Political rhetoric in Scandinavia

Abstract

Rhetorical research in the three Scandinavian countries has made contributions to the study of political communication, representing approaches that are not often found in research coming from the social sciences or from more systemic, theory-based orientations. Rhetoric, both as an ancient tradition and as a modern discipline, tends to emphasise close study of actual pieces of communication-verbal, visual, or otherwise. This rarely leads to quantitative, generalisable findings , but instead to observations and conceptualisations of phenomena-which may then be studied from quantitative and empirical angles. Often, rhetorical studies will have a normative tilt, based on notions of democracy, deliberation, and the public sphere-often with an eye for malfunctions and possible remedies. A growing literature of studies in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway tend to share some of these characteristics. At the same time, rhetorical scholars in Scandinavia recognise the value of empirical observation and have made contributions of their own in that regard, for example, in the field of reception studies.