Mediated Agency,Blame Avoidance and Institutional Responsibility: Government Communication in a Personalised Media Landscape

This article explores how personalisation, blame avoidance and institutional constraints collide in contemporary government communication practices. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in a Norwegian ministry, it analyses how a central government agency manages the media during critical news campaigns featuring individuals suffering from inadequate public health services. To provide a comprehensive analysis of the particular limits and aims of government communication, the article combines perspectives from public agency studies with media research on personalisation. It finds that the need to be visible and demonstrate agency in the media drive personalisation strategies towards a strong focus on government leaders, while simplifying the representation of complex government organisation and processes. At the same time, institutional constraints and the formal delegation of responsibility limit the communication repertoire available for public agencies when critical human interest stories dominate in the media. This results in a standard type of unconvincing media performance, where incumbents appear to evade direct personal responsibility. The case study provides new knowledge on dilemmas, negotiations and strategies behind government communication, illuminating how competing interests play out in a rapidly changing media landscape.     

Responsive planning in development interventions: consulting rights-holders in the Sanitized Villages programme in Kongo Central

This article empirically examines one of the most important causes of the non-implementation of human rights-based approaches to development (HRBAD): their alleged limited relevance for actors on the ground. The article argues that claims about local relevance can only be made after meaningful consultation with local rights-holders. Consulting local rights-holders in order to ensure responsive planning is not only relevant for HRBADs, but for development interventions more generally. The article presents new material on the Sanitized Villages programme in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to assess whether and how rights-holders are consulted, and identifies four mechanisms that can facilitate meaningful consultation.