How can co-creation or participatory processes enhance the Swedish Police Authority's work with creating the Sense of Safety on their digital media platforms, for a more peaceful and safer society? This is the focus of my research project, and it connects to research fields such as Strategic Communication, and Media and Communication.

Peaceful and safer society aligns in this study with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and this case, with goal number 16: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels. More specifically, goal targets 16.7: Ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels, and 16.10: Ensure public access to information and protect fundamental freedoms, in accordance with national legislation and international agreements, for more peaceful and inclusive societies.

Two important concepts in this study are participatory processes and trust. Participatory processes take inspiration from research fields such as Strategic Communication, Interaction Design, Graphic Design, and Media Production and highlight the importance of communication, context, process, and reflection during and after design. The second concept: Trust, in this study, is based on Rothstein’s theory about trust, that it is constructed and acted upon between actors and organizations in our society. Here communication operates an important factor that leads to safety.

This study will be based on 19 qualitative interviews with police officers and media/communication employees at the Swedish Police Authority on how they work with and consider their external communication on digital platforms today. This study intends to present preliminary findings on how the Swedish Police Authority's external communication on digital media communicates the Sense of Safety and how that can be enhanced through participatory processes in the spirit of goal number 16: Promote peace, justice, and strong institutions. The preliminary findings will also form the groundwork for upcoming workshops with Swedish police employees to see how participatory processes can be implemented as a future communication method for the Swedish Police Authority in their external communication.