Kristoffer Holt

The media are a prerequisite for a democratic society

MAY 2025 | Populism, disinterest, and AI. Democracy is being challenged in many different ways. To save it, it is important that we do not take it for granted, says Kristoffer Holt, media researcher and coordinator of Linnaeus University’s research on democracy.

Kristoffer Holt

Professor of media and communication science

Kristoffer Holt earned his PhD in 2008 with a dissertation on Ivar Harrie, who was editor-in-chief of the Swedish evening paper Expressen when it was founded in 1944. His research focuses on how the media serve as a platform for democratic discourse. Kristoffer is research leader at the Department of Media and Journalism and head of the interdisciplinary environment A Questioned Democracy.

GRANTED FUNDING SINCE 2021

SEK 2.6 million

Funders: The Barometern Foundation, Jane and Dan Olsson’s Foundation for Scientific Purposes.

Democracy is, after all, the least bad kind of society – one where the rule of law functions, where the economy and the free market can coexist, where freedom of expression is preserved, and where there is space for real discussion about important matters, says Kristoffer Holt, professor of media and communications.

But despite its advantages, the democratic system of government is increasingly being questioned around the world. And of course, it has its disadvantages too.

– Democracy’s Achilles’ heel is, naturally, the risk of getting stuck in squabbling and endless delays. A strong leader can promise decisiveness, a sense of pride, and simple answers to complicated questions. I think people underestimate how attractive that is for large groups.

Populist voices are a symptom of something

Many of the strong leaders have their roots in populism, a simplified view of politics that divides society into an “elite” that profits at the expense of the “people” who are being deceived. But Kristoffer does not buy the simple explanation that populist politicians trick people into “having the wrong opinions”.

He argues that the rise of populist voices is more a symptom than a cause. There is discontent, things are experienced as offensive by people who perhaps do not earn very much, who live in small towns, who feel forgotten by politicians – something these leaders have noticed and exploited.

– Many researchers study how populist rhetoric spreads, but we also need to ask honest and uncomfortable questions that might chafe a little: What’s the root cause? Why do people feel this way? There is, after all, a reason why there’s a market for these kinds of messages.

Young people are not uncritical

Kristoffer Holt

In the West, it is particularly young men who do not automatically see democracy as the best option. And it hardly makes things less concerning that young people seem to blindly swallow everything they see and read. Or do they? Kristoffer’s research in the project Young Citizens and the Quality of News: Construals, Emotions and Strategies fortunately points to the opposite.

Young Swedes are individuals with their own views, but when they talk about news quality, they agree that relevance is the most important factor. Partly on a general level – it has to be something they feel concerns many people and is important for society – and partly on a personal level, relevant to them as individuals. The prejudice that young people are completely uncritical was proven wrong.

– Young people have quite a sophisticated way of reasoning about this. Many have developed their own strategies. When they see something on social media that seems dodgy, they check it in another source. You can tell they’ve picked up source criticism at school – and that it’s made a difference.

Kristoffer Holt

Should we even let people vote?

The ability to examine and evaluate is crucial, not least in light of developments in artificial intelligence. Deepfakes – manipulated videos, images, and audio – are becoming more and more sophisticated, increasing the risk of disinformation and manipulation.

But there is also a philosophical aspect to AI. The question is both logical and unavoidable: Should we really let people make decisions and vote, when we know how easily they are influenced by their emotions? Especially when we could instead programme an AI to follow democratic, ethical, and moral principles to the letter, ensuring that decisions are always correct?

– The right to democracy and participation is based on the idea that humans are competent to make the right decisions. If you don’t believe that, there’s no reason why we should be allowed to vote or have a say in anything. But then what happens to the idea of citizenship?

Don’t take democracy for granted

A questioned democracy

The environment at Linnaeus University that addresses the societal challenges facing democracy has been named A Questioned Democracy. Leading and innovative research, education, and collaboration come together here, with the aim of engaging with society and contributing valuable knowledge in the field.

Kristoffer, who leads the work, describes it as broader and with a clearly interdisciplinary approach compared to traditional research environments – researchers and teaching staff collaborate across subjects such as law, economics, political science, educational sciences, and media and communications.

– When we work together, we can create synergies and think in new ways. We get a much broader perspective than if we’re just sitting in isolation looking at TikTok, or at democracy as a system of government and what’s happening in parliament, or at people’s economic circumstances – which are of course extremely important for democracy to function at all. We need this broad range of subjects to be able to address questions about the future of democracy.

Kristoffer believes the greatest challenge for a democracy under threat is getting us, as citizens, not to take it for granted. Democracy requires engagement, and he sees worrying trends. For example, it is becoming difficult to find people willing to get involved in political parties.

– We’re also seeing increased fragmentation. Within large immigrant communities, for example, many people don’t engage with public debate in Sweden at all – instead, they’re part of a different media ecosystem. In the long run, that can create a problematic divide between different groups, he says.

Because media play a pivotal role in today’s democratic society.

– If someone wants to take over a democratic society to rule it autocratically, they first have to gain control of the media in order to shape the narrative. Media with sufficient reach are, after all, the only technically possible way to have a public conversation in today’s society. That makes them a prerequisite for us to be able to have democracy in our time.

Despite everything, Kristoffer remains hopeful about the future of democracy in Sweden. Swedes’ trust in the media is among the highest in the world, and it rests on a long tradition of press freedom, public debate, and involving the people in important issues.

– People have an ability to think independently, question things that don’t make sense, and figure things out using common sense – and if we’re going to believe in democracy in the future, we have to trust that ability to some extent. I think that dimension tends to get overlooked.