Public Diplomacy and Disinformation Campaigns In A Digital Age : A Study of How the Swedish Social Services Disinformation Campaigns and NATO Membership Application Impacted the Public Diplomacy of Sweden

Sammanfattning: This thesis highlighted how disinformation campaigns on social media platforms and news outlets were used as tools to influence Swedish public diplomacy. To accomplish this, it aimed to answer the following research question “How are disinformation campaigns, through social media platforms and news outlets, impacting Sweden’s public diplomacy?”. The thesis applied two case studies, the first being a domestic context consisting of the Swedish Social Services (SSS) and the Swedish Care of Young Persons (Special Provisions) Act (LVU), and the second an international context being Sweden applying for a NATO membership. The analysis utilized a sociotechnical approach interpreting newspaper article, social media posts, and reports that made up the empirical material. In addition, an analytical framework, divided into three thematic sections, was used for the analysis. The thematic sections consisted of 1) background of the case; 2) the disinformation campaigns that were conducted including the actors involved; 3) the Swedish public diplomatic response based on Joseph Nye’s theory about political power and public diplomacy. The thesis discovered that both the domestic and international context impacted Sweden’s public diplomacy, where the government and governmental agencies took measures that they previously had not. Furthermore, it discovered that news outlets and social platforms could not be viewed as two separate entities when conducting disinformation campaigns, but instead as an additional third entity. Lastly, the thesis found the two cases to be similar, despite their different contexts, as disinformation campaigns often build on previous rumors.