Paving the way for crisis exploitation: The role of journalistic styles and standards

Crises tend to be crucial political events with the ability to determine the public’s faith in political actors. If well managed, crises provide windows of opportunities for political actors to show action, strengthening credibility and pushing through new policies. This article explores one such instance of successful crisis exploitation: the Swedish government’s management of the financial crisis in 2008. During the worst turbulence, the government was able to successfully frame the event, without being challenged by contrasting frames, as a crisis managed with great competence and in the best interest of ordinary citizens. We explain this phenomenon through journalistic styles and standards. The article concludes by discussing the findings where we propose that issue framing, in combination with descriptive journalism, contributes to portraying political actors as credible crisis managers rather than tactical politicians, with the result being that they appear more trustworthy and competent. Moreover, due to unbalanced coverage, actors who are framed as competent crisis managers succeed in further strengthening their positions.