally spitting at or coughing near the elderly, the police, and healthcare staff were used to back claims that the Swedish assertion that Swedes were standing on high moral ground, loyally supporting one another in times of crisis, was a distortion (Sputnik, April 13, 2020j; Sputnik, March 31, 2020i). There were also images of crowded shops and cafés, and large gatherings of people happily waving fags. Citizens craving individual freedom were described as going overboard. Understanding of the covid-19 crisis was said to differ strongly between social groups, partly because elites and the establishment were refusing to be transparent about the virus and crisis management, keeping citizens uninformed of the threats to their lives and health (Hellman, 2021, pp. 461–462).

#### *Sweden Is an Outcast, Losing International Status*

Another prominent public health frame was that of Sweden, in light of the pandemic, showing itself to be an outcast—and a state losing international status. Sweden was reported to have made international headlines by choosing a Covid-19 strategy that differed from most other countries in the "West", and which had had seriously negative consequences for people. Sweden was talked about as an outlier, out of touch with reality, driven only by self-interest and with little or no solidarity shown with the international community. The strategy was reported as causing negative reactions around the world as the number of deaths and infections increased. Sweden's open and liberal policy was described as a "stand-aloneapproach", which included odd and insuffcient measures with severe consequences for the elderly and the most vulnerable. Foreign commentators stated that no one should follow or be inspired by the Swedish example (Hellman, 2021, p. 460). In one article, Sweden was grouped together with Belarus as the only country to keep its borders open. Sweden was also accused of prioritizing economic growth and military capability over public health.

#### *Sweden Is Gambling with Citizens' Lives and Poor Crisis Management*

Sweden's unconventional response to the pandemic gave rise to articles scrutinizing Swedish crisis management and the healthcare system. The Swedish government was accused of ignoring the risks of Covid-19, and taking insuffcient measures to tackle the disease and mitigate its effects. The Swedish strategy was described as daring but morally dubious, and not uniformly supported; it was "passive", "lax", and entirely reliant on personal responsibility and voluntary social distancing. The strategy was called a "gamble" (Sputnik, May 1, 2020k), a "risky move", a "deadly mistake" (RT, June 4, 2020), and "an experiment" that lacked scientifc evidence. The value-laden concept of herd immunity, also referred to as the Great Barrington Declaration, was frequently debated or hovered around without being discussed in detail or substantiated (Hellman, 2021, p. 462). It was claimed that the Swedish government and Public Health Agency had a Malthusian attitude, or had adopted Darwinian theory, and accepted the sacrifce of human lives for the greater good of the wider population. Government offcials and medical health experts were accused of being cynical and violating human dignity. In addition, Sweden lacked suffcient medical supplies and protective equipment to deal with the disease.

## *Reality Is Catching Up – Restrictions Revisited*

The fourth category of the public health frame focused on Sweden heading towards an apocalypse or doomsday scenario that the government was unable to prevent, in tandem with the incompetent government framing. The news stories told how diffcult priorities might have to be set in the social services, such as in healthcare, care for the elderly and the police force. Revealing statements by government offcials said that the country had "got its tactics wrong" and that precautions or stricter restrictions were "necessary to turn the tide". These were used especially in headlines and subheadings to convey an image of the Swedish leadership acknowledging its failure. Experts and television commentators presented alarming estimates of the number of infections and patients in intensive care, and of mortality rates. To amplify this deceptive message, the fgures were sometimes illustrated in graphs with steep curves on the screen or in pictures. Voices calling for radical action to adopt strategies contrary to those of the government or the Public Health Authority (Folkhälosmyndigheten) were also given prominence.

#### *Climate Change*

The climate change frame for Sweden was centered almost entirely around the myth and persona of Greta Thunberg—most often spoken of as Greta. This included depictions of Greta as a person, her situation, her activism, and the responses to her protests, public rallies, and speeches. Even though Greta is Swedish, there were few references to Sweden in the coverage. The narrative about Greta also contained very little information or substance on environmental questions or concrete climate change-related topics. Nonetheless, this brief section on the coverage is included in the analysis. The articles about climate change were coded into four frames

**Table 5.6** Distribution of frames about Sweden with regard to climate change in Sputnik and RT, July 2019 to January 2021

Note: Each article was coded for a maximum of two framing categories

that illustrate how Greta was made to represent Sweden or Swedish values. Only a limited part of the coverage on climate change and the environment dealt with questions other than Greta. A few were in line with the Greta discourse, in that they identifed Sweden as a country with extremist views on the question of climate change. Partly because of the "Greta syndrome", people were said to have gone mad when it came to fghting climate change. Children were being taught to eat insects; cannibalism was being discussed, and so on. The political left was labeled the most radical group, proposing absurd measures to protect the environment (Table 5.6).

#### *Greta the Preacher: Moral Lectures and Shaming*

The most frequent framing category portrayed Greta as a preacher presenting moral lectures and shaming people. It brings together the articles in the Russian news outlets that reported people being upset and provoked by Greta and what they saw as her cult of followers. These articles claimed that Greta and her movement induced unjustifed guilt and shame, and that they gave moral lectures to people they identifed as not taking proper action to combat climate change. It was said that Greta used harsh rhetoric to dismiss and reprimand adults while praising her own generation for its efforts. This criticism of her attacks on adults was combined with sarcasm. Greta was ridiculed, depicted as a saint with exceptional skills, qualities, and ideas, and referred to as the "Ayatollah of Climate Change" (Sputnik, September 23, 2019d), an "eco-version of Joan of Arc" (Sputnik, October 20, 2019h), the "climate-Messiah" (Sputnik, December 5, 2019n), and so on.

#### *Greta the Child: A Pigtailed Puppet*

Greta's young age was often raised, invoking concern and distrust. On one hand, she and the youth engaged in her movement were depicted as victims of child abuse and child exploitation. The articles and television clips depicted adults as perpetrators: parents, teachers, or the adult world in general were either seen to be benefting from Greta's activism for their own sakes (e.g. by using her in branding on cars and other products or for charitable purposes) or depicted as failing in their responsibilities as adults, for example, to make sure she got a proper education. The adults had secretly brainwashed and traumatized Greta and her companions with post-apocalyptic horror stories about the end of the world as we know it, and encouraged the young activists to truant from school in order to protest. This, it was argued, was done without Greta's knowledge or permission and it was absurd that the social services did not intervene to put a stop to it.

Greta's appearance and mental health were also frequently referred to in order to denigrate her and the spheres in which she was active. Her braids and rosy cheeks made her a perfect stereotype not only for the Nordic race, but also for the "Aryan". Greta was made to incarnate children who were dysfunctional and vulnerable, and the green movement was accused of dishonest conduct when it used her as a poster child. Due to her medical record and her autism diagnosis, she was portrayed as having poor judgement and therefore not to be trusted. Together with her infrequent displays of bad temper, this was used to depict her as ignorant and a spoiled child who always got her own way. She was described as a solitary, naïve, and discredited girl who had been given an unreasonable amount of authority. In this sense, she was represented in Sputnik and RT as an odd mix of both victim and authoritative fgure.

#### *Greta the Celebrity: Global Actor*

Greta was portrayed as a poster child (see above). She had been elevated to international stardom by adults, dominated headlines and fgured on the frontpages of respectable newspapers. Pejorative language was used to describe how she frequently mingled and attended meetings with political elites, top-ranking business leaders and celebrities such as former US President Barack Obama, the Pope, and the US actor Leonardo Di Caprio. The worldwide media attention, and the prestigious awards and nominations she received, aroused criticism and negative emotions. She was called "a media darling" (Sputnik, October 23, 2020p) with access to the corridors of power, said to enjoy special privileges and bypass gates that would otherwise be closed to her. This was facilitated by politicians, offcials, and powerful institutions and corporations who accepted (and even welcomed) being run and infuenced by a little girl. In this spirit of antiestablishment sentiment, it was sarcastically suggested that she ought to be given an Oscar (Sputnik, February 4, 2020a).

### *Greta the Activist: Radical Protest*

It was alleged that Greta and the "ludicrous and nonsensical cult" that revolved around her were hysterical alarmists who caused unnecessary climate panic. Climate change deniers and skeptics found Greta's activism ridiculous and gave her epithets such as "Doomsday prophet" (Sputnik, February 14, 2020c), "guru of the apocalypse" (Sputnik, July 24, 2019b), and "eco-warrior" (Sputnik, March 4, 2020g). The measures she advocated to combat climate change were said to be extreme, illegitimate, and unreasonable. They were said to lack scientifc evidence, be undemocratic and to divert attention from more important issues, such as the Covid-19 pandemic. While Greta was reported to have claimed that her diagnosis gave her superpowers, critics argued that she was mentally ill and that her protest rallies were fawed.

## *Greta the Pawn in the Game: Victim or Actor with Political Power?*

The ffth and fnal framing category about climate change involved Greta being described as a political pawn in the game of power politics. There was speculation on whether various actors had taken her hostage in order to push their agenda, increase their profts, or gain a positive reputation or status. Greta was accused of double standards and hypocrisy as she protested jointly with dubious people and groups such as Nazi youths, radical anti-fascists ("Antifa"), and former criminals while also cooperating with industrial conglomerates. It was repeatedly stated that the international left, "lefties", had aligned themselves with Greta and turned her into a propaganda symbol for their movements. Greta was also accused of contradicting herself, claiming she was non-political while at the same time siding with left-of-center politicians. Mainstream journalists were said to be aiding Greta's activism with uncritical reporting on her campaigns instead of taking their media responsibilities seriously and exposing her scams.

# Summary

This chapter has presented how Sweden and the problems it faced were framed by the Russian affliated state media RT and Sputnik and what sources that were used. The framing analysis of news included the selected themes gender, culture, anti-liberalism, climate change, and public health published between July 1, 2019, and January 31, 2021. It was found that the most frequently used sources were Swedish public service media and the national daily broadsheets. The framing analysis emphasized threats posed to the cohesion and national identity of Sweden by different domestic groups such as feminists, migrants, and Muslims. Taken together the frames made manifest that the consequences of these threats were a decline of a once well-functioning nation with domestic unrest and an inability to defend against a gradual islamization of society. Added to this, news about the environmental activist Greta Thunberg also implicitly stressed the downside of a liberal society and its extended freedom of speech that gave global voice to a child to run the debate on climate change.

# Appendix: Definitions of Categories of Sources

### *Swedish Broadcast Media*

Swedish public service media: television, Swedish Television (SVT); and radio, Swedish Radion (SR). Both these media outlets are known to be highly trusted by the Swedish public. TV4, a Swedish free-to-air television network. It is the largest commercial broadcaster in Sweden, owned by Bonnier Broadcasting group.

#### *Swedish Old Media (Broadsheets and Tabloids)*

Major national newspaper and outlets with national and international coverage, printed or published daily, distributed to subscribers across all of Sweden, "newspapers of record by reputation", such as *Dagens Nyheter* (DN), *Svenska Dagbladet* (SvD), *Expressen*, *Aftonbladet*, *Dagens Industri*, Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå (TT).

#### *Swedish Alternative Media*

With a political stance on the right of the political spectrum (conservative, paleolibertarianism, paleoconservatism, libertarian, liberal conservative, nationalistic, etc.). From an outsider perspective, these news organizations are often described as right-wing radical, alternative right, far-right, or conspiratorialist. What they have in common is that they criticize the mainstream media for its liberal-left bias and for not giving proper attention to issues. Examples include Nya Tider, Fria Tider, Samhällsnytt, Nyheter idag, Exakt 24

#### *Political Sources*

Political actors elected by the people who have a political appointment or executive position in the Swedish government, parliament or elsewhere, such as ministers and party leaders and Members of the European Parliament. Political sources are separate from government agency and scientifc experts (see below).

#### *Government Agencies*

Non-political offcials and other individuals working in the public/ governmental sector, such as ministries, agencies, and other institutions, nationally as well as internationally. Examples include Folkhälsomyndigheten (the Public Health Agency), Sweden's central bank, universities, the police, security service, Living History Forum, Brå, the Swedish national food agency, the Swedish Armed Forces.

#### *Scientifc Experts*

Often academics who are experts or authorities in a particular area or topic nationally as well as internationally. Examples include scientists, journalists and authors, Nansen Center for Peace and Dialogue, think tanks, Worldometer, Pew Research Centre and Eurobarometer (the European Commission).

#### *Christian Newspapers*

This category includes information and news that are gathered from the Swedish church as an institution, its different congregations, Sweden's Archbishop Antje Jackelén, or any other representative of Swedish Christian churches. This could be a direct or indirect announcement, statement, or some other type of publication/press release. This category includes information published in daily newspapers that have a Christian history or profle, such as *Världen idag Dagen*, *Svensk kyrkotidning*, *Kyrkans Tidning*, and *Kyrkans arbetsgivarorganisation*.

#### *Local and Regional Newspapers*

Community journalism that serves distinct regions, neighborhoods, suburbs and small towns, and cover news that concerns the population in these areas, such as *Göteborgsposten*, *Sydsvenskan*, *Västerbottenkuriren*, *Borås Tidning*, *Dalarnas Tidningar*, and *Nerikes Allehanda*

### *Nordic Media*

Yle, NRK, *Aftenposten*, Danish Radio, Extra Bladet, Politiken, Norwegian news agency, Nordiske (pollster).

### *Industry Media*

\*Includes for example Läkartidningen, Veckans Affärer, Resumé, Fplus. Only referred to a handful of times and therefore included in the "other" category together with "local and regional newspapers" as they all cover a specifc geographical or thematic area/news coverage intended for a certain interest group. Veckans Affärer, Resumé

#### *World and European Institutions*

Only referred to a handful of times—WHO, Eurobarometer (European Commission), Worldometer, EU in general, not named NGOs—so should probably fall into another suitable category. Ex. WHO, EU in general, not named NGOs

#### *European Media*

European newspapers and outlets from Europe's biggest countries, most of them with large circulations. Evenly distributed across the political spectrum, such as. Reuters, the BBC, *The Guardian*, Deutsche Welle, *El Pais*, EUObserver, FAZ, the *Financial Times*, *The Independent*, *Bild*, France2, the New Statesman.

#### *Non-European Foreign Media*

Mainly US newspapers and media outlets. Like the European media, their political stance/orientation differs from left (Global Times) to far-right (Rebel News, Fox News). Russian (2 + 1 Putin). Examples include CBS, Fox News, Rebel News, the *New York Times*, The Daily Show, CNN, The Global Times, Business Insider, New English Review.

#### *Social Media*

Content provided on social media constitutes a large and important part of the news coverage, especially for Sputnik. In cases where social media is referred to, the organization that was at the time known as Twitter is almost exclusively the source. Two subcategories were identifed (a) tweets from ordinary people (anonymous/unnamed), or print screens from random people's accounts; and (b) spokespersons of some kind (including for organizations), a well-known and/or strong voice within a particular area such as a celebrity, a politician, or an opinion leader. Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook are also social media sites used in the coverage but more rarely, and in a few cases social media in general is given as the source of information. One article reports about a debate on Flashback and refers to it as Sweden's most popular forum. It is common when social media are listed as the source for print screens from these platforms to be inserted into the article. The posts often include a picture, memes, and/or emojis. Main examples: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, named and unnamed social media users, citizens

# References

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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# The Liberal Left: A Threat to Traditional Sweden

# Introduction

This and the next three chapters (Chaps. 6, 7, 8, and 9) present the results of the narrative analysis of the four main narratives identifed. Taken together, they make up the master narrative about Sweden that is presented in Chap. 10. There are overlaps between the narratives not only because of the methodology, but because of the storytelling techniques by which RT and Sputnik construct their strategic narratives. The narrative connections and overlaps affect the meaning making of the messages in the news coverage. This is discussed in reference to the story telling techniques in Chap. 10. It should be noted that the sub-narratives identifed in the analysis are presented, in this and the other empirical chapters, with few comments on how they are interpreted or what position is taken to them by the analyst. The aim is to project what the sub-narratives are according to Sputnik and RT and how they are told.

As is discussed in Chap. 4, while the framing analysis centered on how the problems reported on were defned, who was responsible and whether there were solutions to the problems, the narrative analysis ran deeper, and focused on the storytelling of each news item; that is, the way in which the pieces were told, or the plots. Attention was therefore particularly focused on how malign messages merged into the coverage and took on meaning by way of the different narrative components, their interrelationships, and

© The Author(s) 2024 147 M. Hellman, *Security, Disinformation, and Harmful Narratives: RT and Sputnik News Coverage about Sweden*, The Palgrave Macmillan Series in International Political Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-58747-4\_6

how the stories unfolded by way of the sequential ordering of the events. In this frst narrative chapter, the focus is on the negative consequences Sweden is said to have suffered by clinging on to liberal leftist ideas. The chapters that present and analyze the four narratives are structured according to sub-narratives. The frst narrative presented in this chapter "The liberal left: A threat to traditional Sweden" is made up of the following sub-narratives: "Freedom of expression and freedom of religion pose problems, and cause incompatibilities"; "Political divisions over liberal democratic values"; "The Swedish church: a troublesome liberal with a diminishing congregation"; and "The Swedish media is left wing and supports the state and the establishment". It is well established in research on Russian disinformation that liberalism and liberal democracy are key targets (see Chaps. 1, 2, and 3), and that Sputnik and RT are known to be supportive of rightist conservative parties (Colliver et al., 2018, p. 5). During the time period analyzed the Social Democrats (SAP) and the Green party (MP) were in government forming a left-green coalition with the SAP party leader as prime minister.

# Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Religion Pose Problems and Cause Incompatibilities

Two basic pillars of liberalism were particularly prominent in the narrative about the liberal left: freedom of expression and freedom of religion. These two human rights were repeatedly used in the anti-liberal narrative of Sputnik and RT to demonstrate the negative effects of the implementation of liberalism and liberal democracy on social stability and a wellfunctioning society.

Sweden's supposedly strong defense of freedom of expression was depicted as an oxymoron. In various articles, Sputnik and RT argued that principles said to be of such signifcance were mostly lip-service or, when it was effectively applied, the news outlets argued that what was treated as a sacred principle in fact led to nothing but chaos, confusion, and antagonism between people. Freedom of expression turned out to be a Pandora's box that once opened, was beyond any state actors' grasp or control. Perhaps the strongest critique of liberalism came to the fore in pieces arguing the incompatibility between freedom of expression and freedom of religion. There were reports, for example, about the debate surrounding the hijab, and about attacks on and defense of the sanctity of the Quran (see below), showing how freedom of religion took precedence over freedom of speech. There were reports in which foreign-born Swedes expressed similar concerns, assigning responsibility to left-leaning politicians who, they argued, had made it impossible for people to criticize or express their dislike for Islam and Muslim traditions (see e.g. Sputnik, March 7, 2020f). If Swedes expressed their dislike for Islam, they risked being sued or charged in a court of law, accused of racism. Plots arguing the primacy of freedom of religion over freedom of speech showed how supposedly liberal Sweden was not so liberal after all. On the contrary, Sputnik and RT argued, Swedish elites and law enforcement agencies politicized opinions and fueled polarization by denying people the right to debate openly or to show their dislike for norms and values that went against liberal Swedish values.

While publicizing these struggles, Sputnik and RT were at the same time reporting how the Swedish authorities and government refused to acknowledge any social tensions. Plots were structured to show the hypocrisy of elite groups, depicting them as tiptoeing around issues and trying to silence voices, for example, about Sweden's involvement in World War II, or representation of the Swedish fag as a symbol of oppression and slavery (Sputnik, July 2, 2020k; Sputnik, July 15, 2020m), as well as involvement of the Swedish church racial biological studies on Sami people and other forms of abuse (Sputnik, October 8, 2020x).

This added to the image of Sweden that ran through all the narratives: that Sweden is not what it appears to be (see e.g. Chap. 7 on the narrative on the pandemic). Coverage showed how talk about freedom of expression weighed lightly when it came to coverage of Islam and Muslims. It was unacceptable in Sweden to write sarcastically or critically about Muslims. At the same time, it was claimed that political leaders and other authorities, such as the police, were prevented from intervening in cases of abuse, discrimination, or violence because of liberal legislation and the signifcance it assigns to freedom of religion, which provides leeway for all sorts of behavior.

Schools were reported to have removed traditional hymns from graduation day, which had been sung by Swedish school children for decades because the singing of hymns was seen as disrespecting Muslim schoolchildren and in breach of the principle of a secular Swedish school system (Sputnik, November 11, 2019i). There were plots about Swedish pupils who were forbidden to wear necklaces with a Christian cross (Sputnik, October 12, 2020y) while Muslim women and girls were allowed to wear the hijab (Sputnik, January 15, 2020a; Sputnik, February 14, 2020c); and there were stories of non-Muslim pupils forced to pray to Allah as part of religious teaching (Sputnik, March 6, 2020e). Among the different actors in the plots, leftist politicians were depicted as especially weak, oversensitive, and indecisive with regard to freedom of expression. They were reported as giving in to special interest claims and adding restrictions according to what was considered politically correct (Sputnik, July 21, 2020n; Sputnik, March 7, 2020f). Despite fancy and lengthy liberal talk by politicians and state authorities, when it came to criticism of the Muslim population and Muslim customs and traditions, freedom of expression appeared no longer valid.

Sputnik showed how Swedish values and principles were being challenged by foreign cultures and traditions, and succumbing to the pressure. The plots showed how an overemphasis on liberal democracy prevented any defense of Swedish culture and values, and like the sub-narratives about the party political disputes, liberal democracy was found to cause destabilization and the disintegration of the state. Credulous state and church authorities gave permission for any kind of organization to register as a religious community as long as it claimed to favor feminism, social justice, and environmental protection, and to support LGBTQ+ rights. Even Satanists were accepted. A background paragraph explained:

However, since the Church of Sweden was separated from the state in 2000, a push for a more equal treatment of other faith communities was initiated. In recent years, a plethora of religious societies have been registered in Sweden, from the Islamic fatwa agency to the Scientologists. (Sputnik, August 2, 2019b)

Liberal leadership was depicted as so keen to defend freedom of speech and freedom of religion that it downplayed the responsibility to maintain order and stability, leading to violence and riots as a consequence. In a television report from the south of Sweden, RT, with a reporter on site, showed how the country had literally been thrown into chaos. Street fghts and clashes between protestors and the police had followed online streaming of a Quran-burning in Malmö by anti-Islamism activists from the Danish political party, Hardline. The anchor introduced the piece, "Torched Faith":

There have been violent scenes in Sweden after unrest was triggered when anti-Islam activists burned a Coran and streamed it online. Police say that more than 300 people outraged at the event took to the streets in protest. However, the situation descended into riots with demonstrators starting fres and clashing with police. (RT, August 29, 2020)

The accompanying pictures showed young men in hoodies feeing from the police and police cars chasing after them. There were numerous police cars in the street lit up by sirens and streetlights. The police task force, in full riot gear, was on site and blurry pictures from a chaotic scene showed them moving violent protestors by carrying them and placing them in police vans while gunshots were heard in the background. The anchor in the studio said the police had admitted that they had lost control during the violence. He also told how the founder and leader of the Hardline party, Rasmus Paludan, had been banned from entering Sweden, and that three of "the members of the party are being arrested on suspicion of inciting hatred". There was no criticism of the tardiness of the Swedish authorities in acting against the Coran burning campaign or the Danish activists. Nor were there any refections made on what Sweden was willing to endure to protect freedom of speech. The violent pictures spoke for themselves, or so it might be assumed. Nor was there any mention of the alleged instigator of the riot, Rasmus Paludan, being banned from Sweden.

The fact that an event such as a Coran burning was allowed despite the risk of ensuing violence was commented on by Kent Ekeroth, a member of the national conservative right-wing Sweden Democrats (SD) party. Ekeroth was ascribed an expert position in the plot. He was depicted as an anti-liberal critic and someone who helped make sense of the violent event. He gave his opinion that what had just been witnessed in Malmö showed how the Swedish state had lost control over immigration and over its territory. Ekeroth made a connection between what he termed Sweden's "huge demographic problems" with immigrant groups "becoming a bigger part of Swedish society", and how this incident would familiarize Swedes with the Danish anti-Muslim party. Ekeroth framed the problem as an immigration issue over which the government and the police had no control. His defnition of the problem closed the story (RT, August 29, 2020).

Like RT, Sputnik reported on the Coran-burning staged by Paludan and his Swedish colleague Dan Park, but in a series of articles. The plots were the same as the one in RT: the Coran was set on fre and the authorities stood perplexed and indecisive in the face of street violence. Paludan and Park argued that they were exercising their right to free speech, while the police feared continuing riots and an escalation of violence in Muslim communities. Day after day of coverage amplifed the image of the powerlessness and passivity of the police. When freedom of expression was challenged by Islam, Swedish society appeared weak and indecisive about how to defend it. Although identifed in the plots as radical defenders of freedom of speech, the plots assigned Paludan and Park the roles of known instigators of social unrest and men with criminal records. The coverage made clear the extremes to which Swedish liberal principles had taken the country, and that those defending the principles appeared to be right-wing extremists and former criminals.

One Sputnik article, sourced from the reports of two Swedish far-right news media outlets, Samhällsnytt and Nyheter Idag, told how the police had denied Paludan and Park the right to burn the Quran in the Malmö district of Rosengård (a suburb it defned as "vulnerable" and a "no-go area" with a large Muslim population), since this was seen as a security risk. The police were said to have offered them an alternative site for their protest, which was likely to be seen as a provocation of Muslims and against Islam. In response, Park was quoted as telling Nyheter Idag: "I told the police; you're bowing to the violence. You are afraid that there will be violence, so you give in. The violent ones get to decide on freedom of expression". Paludan told Samhällsnytt: "The Swedish police obviously love Muslims and dare not do their duty. A shameful chapter in Sweden's history, the day when the Swedish state rejected freedom of expression and freedom of assembly" (Sputnik, August 18, 2020r). Such provocative and antagonistic language was often given a voice in Sputnik, which came to associate freedom of speech with depictions of a state imploding from within. In one article, Paludan was quoted as saying that "Sweden is going to hell"; in another he accused the law enforcement agencies of "running Islamists' errands and functioning as a 'sharia police'", thereby alleging that the Swedish police favored the protection of Muslims over freedom of expression (Sputnik, August 31, 2020s). Other articles depicted Paludan as a former lawyer whose activism in the name of religious freedom and freedom of expression had forced him to request constant police protection, costing Danish taxpayers huge sums of money (Sputnik, August 5, 2020q), but also as someone whose zeal in protecting these rights had caused unrest and riots.

Taken together, the news plots about the Coran burning presented a clear message: When the state grants its citizens freedom of expression, chaos breaks out, riots ensue and only people like Park and Paludan dare to stand up for what Sweden claims is a foundational principle of liberal democracy (Sputnik, August 18, 2020r; Sputnik, September 11, 2020t; Sputnik, February 26, 2020d; Sputnik, August 5, 2020q: Sputnik, August 31, 2020s; Sputnik, September 14, 2020u). This was not just depicting a society in chaos, but also evidence of the threat that liberal ideas pose to law and order, and to society's moral values.

# Political Divisions Over Liberal Democratic Values

A second sub-narrative focused on political divisions, including party political disputes over liberal democratic values. While the depictions of a vague and incompetent leftist government played a key role in the plots for demonstrating that Swedish society had been weakened and lacked a frm leadership, little attention was paid to either Left Party or social democratic ideologies. Instead, the left was lumped together with "inadequate liberals", and like them was said to be contributing to the demise of the Swedish state by ignoring rising crime rates and the problems of mass immigration, and instead focusing all its attention on climate change activism, multiculturalism, feminism, and LGBTQ+ rights.

The political issues on the domestic agenda were off-track and showed that the Swedish authorities did not understand where society was heading or the real problems that needed to be addressed to halt further decline. The length to which Swedish society was about to decline was illustrated by a news story in Sputnik, which reported on a school project where pupils were taught to eat insects to cut waste, using 3D-printed toys (Sputnik, September 23, 2019f). This was said to be part of a solution to the problem of climate change. The agency running the project was depicted in the plot as seemingly oblivious to how extreme their teaching was, talking about the need to "switch from high-carbon beef to lowcarbon bugs". A photograph of the so-called play food, to persuade children to approve the new menu, led the article depicting a close-up of unappealing insects on a skewer with the caption: "grilled maggots for human consumption". In a playful manner, the project had named the dishes Algae Ball, Bug Mac, and Tasty Waste, but underneath the humorous and ridiculous wording Sputnik made reference to this being the "food of the future". The source of the item was *Veckans Affäre*r, a well-established, highly credible, prestigious journal. Use of *Veckans Affärer* added to the message that this was an example of what was being seriously debated in Sweden. At the same time, it provided further proof of the absurdity of political life/space in Sweden.

The story used a number of quotes from the organizers, arguing that the sustainable food they were introducing was "vital for mankind's survival", with the word vital in quotation marks. It was therefore logical to get children accustomed to this diet. In this way, the plot balanced between humor, absurdity, and future survival. An image from a *Veckans Affärer* tweet inside the plot showed colorful toys standing in stark contrast to the photograph of a skewered insect that introduced the article. Thus, what began as an image of an unpleasant, almost repulsive future scenario was somewhat moderated by the emphasis on "sustainable eating", as it was termed. However, tweets from the public in response to the future of food were less conciliatory. Some seemed not to take the project seriously; others expressed their disgust. One person tweeted: "Feels a little soon. The zombie apocalypse is not here yet"; another tweet predicted that children would "die of starvation and cold. We see a new totalitarian ideology being born, climatism, which will result in the de-industrialization and self-destruction of Western civilization". Another tweet argued: "No adults can possibly stop it".

This plot is an example of how Sputnik in particular demonstrated the silliness and absurdity, on top of mere criticism, of how Sweden led by liberal leftist ideas engaged with marginal topics or serious topics in a ridiculous manner while refraining from taking proper action on core political and social problems. Individual plots, as in the case of the above news item, might not be structured as conficts between opposing parties, even if the responses to the teaching on future foods received strong comments. Instead, by mixing this type of colorful article—pushed to extremes and often centered on problems of climate change, LGBTQI issues, or multiculturalism—with news about the government's inability to deal with problems of crime or the spread of Covid-19, Sputnik and at times RT made clear how far liberal leftist ideas had led the country astray. Instead of dealing with violence in the suburbs, or the mental health problems of the young people, projects were teaching children that bugs were edible.

Later the same year, and in response to the government preoccupation with what it treated as questions of the liberal left, Sputnik reported that a new communist party was being launched with a stated objective of turning attention back on to the defense of working class interests. The story did not link the new party to the liberal infuences on the traditional left, but stated that there was disappointment among the working class that there was no longer a leftist party defending working class interests. Nils Littorin, one of the initiators of the new party, and the narrator of the plot, was quoted:

Pride, for instance, has been reduced to dealing with sexual orientation. We believe that human dignity is primarily about having a job and having pension insurance that means that you are not forced to live on crumbs when you are old. (Sputnik, December 20, 2019p)

According to this plot, as a consequence of the left abandoning the working classes, Sweden had ended up in a situation where far-right and far-left parties were both competing for the same group of people, and they also shared the same critique of the traditional left and the establishment (Sputnik, December 20, 2019p).

The sequence of events as part of the plot made it clear frst that a new party was being launched and then that this was due to the left abandoning its policies and the interests of the working class. The plot moved on to describe how the left had created its own problems as well as problems for its traditional voting base. Reference was made to Littorin's claim, in Sputnik's words, that the left was "going through a prolonged identity crisis". Littorin, serving as narrator of the plot, then explained the crisis in greater depth, saying that since the left was now focused on elite issues, such as Greta Thunberg's climate activism, immigration, and multiculturalism, and was more concerned about justice and equality for migrants than for the workers, this had led members of the working classes to turn to right-wingers, a move criticized by communists, to which Littorin belonged, and this was a reason for the launch of the new communist party. The underlying problem, he argued, was a "chaotic immigration policy"—an explanatory factor that appeared repeatedly in Sputnik and RT coverage of a variety of social problems—with its connections to cultural clashes, segregation, honor culture, and clan mentalities. This choice of terms clearly positioned migrants as the foreign and troublesome "other". Moreover, questions that preoccupied the left such as LGBT+ issues and the climate movement drew attention away from socioeconomic issues. The plot ended with a reaffrmation of the critique of the left in a statement of another regional left-wing leader. Markus Allard was quoted as saying that "socialists don't belong to the left". In a stark formulation, he said that the left had abandoned the working classes in favor of "parasitic grant-grabbing layers within the middle class". The launch of a new communist party was thus given salience by fellow working class representatives and the view that the left had gone astray was reinforced.

The Sputnik and RT coverage also projected how the promotion of liberal values posed internal problems for Swedish liberal and progressive politicians. These stories gave the impression that liberalism could not be taken seriously and attracted only naive groups, and that the liberal ideology was shooting itself in the foot and contributing to the demise of a well-functioning society. Exaggerated individual freedoms were likely to lead to chaos and an ungovernable country where people used their freedom to limit that of their fellow citizens.

The most telling examples of the dysfunction of liberalism were found in stories about the newly elected liberal party leader, Nyamko Sabuni, "a rising political star" who had "shocked many with her views". She was said to have created a rift in the party by abandoning core liberal values and launching right-wing policies such as tightening regulations on immigration, and social policies, and getting tough on crime. The very fact that she as a liberal had taken these measures confrmed the diffculties surrounding liberalism. In an RT piece, Sabuni was said to have exacerbated problems that already existed in the party. The RT commentator noted: "Sure, she's been to gay pride parades and has served in the Swedish ministry for gender equality, but when it comes to multiculturalism, she says she wants to [here he uses air quotes] 'bury it'". The contradictions between her identity and political opinions were emphasized when the commentator presented her as "black" and "an immigrant", and as other party members were quoted as saying she was too right wing and too strict on migration for senior members' approval. This all added up to Sabuni personifying the internal contradictions and impossibility of a functional liberal left.

Sabuni having expressed tougher measures against migrants and turning her back on the traditional social liberal values of the party appeared no longer as a true representative to her party friends, some of which were reported to leave the party as a result (RT, July 1, 2019b). This was substantiated with quotes from party members and electorates expressing dislike against Sabuni for turning away from what they considered liberalism and social liberalism.

The plot about the deep internal troubles of the liberal party, exasperated by its new leader, can be seen as one of several plots that contributed to the sub-narrative about liberal democratic values being at the center of party political disputes, and proponents struggling to survive. The relatively short RT piece on Sabuni made obvious, however, by capitalizing on the personal identity of the new leader, how low the odds were on a viable liberal ideology. Not even a black migrant woman with past engagement in protests against honor violence, female mutilation, and the hijab for young girls was willing to hold on to core liberal values such as multiculturalism and a generous migration policy. Not even the head of the party sympathized with its core tenants (RT, July 1, 2019a).

Negative assertions of the liberal left, which went far beyond the liberal party, were sometimes projected by RT and Sputnik as absurdities or as impossible to take seriously, since leftist proponents tended to possess a distorted conception of reality. It was not uncommon for these news reports to be structured to project anti-establishment views and to show that the authorities (liberal left representatives) were out of touch with reality and with the views of the public. This was illustrated by a story in Sputnik that took its point of departure from a recently published annual report by the Swedish security services (SÄPO), the security police and MUST, the intelligence services (Sputnik, March 27, 2020g). This report stated that in contrast to similar studies from previous years, domestic right-wing extremism and not Islamism posed the main threat to Swedish society; and that the former was "fueled by 'infuence campaigns' from Russia and China". The plot, however, revolved as much around what the narrator depicted as the absurd idea that right-wing extremists were being lumped together with anti-feminism, animal rights activism, and climate activism as security threats.

The headline, "Swedish report that lumps anti-feminism, climate activism with 'right-extremism' is ridiculed", was accompanied by a sketch of agitated women with their fsts in the air and banners in their hands. The caption read: "8 March, March on/Keep up the fght (upp till kamp), feminism" framing the problem to be understood as a redefnition of the Swedish feminist struggle from emancipation to a security problem on a par with rightist extremism. In combination with the headline's incredulous slant on the message as something to be laughed at rather than feared, the plot was set in a tone of disbelief, the security services clearly having gone too far in their assessments at the cost of their credibility.

The introductory paragraph of the article indicated that the report had been received with skepticism and it was explicitly said to have "raised many eyebrows". The story then cut to the threat from Russia and China. Claims were made that the alleged right-wing threats were spurred by these two countries.

… the terrorist threat from violent Islamists is waning across the Western world, as opposed to that from right-wing extremists, fueled by "infuence campaigns" from Russia and China. The "extremists" are said to be radicalized by violent propaganda on the Internet and social media. (Sputnik, March 27, 2020g)

Russia was allegedly working to destabilize and polarize Sweden, but these were threats that came from within (Sputnik, March 27, 2020g). Ahn-Za Hagström, senior analyst at SÄPO and assigned the role of expert in the plot, was reported to talk about the broadening of right-wing extremism in which she included nationalism, resistance to LGBTQ+ activism, racism and xenophobia, and criticism of feminism. She was also said to have "lambasted internet free speech as a major problem", having written, "I cannot stress enough the importance of the Internet for violent extremism".

The phrasing by Hagström made it seem as if SÄPO found free speech a problem. It was a statement that received no further comment, but to which was added that extremist propaganda was facilitated by the use of the digitalization, which SÄPO exemplifed using messages such as "the country we once knew is gone" and "politicians have lost their grip" seemingly harmless conservative views that are far from what could be called radical or extreme.

Overall, the Swedish SÄPO report was, according to Sputnik, regarded as untrustworthy and even somewhat absurd, as it claimed that Islamism was not as serious a threat as right-wing extremism, that the internet was to blame for violent extremism and that phrases published on internet forums, such as: "the country we once knew is gone", would be considered extremist propaganda.

It was a general tendency for RT and Sputnik to represent phrases or wording in favor of democratic liberal values, as stated by actors or narrators, as weak, absurd, or stupid. At times, assigning such epithets to liberal spokespeople was used to reaffrm the hypocrisy of elites, at other times it served to demonstrate that these values were not only useless, but also destructive to society. Hagström's quote could thus be seen as revealing the security services' anti-liberal stance, but it could also be interpreted as providing confrmation of the ways in which liberal values weakened a society from within.

Having therefore established that the security services saw threats and security risks from sections of Swedish society that had previously tended to be characterized as Sweden's strength, the narrator continued to list the external threats that the report had identifed, which emanated from Russia and China. The allegations against Russia were strongly refuted and the accusation that Russia was involved in intelligence activities against Sweden in order to stir polarization was presented as preposterous.

It was similarly noted that climate activism was also seen as a security threat—an issue where Sweden often presented itself as a frontrunner and quotes from the tweets of ordinary citizens expressed both surprise and disbelief at this statement. One tweet alongside a photograph of Greta Thunberg asked: "So climate issues are now violent extremism?"; another said: "SÄPO, now a proud member of the activist government left". Taken together, SÄPO and MUST were depicted as representing a liberalist establishment so keen on defending leftist liberal values of feminism, climate activism, and animal rights that they ended up drawing conservative rather than liberal conclusions and seemed not to notice. Sweden must be protected from foreign and domestic antagonistic forces, and this led to a skewed perception of reality and an exaggerated and perhaps even distorted view of security threats. In this way Sputnik once again highlighted the absurdities in the establishment's defense of liberal values (Sputnik, March 27, 2020g; See also Sputnik, April 8, 2020h).

A vulnerable domestic Swedish security situation, at the heart of which lay liberalism, was depicted in a variety of emotionally charged ways from drastic and radical formulations about the threat—Russia was claimed to have extremist groups active in Sweden—to laughable and ironic depictions of the analysis and conclusions of the security services: that internet free speech and climate activism were key problems, and that Sweden was an unsafe place. In contrast to the heightened threat image, lame and weak evidence were presented that could not be seen as convincingly underpinning the threat scenarios and implicitly cast doubt on the credibility and competence of the security services. (Seemingly mild messages interpreted as threatening, social media publishing conservative views and Greta being the primary threat.) The allegations that Russia had supported right-wing Swedish radicals were interpreted accordingly. Taken together, the plot concluded that liberal values caused serious security problems that the Swedish security services were far from capable of containing, especially as they seemed to see threats where none existed and neglected to look for them where they were most likely.

Two weeks later, the SÄPO report once again featured in a news article about its controversial threat assessments, repeating that internet free speech was a Swedish security threat along with "resistance to LGBT activism", while jihadism was now less of a threat. Sputnik did not formulate its critical stance in the form of arguments, but in a fact and fgures paragraph:

At the same time, Sweden remains one of Europe's leaders in terms of jihadists per capita, having provided about 300 'Daesh travelers', as they are sometimes referred to in offcial parlance. About half of them have returned "home", almost none faced prosecution for crimes committed in the Middle East. Several, however, were later convicted of crimes committed on return to Sweden. (Sputnik, April 8, 2020h)

Making implicit connections between narratives to create meaning the Swedish approach to Islam with the defense of liberal values—was a storytelling technique that Sputnik and at times RT tended to make use of. A lax attitude by the Swedish security services to jihadists returning "home" from the Middle East was set against the scare of internet free speech, or so one might understand from the juxtaposition of these two views. Both reaffrmed an image of Sweden as letting its uncompromising defense of liberal leftist values and its ensuing reluctance to acknowledge Islamic security threats take priority over proper national defense.

# The Swedish Church: A Troublesome Libertarian with a Diminishing Congregation

To the group of liberal and leftist-liberal institutions posing threats to traditional Swedish values and contributing to the demise of the nation was added the Swedish church, which had formerly been affliated to the state but independent since 2000. Its left leaning liberalism was reported as causing conficts with the Christian conservative right, which feared that the Swedish values and traditions that the Swedish church had represented, maintained, and defended were about to be abandoned.

The Church of Sweden was said to be no longer defending national Christian traditions, or caring for landmarks of national heritage such as old churches in the countryside or Christian artifacts and symbols. Instead, it had transformed into a progressive public actor engaged in Greta Thunberg's climate movement and in defense of mass immigration, multiculturalism, and LGBTQ+ rights, while its membership was in rapid decline—a fact mentioned repeatedly in the news. Many smaller congregations, especially in the countryside, experienced severe fnancial troubles and some had been forced to close church buildings, which were often also sites of cultural heritage (Sputnik, December 25, 2019q). Ineffcient state subsidies had aggravated the situation, as had the church's separation from the state in 2000.

The sub-narrative about the Swedish church as a libertarian was linked to theological disputes only to a limited extent and members leaving the church were rarely depicted as a problem of a growing secularism. The problems surrounding the Church of Sweden were instead mainly connected to its diminishing role as a national actor on tradition and morals. Markus Dahlberg, responsible for cultural heritage within the Church of Sweden, was quoted commenting on what a loss the closure of a church entailed: "Many associate churches with their family history, and remember 'this is where grandma and grandpa got married', or 'this is where mom is buried'. It may also be that the building carries much of the countryside's history".

The problems faced by the Church of Sweden and implicitly its inability to resolve them was thus a serious threat to the national heritage, church history, and local historical memories, but the plot also connected the problem to the disruption of families' connections to local and provincial locations. In this plot, as in others, the Church of Sweden seemed no longer prepared to defend Swedish cultural and historical heritage, and to ignore the connections families felt with provincial churches and religious sites. The plot's temporality stressed the signifcance of the connections between past and present, and the role of the Church in the continuity of people's family histories.

The plot ended with a paragraph that provided context on the problem, adding to its meaning, and repeated themes and phrases that were continuously used in articles about the Church of Sweden:

The Church of Sweden is known for its liberal position on issues such as homosexuality, mass immigration, and climate change and is often blamed for its perceived "activist" position. Archbishop Antje Jackelén has sparked controversy by attacking the "Patriarchy" and "destructive masculinity", most recently in her Christmas message. In contrast, Bishop Eva Brunne stirred outrage by claiming she had more in common with Muslims than the so-called Christian right. (Sputnik, December 25, 2019q)

Against the centrality of the plot focused on historical continuity and tradition, the Church of Sweden appeared no longer willing to pay attention to national customs and Swedish national heritage, but was depicted as an institution engaged in liberal ideas to the point where going against the right became more important than representing Christianity. These liberal ideals were said to have caused division within the Church over how far its activism should be allowed to go.

Added to this anti-traditionalism, articles depicted the church as deemphasizing and diluting Christian theology and becoming increasingly eclectic. The broadening of the theological perspective was treated by Sputnik as a kind of hyper ecumenical approach where collaboration with mosques was given higher priority than uniting the Christian community (See e.g. Sputnik, December 11, 2019n; Sputnik, December 25, 2019q; Sputnik, September 28, 2020w; Sputnik, November 4, 2020ab). The ambivalence of the Church of Sweden to continue to be the carrier of a traditional Swedish legacy was also reported in stories questioning Christian symbols and traditions because of their exclusive effects. Representatives of the church argued that Christian customs and traditions might be perceived as offensive to non-Christians, and some argued that they might best be removed and replaced with more inclusive, secular customs and habits (Sputnik, December 11, 2019n; Sputnik, July 15, 2020m).

Despite its progressive stance, the church was presented as an insecure liberal activist that appeared indecisive on how to project its new image. This was demonstrated in stories about a new altar piece, named "Paradise", which depicted gay couples and transsexuals. The altar piece was inaugurated in St Paul's Church in Malmö on frst of advent but taken down just one week later. The criticism of the piece, which was initially praised by both the media and church offcials, was that the serpent in the painting was depicted as a trans person (Sputnik, December 2b, 2019l; Sputnik, December 12, 2019o). The representation of evil in connection with trans people was not the message the church wanted to deliver, however unintended, and the altar piece was promptly removed.

The standard Sputnik "facts and fgures" background paragraph that closed the articles centered, in the case of the sub-narrative about the Church of Sweden, on the church having joined the liberal movement and seemingly lost members because of it—a causal relationship hinted at but never explicitly argued. This was, in some articles, complemented by a reminder of the fast-growing Muslim community. With few variations, the standard fnal paragraph about the Church of Sweden read as:

The Church of Sweden maintains a rather liberal position on a plethora of issues, such as homosexuality, mass immigration, and climate change. At over 5 million members, it remains Sweden's largest religious organization and Europe's largest Lutheran denomination, despite a rapid decline in worshippers (at a pace of about 2 percent annually). The Church of Sweden went from 95 percent of the Swedish population to barely 57 percent within a matter of decades. (Sputnik, December 2b, 2019l)

Just as it does the liberal left government, mainstream media and public service, Sputnik defnes the Church of Sweden as part of the establishment and positions it in opposition to ordinary citizens with regard to its values, roles, and functions. When the reports on various events are added together, it gives the impression that citizens disagree with the activism of the Church, such as its support for feminism and LGBTQ+ rights, the closure of provincial churches, and collaboration with Muslim congregations (Sputnik, October 28, 2020z; Sputnik, May 7, 2020j; Sputnik, April 13, 2020i; Sputnik, December 11, 2019n; Sputnik, January 28, 2020b). It is especially notable that the growing number of Muslims was compared with the drop in the membership of the Christian church, but that trend was apparently being ignored by the Church of Sweden or only passively noted (see Chap. 8 on the narrative "Islamic takeover"). Instead, it was foreign actors who were warning against increased Islamist infuence and even possible Islamist rule in a future Sweden (Sputnik, December 2a, 2019k; Sputnik, August 18, 2020r; Sputnik, July 3, 2020l).

# The Swedish Media Is Left-wing and Supports the State and Establishment

A strong theme in the Sputnik and RT narrative on the liberal left was the threat it posed to the notion of, and assets connected with, traditional Sweden. There were repeated revelations of underlying mistrust between groups of citizens, and between citizens and public institutions, where the former often appeared representative of the old ways and the latter pushing forward with left-wing radical ideas not supported by the public. The division and mistrust between state media—Swedish television (SVT) and Swedish Radio (SR)—and the citizens were particularly stressed. The confict was set in an anti-establishment context that projected the hypocrisy of the establishment. Here were powerholders acting in their own interests contrary to their protestations of serving the public and failing to protect core liberal democratic values such as freedom of expression. What appeared to be a liberal left working in the name of the citizens was in fact a government with a double agenda supported by the state media. Sweden was not what it seemed. Public service broadcasting was depicted as a broadcaster more in the service of the establishment than in the service of the public. Moreover, the complexity of problems associated with the liberal leftist insistence on widespread freedom of expression was being further emphasized by the links between the Swedish public broadcasters and the leftist government. In contrast, Sputnik and RT presented themselves as truth-tellers, showing society as it was and offering platforms where the public's voices could be heard. This approach was well in line with the journalistic role conceptions of Sputnik and RT.

News pieces told how SVT sided with the (left-leaning) establishment on the normalization of Muslim traditions (Sputnik, October 11, 2019h), on feminist standpoints, and on what came to be defned as politically correct with reference to discriminatory terminology (Sputnik, July 21, 2020n), as well as on issues of provocative modern art (Sputnik, September 17, 2019d) and sustainable eating (Sputnik, December 4, 2019m)—all of which were in opposition to the SVT audience's views and preferences. Just as the government was out of touch with its electorate, SVT was shown to be at odds with the public. The views of the audience, most often represented in the plots by ordinary citizens but sometimes politicians, were presented through individual tweets and Instagram posts, and expressed right-wing or conservative opinions in opposition to the authorities, the government, and the media. The public thus represented were said to be "slamming it", by rebelling, scoffng, and responding with irony.

A Norwegian survey referred to in numerous Sputnik articles found that an overwhelming majority of Swedish journalists (70 %) sympathized with left-wing parties (see e.g. Sputnik, October 7, 2019g). This led Sputnik to conclude that journalists "do not harmonize with the political viewpoints of the general public". The overrepresentation of left-wing journalists, it was reported, gave rise to trust issues between the Swedish press and right-wing (or a majority of) voters (Sputnik, July 28, 2020o). Twitter comments by right-wing and liberal-conservative politicians were brought to the fore to show support for the argument:

As might have been expected. The fact that the phenomenon is not seen by people on the left is, of course, because they themselves do not suffer from constant angling and bias…. Perhaps not so strange that we on the right prefer to have direct unfltered contact with our voters via social media instead. (Sputnik, July 28, 2020o)

In an environment where the identitarian left takes over the newsrooms, isn't it natural that words like Indians, cowboys and Eskimos are getting banned from the broadcasts? (Sputnik, July 28, 2020o)

The latter comment referred to a program broadcast a week before, and reported in Sputnik under the headline: "Swedish radio sparks uproar by banning 'racist words' like 'Red Indian' and 'Eskimo'" (Sputnik, July 21, 2020n). The story gave a brief account of how SR had acted to prevent and combat racism, discrimination, and xenophobia in their programming. The decision to ban the words "Eskimo" and "Red Indian" was said to have been infuenced by the ice cream maker Triumfglass, which had recently announced that it was changing the name of one of its products from Sitting Bull. The plot gave only brief attention to the reason of the SR decision, and instead emphasized the numerous comments from the SR audience. Among them was Katerina Janouche, a well-known author and journalist in Sweden who appeared in several of Sputnik articles during the time period: "So you have been away from social media for a few hours and when you come back 'Eskimo' and 'Red Indian' are both 'racist words'. You can't make this s\*\*t up. What's next? Jew? Swedish? Russian?" Another person wrote:

Speak of public service idiocy, Indians and Eskimos are both proud peoples. Now the state media wants to marginalize and bundle them together under the collective name Inuit. What clumsy inventions will come next? (Sputnik, July 21, 2020n)

These and similar social media comments emphasized the extent to which the general public found sound judgement lacking in state-funded media and that SR had lost all rhyme and reason in its attempt to be politically correct. It sought to demonstrate that public service media failed to refect the public interest, stirred confict, and was defned by its audience as part of the establishment.

In yet another Sputnik story, public service broadcasting featured as similarly out of touch with the public it was intended to serve. In a story headlined "Swedish National Broadcaster in a Pickle Over 'Propaganda Offensive Against 'Fake News'", SVT was reported to have launched a campaign to promote its own type of journalism, what in quotation marks was named "factual journalism" as if Sputnik wanted to distinguish itself from the channel and its ethics (Sputnik, October 7, 2019g; see also Chap. 10 on storytelling techniques, where the use of quotation marks is further discussed). The campaign flm *Hen of a Feather* aimed to counter disinformation (or fake news as it was termed in the report) and to defend proper journalism, but it "sparked criticism on social media" in particular on Flashback, referred to as "Sweden's most popular forum". This plot was typical of a Sputnik story and took its point of departure from the problem that had arisen as a result of a failed disinformation campaign meant to make audiences aware of harmful information infuencing activities, but which had been perceived instead as state leftist propaganda.

The plot elaborated on the causes behind the failure and a point was made about disinformation having been connected to right-wing conservative presidents Putin and Trump.

A lavish advertising campaign by tax-funded national broadcaster SVT that highlights the importance of "factual journalism" in combating "fake news" and features images of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump has landed the broadcaster in hot water. (Sputnik, October 7, 2019g)

It then transitioned over to the audience side of things through use of an emphasized "however" that marked the irreconcilable differences of opinion between the actors. The audience was given voice before the end paragraph provided the context for the hostility between the state media and the public.

The criticized flm featured a story about President Putin ordering a disinformation campaign against Sweden. Once published, it gave rise to several tweets. More signifcantly, it was also depicted as inspiring President Trump to launch his smear campaign against Sweden. The Sputnik story thus alluded to the 2017 Trump campaign that became known as "Last night in Sweden", in which he had given a biased view of the domestic situation in the country at that time.

The Sputnik report on the SVT flm centered on the criticism from Swedish viewers. The initiative was scornfully described as a ridiculous "propaganda offensive" and people were quoted urging SVT to shut it down. For its part, SVT defended the campaign. Its CEO, Hanna Stjärne, stated in a press release that: "With the frst flm 'Hen of a Feather' we want to stand up for all the good journalism in Sweden, whether it is done by public service broadcasters or private sector actors, at a time when journalism is needed most".

SVT marketing manager, Christer Mellstrand, interviewed in the Swedish journalists' newspaper *Resumé* refuted the allegation that SVT had adopted a political stance when it depicted a Russian offcial giving orders to a troll-factory in the fctive campaign flm. In response to Mellstrand's quote, the narrator of the Sputnik plot wrote in an ironic tone of voice that the marketing manager perhaps did not see how the episode might be seen as a political statement: "Portraying a Russian offcial giving orders to a so-called troll factory is 'not in any way' taking a political stance, he stressed" (Sputnik, October 7, 2019g). The Sputnik reporter went on to quote Mellstrand, who stressed: "It is important that we proactively explain why SVT exists….Sweden's image is under attack". These statements were followed by a few netizen quotes that expressed mistrust of the public broadcaster. One netizen tweeted: "Hi SVT, is this movie for real or are you kidding with yourselves?"

In typical Sputnik fashion, the plot was concluded with a facts and fgures background paragraph, in this case about SVT. The background paragraphs generally in the Sputnik coverage tended to have a great infuence over the message of the plots (see also Chaps. 7 and 9). Often without any explicit transition, the end paragraph provides an interpretative framework for what had just been read and positions the problem of the plot in a specifc context with the help of facts and fgures. In this case, it informed how SVT is modelled after the BBC, is funded by taxes and that over 50% of staff support the left-wing Green Party, which received only 4% of the votes in the 2018 general election. This summing up of the story therefore used facts to further underline the biased, left-wing slant of SVT and added to the series of plots that showed the extent to which the corporation was out tune with its audience (see e.g. Sputnik, February 14, 2020c).

# Conclusions

The narrative that the liberal left is a threat to traditional Sweden came to expression frst and foremost in projections of democratic liberal values giving rise to domestic polarization between citizens and powerholders, a dissolution of respect for law and order and progressive attitudes that give freedoms to individuals that got far beyond government control. Taken together, it was the attitudes of and activities in line with the liberal left that explained the erosion of the Swedish state, according to Sputnik and RT. The government and key public institutions, such as public service media and the Church of Sweden, were particularly targeted.

The threat that the liberal left posed to traditional Sweden was often through its passivity and ignorance, rather than forceful and determined measures; and when measures were taken, they appeared misdirected. Their roles appeared obscure and their decision making indecisive or reactive, rather than active, but regardless of whether they took measures, they were constantly at odds with their citizens. The police stood passively by as rioters burned cars in the name of freedom of speech, public service media decided against the use of "eskimoe" as a denigrating term, to the incomprehension of its audience, the secret services warned about the risks of the internet but downplayed Islamic fundamentalism; the Swedish Church saw its membership fall and traditional church buildings close, but turned their focus to LGBTQ-rights and engaged in climate activism (see e.g. Sputnik, February 26, 2020d; Sputnik, September 19, 2019e; Sputnik, July 25, 2019a).

The response of ordinary people to the anti-liberal and hypocritical revelations took the shape of screen shots of ordinary people's tweets or Instagram posts (with images) integrated into the plots. These were made to represent the public at large, which confrmed that the political leaders and other decision makers were not trusted and that there was a confict between them and the Swedish people, the latter arguing that political correctness had gone too far. The establishment was criticized for trying to limit freedom of speech, and this critique appeared in several news items connected to the role of mainstream media, and in particular public service media (see below), which was seen as severely problematic (Sputnik, November 3, 2020aa; Sputnik, September 15, 2020v), and literature (Sputnik, November 30, 2019j; Sputnik, July 2, 2020k, July 29, 2020p).

Issues of freedom of speech and freedom of religion caused particularly strong controversies in these sub-narratives because they were approached by RT and Sputnik as incompatible. In most cases, freedom of speech drew the shortest end of the stick. There were few establishment actors in the plots that were depicted as daring to infringe the right of Muslims to practice their customs and traditions. This strengthened the expressed view that Sweden was not what it appeared to be; that the left liberal leadership and public authorities claimed to defend freedom of speech but were unwilling and unable to do so. The impression was that the liberties so strongly promoted by Sweden were mere talk, implemented only when it served those in power and did not risk stirring antagonisms between groups in society. Yet, the liberal discourse about freedom of speech and freedom of religion gave powerholders and decision makers plenty of problems, leading to protests, chaos, and even street violence. The narrative demonstrated how the liberal leadership naively thought their various interventions promoted and defended democracy and social integration, but repeatedly ended up exposed for doing something unethical, tasteless, or idiotic—all of which, RT and Sputnik argued, further fueled divisions in society.

# References

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# Obsessive Gender Concerns Leading Sweden Astray

# Introduction

It is well-established that gender is key in security politics and the feld of disinformation is no exception (Edenborg, 2021; Cushman & Avramov, 2021). This chapter presents an analysis of how the Russian state-affliated media Sputnik and RT use gender in their coverage about Sweden as part of their disinformation. By way of a narrative analysis of Sputnik and RT news coverage about Sweden, using the analytical model developed by Wagnsson and Barzanje (2021) and which is based on methodological tools defned by Somers (1994), a number of sub-narratives were identifed: Sweden is unsafe for women; Feminized societal security; The armed forces, frefghters, and the police; Gender as an absurd Swedish obsession; Muslim traditions clash with feminism and gender equality; Women moving ahead: are they taking over? The vulgarity of women; and, fnally, The wounded (un)sexy space. Each of these sub-narratives is presented below. The sub-narrative was derived from aggregating narratives of the individual news pieces (plots) reporting on gender. Each plot was derived from a systematic analysis of a set of narrative features. (For a full presentation of the method see Chap. 4.)

The analysis paid special attention to how the news reports were constructed and what storytelling techniques that were used. The most signifcant of these techniques was the instigation of polarization (in particular

© The Author(s) 2024 173 M. Hellman, *Security, Disinformation, and Harmful Narratives: RT and Sputnik News Coverage about Sweden*, The Palgrave Macmillan Series in International Political Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-58747-4\_7

between individuals of different gender and religions and between groups with different views on gender and feminism), sometimes combined with emotionally charged depictions. According to the Sputnik and RT news narrative the preoccupation with gender in Sweden weakens the country. It causes conficts between Swedes and weakens its national defense forces.

The gender narrative was strong in Sputnik but appeared only occasionally in RT. Through the gender narrative, Sweden was seen as a country where feminism, equality between the sexes, and discrimination in favor of LGBTQ+ groups impacted a number of social and political issues. Feminism and gender equality were depicted as cornerstones of Swedish society and often functioned as perspectives applied to various news topics—from recruitment to the armed forces to marginalized LGBTQ+ Muslims. Gender was thus included in the coverage of a broad scope of issues regarding equality between men and women, feminism, feminist politics, LGBTQ+ rights, patriarchy, sex and sexuality, including for example individuals' sexual identity, pornography, and promiscuity. Sputnik used the gender narrative to demonstrate how the reality of Swedish society deviated from the ideal model it had prescribed for itself. The coverage claimed that gender equality and feminism were promoted as Swedish trademarks but were at the same time heavily contested by Swedes. This, according to Sputnik, gave rise to numerous problems in the Swedish society, generating confict and controversy between for example rightwing supporters and LGBTQ+communities, between feminist proponents and Muslim groups, and between men and women. Gender was the cause of the confict in some of these, while in others it aggravated existing problems. Regardless of how the causes were explained, the Swedish government and other authorities had diffculties addressing any of them.

The shared features that sorted gender-related news into a narrative could best be characterized by their inconsistencies and the lack of a neat pattern of plots. The conficts and social ills that gender concerns gave rise to, and which were said to be a strong contributory factor to Sweden's decline, were both subtle and obvious, depicting both ordinary and dramatic events. Plots told of antagonism and division between men and women, with women claiming to be discriminated against or made subordinate. Sputnik wrote: "Swedish politics are becoming increasingly polarized along gender lines…" (Sputnik February 25, 2020h), while another news item reported that this appeared not to be the case in the workplace, at least not with regard to sexual harassment, to which men and women were equally exposed according to a recent survey—the explanatory factor being which sex dominated the workplace (Sputnik July 9, 2020a).

Sweden appeared obsessed with inequality between the sexes and the harassment of women, regardless of the facts of the matter. Several plots told of a Sweden that promoted itself as governed by feminist concerns, having taken initiatives to increase equality between the sexes, intent on preventing abuse and discrimination, but where the government and feminist proponents had gone astray—leaving reality behind and ignoring the facts (Sputnik July 9, 2019a). Exposure of the hypocrisy surrounding gender-related issues was typical of the narrative and came to the fore in all the sub-narratives.

# Sweden Is Unsafe for Women

A strong undercurrent in the narrative on gender was that despite all the talk of feminism and gender equality, women in Sweden felt insecure. They were reported as being exposed to threats and as feeling afraid. The sub-narrative "Sweden is unsafe for women" was demonstrated in several plots and the problems focused not just on women's exposed positions, but also on the conficts that the preoccupation with gender had given rise to. This contradictory sub-narrative demonstrates how gender was used to highlight its counterproductive consequences: despite Sweden's preoccupation with feminism and LGBTQ+ issues, women felt unsafe and polarization was increasing between gender groups in society.

In an article, "Quarter of Swedish Women Afraid to Leave Home, Survey", Sputnik (October 8, 2019e) presented the results of a survey that showed Swedish women afraid to walk home at night for fear of being abused, beaten, or sexually assaulted. The preamble to the article stated that deadly violence was "relatively uncommon" in Sweden, but that such violence and the number of sexual assaults had increased in recent years—a trend, it was noted, that went against the UN principle of reducing all forms of violence against women. The article did not state to what extent there was deadly violence and from what level it had increased. The article referred to a "wave of sexual assaults", but no statistics were given on the number of crimes committed. The plot closed with a refection by the initiator of the survey, Sofe Lifvin, who was quoted telling SVT: "A more restricted life is a serious consequence of fears of being exposed to crimes that mainly affect women, but by extension it is a problem for all of us if the goal is for us to have an equal society".

The plot was typical of this sub-narrative in the sense that it was centered on and presented a social problem built on statistics or scientifc research but the interpretation of the fgures was contradictory, claiming an increase in violence directed at women and arguing that the deadly violence remained at the same level as in recent years. The exposure to crime was framed as being gravest for women but the fgures presented did not indicate this. The main take away from the story was that women in Sweden were at risk when they left their homes at night and, given the wave of sexual assaults, were right to be afraid. Sputnik reported that women chose alternative routes because they feared becoming crime victims. The quote by Lifvin together with accompanying statistics painted a gloomy picture of a Sweden where the fear of crime, and the targeting of women in particular, kept people indoors and prevented an equal society. Both consequences could be said to strike at the very core of what Sweden was known as or expected to be: a liberal and feminist country where people were free and safe, and where equality between the sexes was central (Sputnik October 8, 2019e).

Another article on women's insecurity reported on a women-only music festival. Women needed a "man-free" zone where they could safely participate in and attend events without running the risk of being sexually abused. The story did not revolve around the risk of abuse, but dealt with the organizers' efforts to accomplish a women-only festival without being sued for discrimination. The year before, it had been ruled discriminatory because of the way it was promoted and communicated to the public. Men must not be forbidden to attend or to buy tickets, but the festival was for women and non-binary people, Sputnik clarifed. The problem and the solution to the plot overlapped and both reinforced the view that women were vulnerable. The "man-free" festival was reported to have been launched in order to help the authorities protect women from rape and abuse (Sputnik November 29, 2019i). The plot emphasized Sputnik's claim of Swedish feminists' hypocrisy, reporting that despite all the talk about gender equality, women in Sweden were still subject to abuse and organizations were trying to fnd ways around the liberal principles that Swedish elites boasted of defending. It also implicitly indicated that law enforcement was unable to keep women safe.

# Feminized Societal Security: The Armed Forces, Fire Fighters, and the Police

A key characteristic of the gender narrative in Sputnik were accounts of the feminization of typical male professions. The sub-narrative "Feminized societal security: the armed forces, fre fghters, and the police" discussed how women had begun to enter typically male-dominated professions of a kind that demanded extraordinary physical strength. The analysis of the problem defnition of the plot found that recruitment was also a problem, however. The armed forces were expected to comprise women and men but, like the police, they faced serious problems recruiting women. Men in Sweden seemed keener on engaging in a military career than women, and this was reported as the problem of the plot (Sputnik October 15, 2020s). Sputnik quoted the Swedish Armed Forces' Facebook page: "How can one of the world's most equal countries have a defense force where just under one-ffth of its personnel are women? This is indefensible. Our work to become more like the country we defend continues. An equal defense is a stronger defense" (Sputnik October 15, 2020s).

The dilemma of too few women being attracted to the Armed Forces was frst and foremost presented as a problem in light of the heavy promotion of gender neutrality, diversity, and equality. As it turned out, the armed forces had not met the objective to become more like the country it was defending. Set against its Facebook post, Sputnik's framing of the problem was that the Swedish Armed Forces appeared more like promoters of LGBTQ+ rights and gender equality than an actual military force. This criticism was reinforced following publication of a newspaper advertisement in which the Defense Force promoted its pro-LGBTQ+ sympathies (Sputnik July 30, 2019b; see also Sputnik August 4, 2020q). A Sputnik article entitled "´You're soldiers not activists´: Swedish Soldiers Under Fire on Twitter for Front Page Gay Pride Ad", (July 30, 2019b) republished the advertisement and reported negative reactions to it.  Swedes were turning against their own military force and their main argument, according to Sputnik, was that the armed forces should not engage in political campaigning or propaganda, their money should not be spent on advertisements, and the focus should be on defending Sweden rather than promoting pride festivals. One tweet read: "Your only task is to defend Sweden against external enemies so stop blithering and devote yourself to what you should be doing. You are soldiers, not Pride activists". Other users tweeted highly critical and sarcastic messages, such as: "I pray to God we'll never need to be defended by the Swedish Pride Army and their sham soldiers"; and "Are you going to beat the Russians with a handbag?"

Despite a note at the end of the plot (i.e. the narrative of the news piece) that the advertisement had also sparked positive responses, with people saying the PR stunt with regard to LGBTQ+ rights was a necessary one, the message was that the armed forces were propagandistic, had gone astray, and had ceased to give priority to the defense of Sweden. The coverage of the armed forces' participation in the Stockholm Pride Festival and the defense of LGBTQ+ rights was used to demonstrate the weakness of Swedish defense and the weak support it had from the public. The article ended with a brief background paragraph that, with a slight touch of irony, highlighted the weight the Swedish Armed Forces had assigned to the festival.

The Swedish Armed Forces have been taking part in various Pride events since the 2000s. This year, it has a packed schedule that includes seminars on "Coming out in a macho organisation", actual pride parades and even a "Run for Pride" event, touted as the most colourful run of the year. (Sputnik July 30, 2019b)

Another typical series of stories that made up the sub-narrative of feminized security were plots about women police and frefghters. As was the case with the armed forces, recruitment of women to the police force was in decline. The drop in the number of female police offcers, however, was mentioned as only one of several problems facing Swedish law enforcement. There were also too few police offcers with foreign backgrounds. The proportion of this category of police offcers had not increased over the past four years, while at the same time Sweden faced an increase in gang violence and no-go-zones in the suburbs (Sputnik December 30, 2020w).

One of the plots centered on two separate problems that were connected only in the sense that they both illustrated the diffculties the police force faced in Sweden. There were too few women and minority groups represented in the force and there was increased gang-violence, giving rise to "street shootouts, explosions and gangland violence". The two problems in focus—recruiting women and minority groups, and gang violence—were unrelated and never connected; yet they appeared in the same plot. This was a narrative structure that was seen many times in the Sputnik plots. In contrast to the storytelling technique where seemingly unrelated problems or topics are tightly connected by way of the narrative structure of the plot there are no narrative tools used to connect the disparate problems. This might be seen as an invitation to the Sputnik consumers to make the connections themselves (More about storytelling techniques below. See Chap. 10 of this volume.)

A background paragraph recounting the gender history of the Swedish police stated that the force was 33% women in 2019, of a total of 20,000 offcers. Chief of Police Max Lutteman was quoted as saying that the recruitment of women to the police force was a priority. Sputnik reported that the number of women signing up remained stable and that "progress in this area has been slow". Lutteman commented that this was due to tradition. The police were reported to be dealing with the problem by facilitating different admission criteria for women, such as adopting different physical endurance standards for women than for men.

The article then reported on the number of police with foreign backgrounds. The problems here were poor test scores on problem-solving and in personality tests, and poor language skills. Seemingly with no immediate connection to the paragraphs about recruitment, there was a fnal note on the increase in gang-related criminality and of no-go areas in the Swedish suburbs, with reference to Lasse Wierup's recent book, *Gangster's Paradise. How Sweden became an arena for crime, shootings and bombings* (Sputnik December 30, 2020w). The numbers of gangs and gang members were repeated from the introduction to the plot.

The diffculty of recruiting women to the armed forces was the problem that led the story. It was a major failure for a police force in a nation making constant claims to be promoting feminism. As the story moved on, however, the question broadened to include not just women, but another underrepresented group—applicants with foreign backgrounds. Finally, the plot about the diffculties recruiting marginalized groups turned into the problem of gang violence and suburbs that had been identifed as no-go areas. It was never explicitly mentioned, but the question of how the recruitment of women could be so important to the police when criminal gangs were roaming the suburbs was left hanging.

Firefghting was yet another profession in Sweden with few women applicants and voices calling for an increase in numbers, according to Sputnik. As with many of the plots in this sub-narrative, it was unclear who exactly was calling for an increase in women or increased equality. The low level of women was reported to have been criticized, however, and in one of the plots this was raised by a "group of female frefghters". Like the stories about the armed forces and the police, the problem identifed in the plot was the diffculty in increasing the number of women because they did not pass the physical tests, which were set up for men and not women. Women were reported as being disappointed that they were unable to join but if the bar were lowered, this would be discriminating against male applicants who passed—or so the argument went. Comparisons were made between the tests for frefghters and those for the police, the latter having lowered its bar to accommodate female standards and, as a consequence, seen overall performance levels decline.

The Swedish Police Academy sets lower strength requirements for women than men and has been criticized for endorsing a set of double standards and lowering the overall level of performance. (Sputnik December 22, 2020v)

Blanche Sande at the right-wing Swedish think tank, Timbro, was reported as saying that the use of employment quotas to recruit more women caused two main problems:

One is that these "quotas" are really just a fner way of saying "discrimination", in this case discrimination against male applicants who lose their place to female applicants with poorer results.

The signifcance of the frefghter needing to be strong and ft enough to do the job was questioned and debated. The union director at the Greater Gothenburg rescue services and some female fre fghters argued that it was a question of group performance and in a sense which qualities a frefghter needed to contribute to the group. The implicit question, never explicitly spelled out, was whether frefghting had become less about physical strength and more about teamwork and other qualities—or from its viewpoint less masculine and more feminine. Or whether it was still dependent on the physical strength of each individual, and there was therefore a need to turn down most women applicants (Sputnik December 22, 2020v).

The sub-narrative exposed how Sweden struggled to live up to its proclaimed gender equality norm and feminist image. It asked numerous questions about weaknesses and strengths in men and women (and LGBTQ+ groups), and how these might be reconciled. The armed forces, frefghters, and the police were three traditionally male institutions, all involved in providing national security, which were reported as being weakened if or when women were admitted. Even if not explicit in the articles, an implicit rhetorical question was whether women could do physically demanding jobs like men, and the extent to which in striving for equality Sweden was going against all rhyme and reason, against biology and against nature. The plots balanced on a thin line between sound and reasonable analyses and denigrating depictions of a gender debate that had gone too far. Nonetheless, the plots added to the general view of the narrative that gender equality caused all sorts of problems—from diffculties in recruitment, to attracting the right people, to carrying out assigned tasks (Sputnik December 22, 2020v). Most importantly, the plots in this sub-narrative articulated with total certainty how Sweden's key security institutions were being weakened by their insistence on gender equality at all costs.

# Gender as an Absurd Swedish Obsession