Retoriske konstruksjoner av ansvarlighet

Abstract

Rhetorical constructions of responsibility: Service users’ accounts in their digital dialogues with the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration The goal of the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV) for increased user participation and active service users entails a responsibility for NAV service users to participate actively in planning and carrying out activities. This implies that the service users are assigned a responsibility to share information about their personal limitations and needs. They do this through accounts in the interaction with their NAV counsellor. To an ever-increasing extent, the interaction between service users and counsellors in NAV takes place in a digital communication channel. Using rhetorical discourse analysis of written digital user dialogues in NAV, I explore how service users and counsellors negotiate responsibility for planning and decisions related to the service user’s activities. Through rhetorical accounts such as character work, legitimization, and excuses, service users position themselves as more or less responsible users. The analysis shows that the service users express both a moral and a legal responsibility, and they balance this responsibility by extending the category of ”service user” in their accounts. The way that service users balance their responsibility can be understood as an expression of uncertainty related to their duties and their rights in relation to NAV. The article shows that a pathway to understanding service user participation may be to investigate in greater depth how moral and legal responsibility is expressed in digital interaction.