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This conceptual chapter explores communicating with transparency and secrecy in public affairs activities in Norway. The tension between transparency and secrecy is particularly interesting with regard to the question of impact of strategic communication on political policymaking processes. As a theoretical framework, we use a double lens to hold the concepts of both transparency and secrets in focus. First, we draw on Fung’s (2013) principles of democratic transparency: availability, proportionality, accessibility and actionability. Second, we use Horn’s (2011) three logics of political secrecy: arcanum, mysterium and secretum. By integrating Fung’s principles of openness and Horn’s logics of secrecy, we construct a model for analysis of a few public affairs activities and practices. Empirical examples of PR agencies’ communicative activities support our model, in addition to interviews with three executives in agencies. The empirical examples illustrate that communication activities rely on top-down controlled information diffusion in PR agencies’ communication activities, such as podcasts and web pages. They use information to develop group identities and to develop stronger relationships to their clients and customers. The social dimension of information in our examples suggests that the agencies are discrete, operate in the background and are careful about revealing their competence and privileged insights.

The purpose of this study is to examine the identification and collaboration rhetoric of the Norwegian government and public health authorities during the pandemic. The aim is to show whether and how actors use strategies and themes of identification, and whether they build identification with their publics.

The study combines qualitative and quantitative methods. Six identification strategies were identified through manual text analysis of press statements; word counts of each strategy were registered electronically to access quantitative data of individual actors.

The three strategies reflecting values, the two strategies reflecting division and disagreement and the strategy reflecting change showed almost equal frequencies. The strategy of shaping community, serving the function of change, and the division strategy, demonstrating identification through dissociation, were the most frequent strategies. Politicians preferred the collaboration strategy, while health experts preferred the strategy of concern and recognition.

The six identification strategies extend the understanding of leadership crisis communication and contemporary rhetoric as community-building discourse aiming for speaker–audience collaboration. The study demonstrates that division and disagreement are equally essential components of crisis communication as values and change. When actors differ in choice of strategy, themes and publics, they may still come across as coordinated and unified in their calls for solidarity, collective efforts and common understanding.