Innan- eller utanför ramarna?

This thesis concerns formation of opinion by the Swedish state. We have seen an acceleration of state controlled authorities which main purpose are to create opinion. This phenomenon has been highly criticized. One perspective of the critique, which also concerns this thesis, is the democratic aspect. It says that it is the elected politicians’ business to form opinion, not the state authorities. In the long run this could lead to a situation where it is the state authorities which decide what the politician should do and not the people. But is it really that simple? This essay’s purpose is to problematize this phenomenon. In doing so the author has created two ideal types of how the democratic administration should function. Later on these two are used to discuss if the formation of opinion by the state is democratic valid or not. The result shows that some of the opinion by the state could be considered as democratic, but certainly not all. The thesis also tries to illustrate that this phenomenon does not just concerns a certain kind of a state authority or use a certain kind of media to spread the opinion; but take different kinds of expressions