The Government Offices and the Media The Political Executive’s resources and strategies for managing and directing mass media

The professional communicators inside the Swedish Government Offices are today 140 (compared to a single one 40 years ago and just twenty 15 years ago), giving support to the idea that the media now has a major impact on everyday business inside the Government. This article shows that this partly true, as the media mainly have an effect on the politicians, the partisan ministerial staff and the communicators. But the relationship between the Government Offices and the media could also be turned around. The Government have resources for external communication no lesser than an international news agency’s, and does on a daily basis deliver an impressive amount of press releases and conferences – and information leaks – that the media has to handle. This article examines and analyses how the Swedish Government Offices, trough new posts, units and strategies, has institutionalised and centralised its’ media contacts during the last 40 years, as well as the reasons and the internal consequences of this development.