Introduction
A functioning system of intelligence oversight and accountability is central to any liberal democracy. However, the possibilities for oversight are not determined by formal institutional design alone, being intimately connected to the broader structural conditions of democratic life – conditions increasingly reshaped by internal and external pressures in contemporary democracies (Nord et al., 2026; Farinha & Youngs, 2024). This is particularly true for informal oversight actors whose role in accountability is deeply intertwined with their public standing (Kniep et al., 2024).
Recent critical work on intelligence shows the potentially impactful role of a diverse range of actors in intelligence oversight, including public interest organizations (Van Puyvelde, 2013), civil society activists (Hartvigsen, 2025; León-Reyes, 2025), the media (Hillebrand, 2012, 2019) and academics (Samahon, 2020). Such actors lack formal institutional means for accountability and tend to struggle over access to information (Kniep et al., 2024; Hartvigsen et al., 2025; Hartvigsen, 2024). At the same time, they often hold necessary knowledge (Samahon, 2020, p. 694), benefit from public legitimacy and can induce policy change through public debate (de Werd, 2026, p. 27). What is more, unlike formal oversight bodies, which may end up too close to the intelligence services (Bigo et al., 2023; León-Reyes, 2025) and be subject to “regulatory capture” (Caparini, 2007, p. 14), informal actors might be able to remain at a critical distance from power (de Werd, 2026, p. 26). For this reason, some even claim that these actors constitute the “main locus of accountability” in democracies (León-Reyes, 2023, p. 42).
While critical intelligence scholarship highlights the democratic potential of informal actors and attend to struggles over oversight practices, it has paid less attention to contestation over the conditions under which such actors can perform oversight – that is, the sociopolitical arrangements which enable informal actors to exercise a degree of autonomy and make claims to independent scrutiny in the public interest. Addressing this gap, this article examines struggles over the conditions which allow informal oversight actors to act as democratic watchdogs in intelligence. Focusing specifically on the role of journalists, it argues that the contemporary conditions for informal oversight are being reconfigured through a set of broader contestations over the position of professional journalism in the wider democratic order.
The article approaches journalistic oversight as a situated practice, mobilizing Bourdieu’s (1991) concept of symbolic power and combining insights from media sociology and critical intelligence scholarship. Seen through this lens, informal oversight takes place in a social field where the very logic of oversight becomes at stake when actors in different fields interact, clash and engage in power struggles. Media sociology helps in pinpointing a set of core conditions, among them professional autonomy, access to information and epistemic trust, together underpinning independent journalism. These points of departure allow the article to move beyond a focus on struggles over oversight practices themselves to examine the contested conditions that make such practices possible.
Empirically, the article turns to the case of Swedish journalists, asking: “How are the conditions for informal oversight of intelligence being reshaped through struggles between actors with a stake in intelligence, and what are the implications for democratic accountability?” Sweden can be seen as a “least likely” or critical case of eroding conditions for journalists. The country has a long history of press freedom, dating back to 1766, and consistently ranks high on the Press Freedom Index (Reporters Without Borders, 2026). Despite these favourable starting points, Sweden has seen developments that may constrain journalistic oversight. These include legislative changes affecting both press freedom and source protection brought in by reference to national security and espionage (SOU 2017:70), a desire to expand state surveillance capabilities to tackle organized crime and national security threats (SOU 2023:22), and an increasing delegitimization of professional journalism by anti-pluralist populist actors (Strömbäck & Åkerlund, 2025). These changes, in turn, reflect broader developments across liberal democracies linked to increasing securitization brought about by geopolitical shifts (Hofmann, 2025; Farinha & Youngs, 2024; Bigo & Tsoukala, 2008), an expansion of state surveillance capabilities (Briant, 2017) and intensified democratic backsliding (Nord et al., 2026). Given the ideal starting points and current pressures with potential implications for professional journalism, Sweden serves as a critical case for exploring contemporary struggles concerning the conditions for journalistic oversight.
The article makes important contributions to scholarship on democratic oversight across three literatures. First, it expands on principal claims within critical intelligence studies about the democratic potential of informal oversight actors (León-Reyes, 2022, p. 42), showing how a range of actors struggle to recalibrate the “rules of the game” for oversight, with implications for the role of journalists as providers of democratic accountability. As such, it speaks to recent studies highlighting the limitations to informal oversight (Hartvigsen & Yauri-Miranda, 2025).
Second, previous debates in intelligence studies highlight new possibilities for accountability brought on by declining state secrecy (Aldrich & Moran, 2019). This “ambient accountability” where a “mixture of whistle-blowers, media, NGOs and activists” mobilize new technologies and increase transparency through transnational networked collaborations (Aldrich & Richterova, 2018, p. 1018), has been seen to address accountability gaps pertaining to international intelligence cooperation (Born & Wills, 2011). Building on these insights, the Swedish case shows how information and communication technologies have emerged as a site for struggles over state surveillance capabilities, and how political actors seek to impose further state secrecy through legislative changes.
Third, by attending to struggles over fundamental conditions for journalistic oversight, the article answers recent calls within critical security studies to “decentre security” and examine sites where “political control is enacted, resisted, and disputed” (Aradau & Glouftsios, 2026, p. 4). Mobilizing insights from media studies allows the article to demonstrate how a delegitimization of informal actors may be as consequential as securitization, insofar as it erodes the normative foundations that make democratic accountability possible.
This article proceeds in the following way. The first section outlines the media’s role in the democratic oversight of intelligence services and the current conditions affecting journalistic scrutiny. The second section provides the analytical framework for an analysis of struggles over conditions, drawing on Bourdieu’s (1991) concept of symbolic power and central concepts in media sociology. The third section presents three sets of struggles between actors in the journalistic, political, and national security fields in Sweden, focusing on contestations related to journalistic autonomy, access to information, and epistemic trust. The fourth and final section summarizes the argument and discusses the implications for democratic oversight and accountability and the contributions to the broader literature on informal oversight actors.
The Media in Democratic Oversight and the State of Democratic Journalism
This section reviews research on informal oversight, focusing on how the role of journalists in democratic accountability is conceptualized across (critical) intelligence studies as well as journalism, media and communication studies. It identifies a set of contested conditions that may reshape the possibilities for journalists in democratic oversight.
Journalists are commonly described as holding a unique position in democratic oversight by means of their mediating role. As critical intelligence scholars note, while formal oversight bodies may bring about accountability through legal and bureaucratic means (Born et al., 2005), informal actors like the media are positioned to serve democratic accountability by acting on behalf of the public (León-Reyes, 2023, p. 42). Intelligence actors operate through a culture of secrecy and the media can serve as a “bridge between the agencies and the public” (Hillebrand, 2012, p. 699). By informing and educating citizens while critically monitoring the intelligence services, independent media has been shown to contribute to intelligence reform and a democratisation of intelligence services (Matei, 2014). In fully consolidated democracies, the media may act as a “scarecrow” (Ramsay & Moore, 2016, p. 13). The very existence of journalists with the capacity to investigate abuses serves as a check on power through the threat of exposure.
Journalists may also contribute to democratic accountability by addressing gaps in formal oversight. Formal oversight systems tend to be linked to national territory and citizens, generating blind spots around transnational cooperation (Kniep et al., 2024, p. 213). While informal actors often struggle to access classified information, the barriers have been lowered through the expansion of new technologies, contributing to a “declining ability of states to keep secrets” (Aldrich & Moran, 2019, p. 292). This has enabled new forms of “ambient accountability” where investigative journalists and other actors collaborate across borders to enhance transparency in the context of intelligence cooperation (Aldrich & Richterova, 2018).
Although journalists are widely recognized as key actors in democratic oversight, there is less agreement on how their role is relationally constituted. Critical intelligence scholars often position informal actors in opposition to formal oversight bodies, which are seen as running the risk of “regulatory capture” (Caparini, 2007, p. 14). Yet, intelligence scholars have also highlighted the intimate relationship between intelligence services and the media (Aldrich, 2009). Such contrasting perspectives indicate that accountability may hinge less on spatial distance and more on how media-intelligence relations are structured and mobilized in practice.
Research shows that intimacy may be both productive of, and detrimental to, democratic accountability. Positioned between intelligence services and the public, journalists can both scrutinize and legitimize the services. Journalists can serve as key channels for whistleblowers, enabling public scrutiny and the exposure of wrongdoing (Sagar, 2013). Leaks to the media may function as “drivers of positive transparency” (Briant & Wanless, 2018, p. 50) and media coverage of abuses has been linked to more active formal oversight (Johnson, 2014, p. 1). However, intelligence actors and lawmakers may also exploit relations to the media. Reporting can then appear as independent when it is a result of strategic leaks from the services, the government, or actors in the opposition (Bakir, 2015; Pozen, 2013; Hillebrand, 2012). In more extreme cases, intelligence actors have co-opted journalistic outlets (Willmetts, 2024) and recruited journalists in espionage (Bayles & Gedmin, 2015).
These dynamics suggest that democratic accountability is dependent on journalists acting in accordance with professional norms of independent scrutiny in the public interest. This key role of journalists, in turn, depends on how they are positioned in relation to other key actors with a stake in intelligence.
Democratic accountability through journalistic scrutiny also depends on the legitimacy of informal actors. Effective oversight relies on the public recognition of journalists as critical intermediaries. This reliance on public recognition highlights the importance of a set of broader conditions that sustain the authority of journalists in society. A key challenge in this regard is the declining public trust in traditional media across many Western democracies (Newman et al., 2023).
Media and communication studies link this trend to a set of transformations affecting professional journalism. The rise of social media has weakened the role of journalists as gatekeepers (Farrell et al., 2021), enabling political actors to communicate directly with the public and contributing to the emergence of alternative media. This environment has also facilitated new political strategies. Anti-pluralist populist actors in particular have embraced what Christensen (2019) describes as a “weaponization of doubt” – a form of communication which challenges the legitimacy and impartiality of core institutions, including the media. Political objections to media scrutiny may then result in “outright attacks on the epistemic grounds of journalism” (Ekström & Patrona, 2025, p. 32). In this context, economic pressures further shape the conditions for investigative journalism. A neoliberal restructuring of the media sector has led to profit-driven content and a prioritisation of audience metrics over more resource-intensive reporting (León-Reyes, 2025). These broader shifts weaken the institutional conditions for journalistic work while challenging their role as credible actors in democratic accountability.
Additional challenges to independent journalism include national security concerns contributing to securitization, coupled with emerging technological possibilities for state surveillance. While the autonomy of journalists is often protected in law, national security frameworks may override these safeguards. Research suggests that “concerning numbers” of journalists and civil society actors have been subjected to state surveillance, including in democratic settings (Briant 2017, p. 173). This raises concerns about the emergence of legal, but democratically problematic, state surveillance practices (Austin, 2015) which poses problems for investigative journalists. Reports indicate, for instance, that the very possibility of surveillance may contribute to self-censorship among journalists concerned about source exposure (PEN America, 2013).
Journalistic scrutiny of intelligence is, then, dependent on a set of enabling conditions, and struggles over these conditions play out within a dynamic relational space made up by actors with a stake in intelligence. As critical security scholars suggest, the possibility to challenge security and intelligence is often conditioned by “messy, interrelated practices of contestation” (Aradau & Glouftsios, 2026, p. 3). The below section brings these relational dynamics of contestation surrounding professional journalism into analytical focus, drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic power and insights from media sociology.
Intelligence Oversight and the Symbolic Power of Journalism
The point of departure for studying democratic oversight is that, even in the most favourable of circumstances, informal oversight actors must engage in relational struggles over the conditions allowing them to hold and perform this role. Of central concern to our analysis are journalists’ struggles to make claims to legitimate authority as they attempt to hold the intelligence community accountable. To capture such struggles, we draw on what Pierre Bourdieu calls “symbolic power” (Bourdieu, 1991; Swartz, 2013). Swartz refers to the journalistic practice as an ongoing “struggle for symbolic power”, involving “the capacity to impose a viewpoint as the legitimate one” (Swartz, 2019 p. 36). Hence, symbolic power is related to, yet distinct from, the notion of epistemic authority (Zagzebski, 2012). Whereas the latter mainly concerns actors’ ability to make their claims to expertise trustworthy and credible, symbolic power is a broader concept which also refers to the power to legitimately speak for and act in the name of the people, or a public good, and thereby influence how the social world operates.
In democratic societies, journalism is positioned as a “constitutive institution” (Ekström, 2002, p. 260). From the normative viewpoint of professional journalism, the beneficiaries of reporting are “citizens as members of a democracy” (Waisbord, 2013, p. 122). This “ethics of public good” can be viewed as the “defining element” of professional journalism (Waisbord, 2013, p. 125). Beyond the media, activists, lawyers, and labour unions also claim to be speaking for “the people”. All these actors claim what they believe is more genuine public good, distinct from that produced through state power – traditionally the main locus of symbolic power (Bourdieu, 1991).
Symbolic power is acquired by converting field-specific forms of authority into power of a general kind (Swartz, 2013, p. 49). For instance, influential media actors can convert their journalistic authority into the ability to convey recognized and trusted “truths” about the social world. Especially when reporting on disputes or events that concern democratic principles, they can claim the role of defenders of a public good. This gives the media the ability to not only speak authoritatively, but to alter opinions, attitudes and relations, and to shift configurations of power among actors in society.
Journalists’ ability to do so, however, hinges on the overall standing of their field of practice in relation to other fields. Like all professions, journalists depend on autonomy (Örnebring, 2009), and journalistic authority is in turn dependent on the position of their professional field of practice in relation to other fields embracing contrasting norms and practices. Hence, journalistic capital can only be effectively converted into symbolic authority if their knowledge and practices are recognized as important by surrounding society. As noted above, the overall “weight” of critical and investigative reporting, or of the media in general, will depend on everything from shifting ideological currents to economic structures, central political decisions, and geopolitical developments. Journalists tend to struggle especially against the economic and political fields for symbolic power (Swartz, 2019, p. 37).
Applied to our analysis, this means that, by considering the capacity of journalists to provide oversight of the domain of intelligence, we are not only mapping the media’s epistemic authority to have their claims trusted, but also assessing the standing of independent journalism in the current socio-political environment and its practical ability to perform oversight in Sweden. It is through this lens that we interpret the relational dynamic between journalism and national security in Sweden: as different fields and actors engaged in struggles over the symbolic capacity to speak for or represent and legitimately determine what is best for the people.
We further operationalize our theoretical framework by drawing on insights from media sociology on the core conditions enabling journalists to exercise symbolic power. Fundamentally, the orientation toward a public good among journalists is intimately connected to liberal democratic ideals of the informed citizen and a need for accountability. Reflecting the prominent standing of the journalistic field in the wider democratic order, and the recognized autonomy of the journalistic profession (Waisbord, 2013), journalistic practices often enjoy constitutional protection guaranteeing freedom from undue political pressure and state censorship. A freedom to report on abuses of power is key for journalists to perform oversight. Even with such recognition in place, however, struggles play out between the journalistic field and other fields on the freedom to report on issues of public relevance. Most notably, journalists and national security professionals may embrace contrasting norms of secrecy and different views of what constitutes the “public good” (Ördén, 2025).
A key condition for all reporting is access to information and source protection. As Broersma and colleagues (2013, p. 388) underline, an “iron rule” of journalism is that “there is no story without a source.” Although many liberal democratic states provide constitutional guarantees for the protection of sources, it is not uncommon for journalists to encounter challenges from the political and national security fields. This element of struggle is especially evident when journalists seek access to sensitive information. Journalistic framings can impact the field of politics (Broersma et al., 2013) and shape public opinion of policy (Stack, 2010). At the same time, policymakers (Stack, 2010) and security professionals (Briant & Wanless, 2018) can use access to exclusive information – or deny access to sources – to exercise power over the journalistic field. In relation to national security concerns, security and intelligence agencies can even engage in surveillance of investigative journalists (Briant, 2017 p. 173).
Another defining feature of the journalistic field is the professional claim to knowledge and truth which, crucially, depends on epistemic trust. The role of journalists is to offer “the citizenry important and reliable knowledge” (Ekström, 2002, p. 260). This claim to a certain kind of knowledge is inherently connected to professional ideals of objectivity, demarcating the journalistic field from the political field (Waisbord, 2013, pp. 123–124). As with all claims to symbolic authority, the ideal of journalistic objectivity is anchored in the central ideal of “disinterested” truths. Just like citizens must believe that state-produced information is “official” and to some extent neutral, they must believe that the media stories they read “are accurate, and that the journalists who produce those stories are trustworthy” (Canella, 2021, p. 209). While journalists long held a gatekeeper function (Farrell et al., 2021), today, political elites have direct access to publics through social media, allowing the political field to expand at the expense of the journalistic field. This highlights how epistemic trust and claims to truth and objectivity are constantly entangled with symbolic power struggles between actors in different fields.
Drawing on these insights, the analysis of the Swedish case examines struggles related to three specific core conditions that enable journalistic scrutiny of intelligence: journalistic autonomy, access to information, and epistemic trust. In line with the sociological entry-point, the assumption is that the conditions for informal oversight are dependent on the relational positioning of the journalistic field vis-à-vis other fields. Empirically, the analysis thus traces how a set of core conditions become a site where the rules of the game for journalistic oversight are negotiated by actors in the political, (national) security and journalistic fields.
Each section of the analysis corresponds to one of these professional conditions. The first, on the contestation of journalistic autonomy, focuses on struggles over press freedom in light of new national security legislation. The second, on struggles over access to information, addresses contestation over journalistic access to technologies that facilitate source protection and secure freedom from state surveillance. The third, on epistemic trust, concerns struggles over the credibility of journalistic truth claims about intelligence. The purpose is not to develop a generalizable theory of informal oversight, nor to provide an exhaustive mapping of every struggle affecting professional journalism in Sweden. Rather, Sweden serves as a critical case for examining a set of key dimensions along which struggles over the conditions for informal oversight by journalists may unfold in contemporary democracies.
Struggles over the Conditions for Journalistic Oversight in Sweden
The analysis draws on slightly different kinds of empirical material, allowing for an examination of struggles surrounding both legislative and sociopolitical conditions. Analysing struggles related to journalistic autonomy and access to information, it draws on arguments outlined in Swedish Government Official Reports (SOU) published following government inquiries on proposed legislative changes, subsequent government draft legislation submitted to the Council on Legislation for assessment before final adoption, public consultation responses associated with these documents, and public statements by key actors.
The official documents and consultation responses reflect how the conditions for oversight are formally negotiated while public statements capture discursive struggles. To disentangle the fields engaged in struggles, and assess the official standing of these fields, the analysis attends to the actors invited to take part in inquiries. The final struggle concerning epistemic trust primarily plays out through discursive means – through statements aimed at undermining the legitimacy of professional journalism. For this reason, this section primarily draws on previous media studies research and public statements by actors in the political field.
Struggles Over Journalistic Autonomy
Constitutional protection for journalistic practices is a key feature indicative of the standing of journalists in the wider democratic order. Legislative safeguards protect journalists from undue political pressure and state censorship. At the same time, the legislative boundaries of journalistic autonomy are not fixed. Legislation is adapted to address perceived national security risks, with potential consequences for press freedom. In such processes, the autonomy of journalists is continuously redefined through struggles between actors in the political, national security and journalistic fields over the boundaries of secrecy and which information serves public interest. These dynamics are visible in recent legislative developments in Sweden.
In recent years, Sweden has seen several pieces of proposed legislation introduced in the name of national security, with implications for journalistic work. The most impactful piece of enacted legislation is the Foreign Espionage Act (“the Act”), adopted in 2022. The Act criminalizes certain disclosures of secret information within international cooperation where such disclosures may damage Sweden’s relations with another state or international organization (Prop. 2021/22:55). The below section outlines a set of struggles between the journalistic field, the political field, and the national security field leading up to the enactment of this legislation and examines how these struggles renegotiate the position of journalists in the democratic order by a series of constitutional amendments.
The Foreign Espionage Act came into effect in 2023 after amendments to the Swedish Constitution. In line with the Swedish legislative process, the final government bill was preceded by an inquiry analysing the problem at hand. The results of the inquiry were published in a 2017 Government Official Report (SOU, 2017:70). The committee conducting the inquiry was chaired by a former president of the Foreign Intelligence Court, and its mandate was set out in directives issued by the Ministry of Justice in 2016 (SOU, 2017:70, pp. 557–563).
One of the inquiry’s central aims was to consider the consequence of disclosures of sensitive information existing within the framework of international collaboration “for Sweden, Swedish interests and the cooperation Sweden is participating in” (SOU, 2017:70, 59). This explicit emphasis on assessing the consequences of disclosures gave the national security field a prominent position in the committee, and in formulating the proposal outlined in the final 2017 report. This position is reflected in the Swedish national security experts tied to the work of the inquiry, and in the wide representation of security actors listed as providing comments in the final report (SOU, 2017:70, pp. 61–62). In contrast, the journalistic field plays a marginal role in assessing the core problematic, with only a single expert from the Swedish media represented. This expert also chooses to provide a dissenting opinion (SOU 2017:70, pp. 555–556).
The dominance of the national security field is evident in the final 2017 report. This report includes comments by, among others, the Swedish Armed Forces, the Swedish Police Authority, the Swedish Security Service, the Military Intelligence and Security Service (MUST), the National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA), and the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (SOU, 2017:70, pp. 61–62). Actors formulate the problem of disclosures from the viewpoint of national security, highlighting the crucial importance of secrecy for security. Comments describe how the exposure of sensitive information may generate a loss of trust in international security and intelligence cooperation; how leaks can lead to an exclusion from bi- and multilateral fora; and how disclosures may contribute to increased security risks for personnel (SOU, 2017:70, p. 62).
The journalistic field primarily features as a national security vulnerability. The 2017 report, for instance, describes the media sector to be “of great interest to foreign intelligence services” (SOU, 2017:70, p. 229). While making clear that the Act will likely impact the “procuring and conveying of information for publication in the media” (SOU, 2017:70, p. 89), this expected effect is legitimized by reference to challenges springing from core journalistic practices. The report for instance refers to the lack of restrictions in journalistic work, which makes the profession a perfect cover for a foreign spy (SOU 2017:70, pp. 229–236) and a fruitful position for foreign “influence agents” (SOU, 2017:70, p. 231). In this context, the constitutionally protected autonomy enjoyed by journalists is highlighted as a “challenge” (SOU, 2017:70, p. 229). Journalists are portrayed as having “no restrictions” in their professional capacity and can ask anyone questions without “arousing suspicion” (SOU 2017:70, p. 229) while disseminating information to the wider public.
Against this background, the report recommends parallel amendments to the Swedish Freedom of the Press Act and the Fundamental Law on Freedom of Expression, criminalizing the acquisition, passing on, and disclosure of secret information which can affect foreign relations. In providing these recommendations, which directly affect the journalistic freedom of procurement and access to information from sources, the report demonstrates how the political field and the national security field try to renegotiate the boundaries for journalistic autonomy. Recommending constitutional changes, the proposed legislation furthermore challenges the position of journalists in the wider democratic order, premised on “state-protected rights to autonomy” (Waisbord, 2013, p. 47).
The 2017 report caused a reaction from the journalistic field. In a set of critical consultation responses, media representatives argued that the inquiry presented insufficient evidence for the existence of severe problems or for security vulnerabilities linked to the work of Swedish journalists (Swedish Media Publishers’ Association, 2018; Swedish Publicists’ Association, 2018; Swedish Union of Journalists, 2018). Without presenting sufficient substantial evidence, the proposed constitutional amendments were deemed disproportionate.
Following this criticism, a new proposal was presented which included a justifiability clause intended to protect journalistic work. The amended draft proposal, referred to the Council on Legislation for consideration in 2021, further clarified that passing on, disclosing, or publishing sensitive information should not be considered a crime if there are “justified” circumstances or purposes for doing so (Ministry of Justice, 2021, p. 34). Nevertheless, the constitutional amendments potentially affecting freedom of procurement and freedom to communicate information remained part of the proposal (Ministry of Justice, 2021, p. 53).
With the 2021 proposal, the principal point of struggle shifts from the right to publish to the structural protection of sources and information gathering. While a range of actors in the political field mobilize the novel justifiability clause in their public support for legislative amendments (Lundquist, 2022), actors in the journalistic field, such as the Swedish Publicists’ Association and the Swedish Union of Journalists, criticize the amended proposal for restricting journalistic work by weakening the ban on investigating sources (Swedish Publicists’ Association, 2021; Swedish Union of Journalists, 2021).
The expanded possibilities for increased scrutiny of sources in cases framed as foreign espionage are legitimized in the proposal as a way of safeguarding “citizens’ trust” in and “support for” freedom of the press and freedom of expression (Ministry of Justice, 2021, p. 57). The draft argues that if “constitutionally protected media” should be used for disclosures, and if such acts go “unpunished,” it could diminish trust in these constitutional rights (Ministry of Justice, 2021, p. 57). Countering this, the Swedish Union of Journalists emphasizes the role of journalists as providers of democratic accountability and the importance of constitutional guarantees. In an op-ed, they argue that access to sensitive information is dependent on trust in journalism and on legal protections for sources, suggesting that the legislation will “have such a large deterrent effect” on people’s willingness to report irregularities that the reference to justifiability is unlikely to have a “practical effect” (Hyllert, 2021). Overall, the union sees a “risk that the proposed changes will greatly limit the possibilities for reporting on Sweden’s actions abroad” (Hyllert, 2021). In short, the potential lack of access to sources may severely affect the role of Swedish journalists as public “watchdogs” in intelligence and security. Despite these protests from the journalistic field, the amended 2021 proposal was accepted by a majority in parliament, and the legislation came into effect in 2023.
The journalistic profession is constantly in a struggle to “maintain autonomy vis-à-vis external forces” (Waisbord, 2013, p. 10). The process leading up to the Act demonstrates how actors in the political and national security fields renegotiate the boundaries for the professional autonomy of Swedish journalists. While the political field acted by formulating a set of directives focused on the consequences of disclosures, the national security field mobilized their expertise and asserted professional norms of secrecy. As a result, the 2017 report reformulated journalistic norms and practices as possible national security liabilities. More broadly, these Swedish developments can be read as a state response to the growing potential for “ambient accountability” (Aldrich & Richterova, 2018) and the declining ability of states to maintain secrecy (Aldrich & Moran, 2019). As digital communication technologies have enabled informal oversight actors by facilitating access information and thereby helped them in addressing blind spots in formal oversight structures, the Swedish case suggests that state actors seek to reassert control over state secrets through legislative means.
While struggles around the Act led to the introduction of a justifiability clause to protect journalists, the final proposal nevertheless resulted in constitutional amendments potentially affecting journalistic access to sources. These amendments may not only affect the day-to-day practices of journalists contacting whistleblowers but also renegotiate the position of Swedish journalists in the wider democratic order by limiting their possibilities for scrutinizing security and intelligence practices. The Act, in short, represents an attempt by the political and national security fields to defend their symbolic authority, while limiting that of the journalistic field.
Struggles over Access to Information
The role of journalists as informal oversight actors is not only dependent on constitutional protections guaranteeing freedom of procurement. In an age of expanding digital surveillance capabilities, access to secure communication technologies has also become a “critical part of press freedom” (Tsui & Lee, 2021, p. 1318). End-to-end encrypted applications are increasingly important for journalists, particularly those engaged in investigative reporting on national security issues (Waters, 2018). At the same time, political and legal struggles over the right to encryption have intensified at the European Union level, in relation to initiatives such as Chat Control (Hyllert, 2024) and the EU Media Freedom Act (Reporters Without Borders, 2023). While these initiatives have not resulted in direct restrictions on journalistic practices, they illustrate broader tensions between state surveillance objectives and the right to private communication. A recent Swedish legislative proposal on data retention brings these tensions into a national context, highlighting conflicts between the political, security, and journalistic fields over the conditions for secure communication and the possibilities for accessing information through sources.
In 2021, the Swedish Ministry of Justice formulated a set of directives for an inquiry into a new legislation on data retention. The aim was to analyse the conditions of providers of so-called number-independent interpersonal communications services (NI-ICS) to retain user data for law enforcement purposes (SOU, 2023:22, pp. 593–614). Examples include popular end-to-end encrypted applications such as Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram, and Meta’s Messenger. The committee was headed by a former Chief Judge and appointed experts included security and legal professionals linked to the Police Authority, the Security Services, the Customs Authority, and the broader legal community (SOU 2023:22). Neither journalists, media sector representatives, nor experts specialized in data protection or communications technologies played any significant part in the inquiry.
In 2023, the committee published a report outlining the proposed legislative amendments. The report points to a current lack of “retention obligation” among NI-ICS. This, in combination with technological developments, is said to have a “negative impact on the possibilities for law enforcement authorities to do their work” (SOU 2023:22, p. 35). Addressing the problem, the report suggests that the same obligations to retain electronic communications data should apply to number-independent services as for other communications networks and services. This means that “location data that is not traffic data” should be made available to law enforcement services upon request (SOU 2023:22, p. 33), including information about location and patterns of communication.
The aim is a “consistent and technology-neutral regulation” applicable, also, to end-to-end encrypted services (SOU 2023:22, p. 37). To this end, service providers need to make necessary changes to facilitate retention. If the proposal is accepted, providers of encrypted services are “obliged to conduct their activities in such a way that decisions on secret coercive measures can be implemented” (SOU 2023:22, p. 37) following a request by the police authorities or security services.
The 2023 proposal resulted in a struggle about the technological conditions for access to information through source protection. A key point of friction concerns the feasibility of extending retention obligations to end-to-end encrypted services, given technical constraints related to their underlying architecture (Netnod, 2023). In their consultation responses, actors in the journalistic field in turn highlight their dependency on encrypted services and the negative consequences for source protection if such services cannot be used, or if encryption is weakened. The Swedish Media Publishers’ Association (2023) argues that the proposed amendments were likely to “facilitate an extensive surveillance of citizens, including media and journalists.” Even if encrypted services could technically distinguish between different kinds of data, the Swedish Union of Journalists (2023) argued that giving law enforcement access to meta-data would risk giving away sources. A lack of technological protection from surveillance therefore posed “significant risks” that whistleblowers providing information to journalists “on important issues of public interest will not dare to contact the media” (Swedish Media Publishers’ Association, 2023). In an op-ed following the consultation process, the head of the Swedish Union of Journalists states that the changes would make it “much easier to monitor journalists and their sources” (Hyllert, 2023).
Despite this criticism, the proposal to extend data retention obligations to encrypted services remained part of the final government draft, referred to the Council on Legislation in 2024. This draft led to struggles between source protection as a legal matter and source protection as a matter of secure communications technologies. The proposal describes the changes as proportionate and in line with fundamental rights and freedoms (Ministry of Justice, 2024, p. 78). In support of extending data retention obligations, the government prioritizes actors and viewpoints in the domestic security field and highlights positive reactions from the Police Authority, the Customs Authority and the Swedish Prosecution Authority (Ministry of Justice, 2024, p. 79). In response to journalistic concerns, they emphasize existing constitutional guarantees to source protection while downplaying the potential effect on encryption (Ministry of Justice, 2024, p. 88). Although the draft recognizes the risk that actors may leave the Swedish market “to avoid weakening the cybersecurity of their services,” it nevertheless claims that encryption can be safeguarded (Ministry of Justice, 2024, p. 103). A key argument is that service providers can “design their services so that the requirements for security and protection of communications are met” (Ministry of Justice, 2024, p. 103).
At its core, the struggle over secure communication technologies for journalists concerns the conditions for transparency in democratic oversight. Both formal and informal oversight actors rely on some degree of access to information about a state’s national security and intelligence activities. Such access is typically justified with reference to the public interest and reflects their role within the broader democratic order. For informal oversight actors, including journalists, this access often depends on whistleblowers who provide insight into internal state practices. An expansion of data retention obligations to widely used encrypted services would reconfigure these conditions.
By seeking access to communication infrastructures such as Signal, WhatsApp, and Messenger, actors in the political and security fields seek to assert authority over the technical conditions that enable or constrain secrecy. In this sense, the conflict is not only about surveillance but about the distribution of secrecy itself and competing definitions of public good with regard to security. The need for transparency is reframed in ways that prioritize domestic security imperatives. At the same time, claims to protect journalistic source confidentiality are articulated as secondary. As a result, demands for oversight emerging from the journalistic field risk being made less effective in practice.
In December 2025, the government suddenly halted the legislative process, referring to “complexity” in implementation (Gripenberg, 2025). The shift followed upon criticism from within the political field where the Liberals, a government coalition party, took a stance against the legislation, stating the need to safeguard end-to-end encryption on security grounds (Liberalerna, 2025, pp. 340–341). Their concerns in turn echo earlier criticism expressed by actors in the national security field, describing encrypted services as a national security priority (Swedish Armed Forces, 2025). The potential consequences of extending data retention obligations had also become evident in early 2025 when Signal announced an exit from the Swedish market, should the legislation come into force (SVT 2025a). Opposing the technical solutions expressed in the government draft, Signal argued that compliance required the installation of backdoors (SVT 2025a). In practice, the legislation would then either undermine end-to-end encryption or contribute to key service providers leaving the Swedish market.
This case illustrates an important disjuncture between formal guarantees of source protection and the infrastructural conditions required to realize them in practice. In combination with weakened constitutional safeguards for journalistic sources following the Foreign Espionage Act, the amendments would not only have given Swedish authorities the right to investigate sources providing certain types of information pertaining to intelligence and security; it would have expanded their practical possibilities for doing so. It is worth noting, also, how criticism from the journalistic field did not meaningfully impact the ambition to extend data retention obligations. Instead, the decision to halt the process appears to have been driven by dynamics within the political field and possibly reinforced by concerns raised by actors within the national security field together with criticism by service providers. This echoes previous research from Scandinavia, pointing to the limited policy impact of informal oversight actors (Hartvigsen & Yauri-Miranda, 2025). And, again, we may observe symbolic struggles over different practical orientations towards public good in relation to security, at the expense of the journalistic field.
Struggles over Epistemic Trust
Whereas the first two struggles concerned relations between the journalistic field and the political and security fields, the struggle over epistemic trust concerns more the position of the journalistic field within the wider democratic order. As informal providers of oversight, journalists depend not only on access to information, but on being recognized as legitimate producers of truthful knowledge (Ekström, 2002; Canella, 2021). Such epistemic trust is a precondition for their ability to serve as a public voice and to hold state power to account.
Trust in professional journalism is increasingly challenged in a fragmented media environment. Whereas journalists long held a gatekeeper function, the new media landscape allows more actors to gain (or, at least, claim) epistemic authority (Farrell et al., 2021). This shift challenges the autonomy of the journalistic field in several ways. First, it affects the role of journalists as mediators between the political field and the public. Social media allows political leaders to communicate directly with citizens, thereby bypassing professional journalists. Second, the lack of gatekeepers has generated rising concerns about a spread of disinformation and foreign information influence, leading to securitized public discourses and state responses across liberal democratic states (Vériter, 2025). Tapping into such discourses, actors in the political field gain new and potent tools for discrediting media outlets (Egelhofer et al., 2022) and to undermine the epistemic trust of those who offer oversight.
In Sweden, trust in traditional media, and especially in public service media (Sveriges Television and Sveriges Radio) is still estimated as very high (SVT, 2025b). Yet studies show that public trust in professional journalism is, to a certain extent, divided along ideological and party lines (Strömbäck & Karlsson, 2017, p. 91). Specifically, trust in Swedish media is lower among the growing population of conservative and populist right-wing voters (Strömbäck & Karlsson, 2017, p. 90–91). This decline in trust can partly be explained by accusations of media (left-wing) bias by actors on the right (Strömbäck & Åkerlund, 2025). A recent study demonstrates a “clear pattern in Sweden where predominantly MPs from the political right – and the Moderate Party and Sweden Democrats in particular – engage in media criticism seeking to delegitimise public service media and traditional news media in general” (Liminga & Strömbäck, 2023, p. 293). This “weaponization of doubt” by political elites seeks to introduce uncertainty regarding the impartiality of journalistic reporting (Christensen, 2019). Such attempts at delegitimization challenge the professional ideals of objectivity which demarcate the journalistic field from the political field (Waisbord, 2013, pp. 123–124) as well as the role of journalists as providers of “disinterested” truths in the wider democratic order (Rosen, 1993, p. 51).
The contemporary concerns about disinformation and foreign information influence also provide the political field with a set of new possibilities for encroaching on the epistemic authority of journalists. As Hameleers and Minihold (2022, p. 1177) hold, references to disinformation can be employed in public discourse as “a label to delegitimize or attack political opponents and sources of information.” In Sweden, this specific modality for delegitimization is reflected in how politicians on the far right have begun to use references to disinformation when targeting journalists who scrutinize political power. A recent example is the response made by the Sweden Democrats to a TV4 documentary which unveiled the party’s use of “troll farms” for spreading messages targeting political opponents (TV4, 2024). Commenting on the documentary, the party leader accused the journalists of engaging in a “gigantic influence operation” (TV4, 2024). As demonstrated in communications research, such accusations have been shown to reduce trust in the targeted media outlets (Egelhofer et al., 2022).
Accusations of spreading disinformation are especially problematic for investigative journalists acting to provide oversight of the domains of intelligence and security. Reporting on intelligence often relies on classified information conveyed through whistleblowers. This makes it difficult for the public to independently scrutinize and verify claims. As a result, the impact of investigative reporting relies heavily on journalistic credibility and the reputation of outlets.
Another illustration of political actors challenging journalistic credibility in their watchdog function comes from the Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs. The minister specifically addressed reports about an alleged secret deal with Turkey, grounded in intelligence cooperation, said to involve the arrest of two Swedish citizens by the Swedish Security Services in exchange for the release of a Swedish journalist by Turkish authorities (Canbäck, 2025). Possible links between the arrested individuals and the Swedish journalist had previously been reported in the media (SR, 2025). The Minister not only rejected any allegations of a deal (TV4, 2025); she also accused the investigative journalist of “spreading conspiracy theories” and presenting information akin to “pure disinformation” (TV4, 2025). Such statements specifically target the kind of symbolic capital that journalists hold in a democracy. While the journalistic field continuously engages in struggles with other fields over the boundaries of journalistic autonomy, framing journalistic work as “disinformation” risks weakening the role journalists play as “scarecrows”, keeping the powers in check (Ramsay & Moore, 2016, p. 13).
Targeting the epistemic trust of journalists also has consequences for the national security field. Historically, the media has been an important outlet for both sanctioned and unsanctioned leaks from the services (Lashmar, 2013). Journalistic reporting serves as a “bridge between the agencies and the public” (Hillebrand, 2012, p. 699). If classified information conveyed to the media also serves the interests of intelligence and security actors, attempts by the political field to undermine the epistemic trust of journalists will simultaneously limit the services’ options for legitimizing their work. Such developments may recalibrate the balance of power between the national security and political fields, with implications for democratic accountability and for how intelligence can be used for strategic disclosures by state actors.
The struggle over epistemic trust also speaks to ongoing debates within critical security studies on the conditions for public contestation of security and intelligence practices. As Aradau and Glouftsios (2026, p. 7) state, “disclosing transgressions does not guarantee the emergence of scandals.” For reporting to have an impact, the conveyors of information must be seen as credible by the public. Hence, attention to the delegitimization of professional journalism demonstrates how the role of the media in instigating intelligence scandals would be significantly weakened if the symbolic power of professional journalism is eroded. More broadly, this suggests that, for informal oversight actors, delegitimization may be as consequential as processes of (in)securitization.
Conclusion
This article has examined the contested conditions under which Swedish journalists act as informal providers of insight into the domains of intelligence and security, focusing on three struggles: journalistic autonomy, access to information, and epistemic trust. It has shown how an erosion of democratic accountability may occur through a gradual reconfiguration of the conditions that enable informal actors to perform this role.
Attempts to renegotiate the symbolic power of journalists are perhaps most visible in the struggles over epistemic trust, where political efforts to delegitimize independent scrutiny can diminish journalists’ symbolic capital. Paradoxically, a severe shift in this direction would also have implications for the national security field, which, to a degree, relies on trust in professional journalism itself. At the same time, constitutional protections guaranteeing source protection have been narrowed, while state control over secrecy has expanded. The infrastructural conditions for access to information likewise form part of an ongoing struggle. Although certain safeguards have been secured through active opposition, this reconfiguration is likely to constrain journalists’ capacity to provide oversight of security and intelligence matters, particularly by limiting access to whistleblowers.
Taken together, the struggles over informal oversight capabilities represent struggles over the position of journalists as providers of accountability in the wider democratic order. Given the highly favourable conditions for journalistic work in Sweden, the reconfiguration assessed in this article may be indicative of a more deep-seated transformation of the position of journalists as critical intermediaries scrutinising power at a time of rising internal and external pressure on democratic systems.
This article makes several contributions to the literature on informal oversight actors and democratic accountability. First, by combining Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic power with central concepts in media sociology, it demonstrates the value of moving beyond informal oversight practices themselves to examine the contested conditions that make such practices possible. In so doing, and in line with calls to “decentre security” (Aradau & Glouftsios, 2026, p. 4), the analysis highlights delegitimization as a strategy for illiberal change, alongside the more recognized practice of securitization. Second, the analysis indicates that actors in the political and national security fields seek to limit the scope for “ambient accountability” (Aldrich & Richterova, 2018), demonstrating how the space for informal oversight of intelligence cooperation remains contingent and negotiated, with implications for democratic accountability. Finally, previous research from the Scandinavian context has shown that the influence of informal actors is limited, and that their actions primarily “serve dramaturgical purposes to meet public expectations rather than achieve policy change” (Hartvigsen & Yauri-Miranda, 2025). By contrast, this article illustrates how struggles for policy change do play out, though the gains are limited. Future studies could adopt a similar entry point to assess the conditions for other informal oversight actors, such as activists, NGOs, and academics, who likewise depend on autonomy, access to information, and epistemic trust to perform a watchdog function.
The article has several limitations. The empirical material consisted primarily of public documents and statements, and future studies could deepen the understanding of actors across fields by incorporating interviews. The focus is also limited to a set of struggles among actors with a stake in intelligence. Broader structural conditions, such as the changing economic foundations of professional journalism, are not explicitly addressed, though they could have a serious impact on journalistic oversight. A wider scope would allow examination of how epistemic, legal, and economic conditions intersect, and of how these dynamics shape the possibilities for informal oversight and democratic accountability.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the reviewers as well as all participants at the KOM-seminar, Lund University, for their helpful comments and suggestions on the draft versions of this article.