Between spin doctor and information provider: Conceptualizing communication professionals in government ministries
| Published date | 01 September 2023 |
| Author | Tine U. Figenschou,Rune Karlsen,Kristoffer Kolltveit |
| Date | 01 September 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12869 |
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Between spin doctor and information provider:
Conceptualizing communication professionals
in government ministries
Tine U. Figenschou
1
| Rune Karlsen
2
| Kristoffer Kolltveit
3
1
Department of Journalism and Media
Studies, Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo,
Norway
2
Department of Media and Communication,
University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
3
Department of Political Science, University
of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
Correspondence
Kristoffer Kolltveit, Department of Political
Science, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1097,
Blindern, 0317 Oslo, Norway.
Email: kristoffer.kolltveit@stv.uio.no
Funding information
Norges Forskningsråd, Grant/Award
Numbers: 237014, 258956
Abstract
Communication professionals are increasingly found
within government ministries. Based on classic work on
bureaucracy and recent literature on mediatization and
personalization, this article develops two ideal types: the
government infor mation provider an d government spin
doctor. These ideals are constituted by six dimensions:
recruitment criteria, values, loyalties, reputational con-
cerns, interactions, and tasks. A study of nonpartisan com-
munication professionals in Norwegian ministries is used
to illustrate the empirical relevance of the ideal types. The
analysis shows that for loyalties and reputational concerns,
Norwegian communication professionals resemble the
government information provider. Regarding interactions
and tasks, they resemble the government spin doctor. For
recruitment criteria and values, the picture is mixed. The
empirical application thereby illustrates a fruitful aspect of
the framework as certain configurations will bring forth
inbuilt tension in communication professionals' role. The
framework allows a fine-grained approach to extend ongo-
ing debates of appropriate and inappropriate practices of
communication professionals in ministries.
Received: 15 September 2021 Revised: 12 June 2022 Accepted: 21 June 2022
DOI: 10.1111/padm.12869
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use,
distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.
© 2022 The Authors. Public Administration published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Public Admin. 2023;101:1115–1133. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/padm 1115
1|INTRODUCTION
In popular debates, notions of the professionalization of political communication have often spurred critical discus-
sions on so-called spin doctors: actors who are said to routinely exploit their dominant position as news providers,
convey persuasive and deceitful messages, and manipulate the media to boost politicians' public image (Esser
et al., 2001; Garland, 2017; Strömbäck & Kiousis, 2011). Such attention on spin doctors reflects the increasing
importance of communication professionals in government, accentuated by the broader processes of mediatization.
Over the last decades, political organizations (including ministries and government agencies) have increasingly
adapted to generic news formats, prioritized media work over other tasks, and spent more resources on professional-
ized, proactive communication, making politics deeply mediatized (Esser & Strömbäck, 2014; Mazzoleni &
Schulz, 1999; Strömbäck, 2008). Governments and public agencies have professionalized communication, expanded
their communication units and moved them upward within the organization (Garland, 2017; Johansson &
Nygren, 2019; Sanders & Canel, 2013), and also the number of ministerial advisors (e.g., politically appointed special
advisors) working in government ministries with media-related issues has increased (Garland, 2021; Hustedt
et al., 2017; Karlsen & Kolltveit, 2022; Shaw & Eichbaum, 2018).
One consequence of these developments is complaints about ruthless spin doctors. Complaints, not only heard
from journalists, politicians and career bureaucrats (Garland, 2021), but also from within academic circles, where
scholars have warned against increasingly blurred boundaries between communication professionals and political
leaders (Johansson & Nygren, 2019) and undue politicization of civil servants (Aucoin, 2012; Grube & Howard, 2016).
The critical narrative of political spin can potentially distort scholarly insight into the precise role and wider conse-
quences of the increasing number of communication professionals who are found within public bureaucracies.
Communication professionals have long received attention within the public relations (PR) and corporate com-
munication literatures (Dozier, 1992; Lee et al., 2015; Leichty & Springston, 1996), but were long largely ignored
within public administration scholarship. In recent decades, however, an emerging stream of empirical studies has
documented how communication professionals in public bureaucracies perform multiple tasks across different juris-
dictions (Jacobs & Wonneberger, 2017; Ruijer, 2017; Sanders & Canel, 2013).
1
One line of study has analyzed the
main tasks and daily work of communication desks in public ministries and agencies (Fisher, 2017; Pallas et al., 2016;
Sanders & Canel, 2013; Schillemans, 2012; Thorbjørnsrud et al., 2014), with emphasis on media management and
mediatization, reputation management and crisis communication (see Figenschou et al., 2021, for overview). Another
line has emphasized the dual character of government communication professionals in balancing impartial informa-
tion and promoting political leaders (Ēdes, 2000; Garland, 2017,2021; Johansson & Nygren, 2019; Johansson &
Raunio, 2020; Liu et al., 2012). Although, the academic interest in the communication professionals in public bureau-
cracies is growing, there has been little scholarly agreement on what defines nonpartisan communication profes-
sionals in government ministries today, and theoretical concepts and perspectives to guide this area of empirical
work have been scarce. Aiming to provide an analytical framework to capture the complexities and variations of the
communication professional in government, we ask: how can we conceptualize contemporary communication profes-
sionals in government ministries?
This article builds on classic work on bureaucracy (Olsen, 2008; Overeem, 2010; Weber, 1968; Wilson, 1887)
and more recent research on the professionalization of communication and media work in public bureaucracies
(Fisher, 2017; Sanders & Canel, 2013), to theoretically develop two multidimensional ideal types of nonpartisan com-
munication professionals in government ministries: the government information provider, which harmonize with the
Weberian bureaucrat, and the government spin doctor, representing a new politicized and strategic communication
ideal. The ideal types are hypothetical concepts formulated to serve as analytical tools for empirical investigation,
and as elaborated in the theoretical section, they are analytical constructs that do not necessarily reflect an empirical
average, or desirable goals. They are constituted by six key dimensions that together characterize the complexities
of government communication professionals: recruitment criteria, bureaucratic values, loyalties, reputational con-
cerns, professional interactions and tasks. By using the ideal types as the outer poles on the continuum, the
1116 FIGENSCHOU ET AL.
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