The research project combines media history with a political history of Swedish social reformism and welfare construction in the 1930s. The thesis explores how concrete contexts were created to encourage citizens to participate in discussions on current social issues. These contexts included public debates, exhibitions, newspaper surveys and radio's popular education activities. Previous research has mainly explored the more purely intellectual and social science dimensions of interwar discussions on citizenship, advertising and mass media. The thesis thus contributes to the international research situation by examining projects that aimed to tangibly establish an active, debating public. The study also contributes to several ongoing discussions in both academic history research and the general public debate. These include questions about the symbiosis of politics with advertising and mass media, and the role of social engineering in the process of modernization. The thesis shows how advertising and popular mass media could be used with democratic society-building ambitions, while the role of social engineering in the social discussions of the time has generally been overestimated in previous research.