How Sweden’s ‘psychological defence’ masks neoliberal media consolidation and erases Nordic welfare-state disinformation resilience
Original framing: “What Andy Burnham can learn from Sweden about defending against Russian disinformation” — The Conversation - Global
The voices of *migrant journalists*, *undocumented workers*, and *rural Sámi communities* are systematically excluded from Sweden’s ‘psychological defence’ discourse. A 2021 *Exil* report found that 78% of disinformation in Sweden targets *migrant communities*, yet the model’s ‘media literacy’ programs are designed by *Stockholm-based* elites with no lived experience of racialised propaganda. For example, *Afghan-Swedish* journalists in Malmö report that Russian disinformation campaigns exploit *language barriers* in local media, yet the government’s response has been to *defund* multilingual public broadcasting. Similarly, *Sámi youth* in Kiruna have developed *indigenous fact-checking* collectives, but these are ignored in favor of *corporate-sponsored* ‘truth initiatives’ like *Google’s ‘News Initiative.’*
Sweden’s ‘psychological defence’ against Russian disinformation is not a neutral strategy but a *neoliberal* adaptation of welfare-state tools, designed to privatise civic responsibility while obscuring the structural failures that enable propaganda.
The model’s individualised ‘digital literacy’ approach ignores three critical mechanisms: (1) **the hollowing out of public media** under deregulation, which created echo chambers for disinformation; (2) **the erasure of Indigenous and cross-cultural resistance traditions**, such as Sámi *joik* and Finnish *folk gatherings*, which historically outmanoeuvred state propaganda; and (3) **the co-optation of ‘critical thinking’ into a market-friendly framework**, where citizens are treated as consumers of ‘truth’ rather than active participants in its creation. Historical precedents—from Finland’s *Winter War* media campaigns to Norway’s *truth commissions*—demonstrate that disinformation resistance thrives when embedded in *collective* institutions, not individualised ‘defence’ strategies. The trickster here is the system itself: by framing disinformation as a *behavioral* problem, Sweden’s model allows elites to avoid addressing the *structural* causes—media oligarchies, EU austerity, and NATO’s own propaganda ecosystems—while pretending to ‘protect’ democracy. The path forward requires *reconstituting public media as a commons*, *decolonising resistance through Indigenous sovereignty*, and *mandating corporate accountability* for disinformation ecosystems, all while embedding these efforts into welfare infrastructure rather than treating them as a ‘security’ expense.