Citizen 2026: Co-creating communication with citizens
Watch Pascal Tshibanda from Norrköping Municipality at Citizen 2026 on how municipalities can move from communicating to citizens to co-creating with them.
How can a municipality move from communicating to citizens to co-creating with them – even in areas where trust is low?
On September 17, 2026, communication leaders, digital experts and municipalities from across the Nordics gathered at Sveasalen in Stockholm for Citizen 2026 — a full day dedicated to better citizen communication, dialogue and digital innovation in the public sector.
In this talk, Pascal Tshibanda, Director of Communications at Norrköping Municipality and former Director of Communications in Botkyrka, argues that municipal communication should be understood as an integral part of place-based development.
From informing to co-creating
Pascal describes a shift from information, to communication, to co-created communication – where residents, associations and civil society help shape the stories told about their own neighbourhoods. He links this to the democratic mission of Swedish municipalities and to ideas such as communicative justice and asset-based development: starting from what an area has, not what it lacks.
Young reporters on TikTok
One example is Botkyrka’s TikTok initiative, where young people in vulnerable areas got a platform to tell their own stories. The initiative reached several million views and won both Stora Kommunikationspriset 2025 and the European ECCAR Award for equality.
Strengthening local storytelling networks
Drawing on Communication Infrastructure Theory and examples from Norrköping, Pascal shows how municipalities can strengthen local storytelling networks – for example through partnerships with civil society – and why appreciative communication can be a counterweight to one-sided media coverage.
