Introduction: Communicating a pandemic in the Nordic countries

Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden are generally praised for their performance in terms of political and economic governance. The Nordic model, defined as a stable democratic welfare state, has been considered a role model internationally, but also used as a framework for research interpreting political communication, the media systems, as well as crisis management of Covid-19 in the Nordic countries. This edited volume takes the Nordic model as a point of departure, and scholars in crisis communication, media, journalism, political science, and rhetoric explore crisis communication in the Nordics during the Covid-19 pandemic. The chapters compare experiences of strategic communication, media coverage, media use, and citizen response and point out both differences and similarities among the five countries. In this introductory chapter, we present the backdrop against which the empirical analyses can be understood. We discuss the Nordic model, give a brief overview of the Nordic experiences of Covid-19, and highlight the immense field of crisis communication research on Covid-19. In addition, the normative function of crisis communication during a pandemic is discussed, and also how to understand the specific risk culture in the Nordic countries. In the last part of the introduction, we give a short overview of the chapters of the book.