The thesis purpose is to gather recommendations to adapt participatory design to elderly users, through the involvement of an association of elderly museum volunteers. The outcome is the result of a participatory process that included forms, interviews, cultural probes, and workshops where the volunteers and designer collaborated tightly to explore volunteers’ needs and find solutions to address them. This process led to the design of a platform that empowers volunteers' work and recognizes its value. The platform includes sections managed by the volunteers to archive information about the museum pieces, share organized activities, and receive feedback from visitors to improve their work.

Sweden is increasingly considering the possibility of automating public administration. Data-driven process automation is believed to help make administrative tasks more efficient and goal-driven. However, implementing these systems, or preparing for their implementation, involves a transformation in organisational practices and principles. These practices are adapted to imaginaries of automation technologies, often stemming from the digital industries. When the organisational logic of public administration clashes with the promises of emerging automation technologies, new organisational forms and temporalities take shape, here referred to as click-level bureaucracy and duct-tape solutionism.

Based on digital ethnographic research with stakeholders from approximately ten Swedish municipalities, this paper explores how these new organisational forms and temporalities take shape. Two central and interrelated ideas anchor this exploration. Firstly, the future will necessitate automation to prevent the public sector from collapsing as it is perceived as dysfunctional and in need of repair. Secondly, we must prepare for an automated future by transforming today's work forms and routines to be compatible with machine communication when needed.

The interaction between these two lines of thought reveals that preparations involve constant repair work, yet these efforts are rarely deemed satisfactory. Instead, they become temporary, makeshift solutions that continually defer the anticipated future. In this sense, repair becomes a form of future-making where the future is persistently delayed, making it a perpetually moving target while at the same time building up a new form of bureaucracy that requires novel competencies and forms of management that necessarily involves representation from the digital industries.

This paper explores the Swedish public sector's response to an impending demographic crisis, particularly the challenges posed by an ageing population. It scrutinises the paradoxical perception of automation, especially Robotic Process Automation (RPA), as both a panacea and a stopgap measure. The paper identifies two main themes: the pressing need to rejuvenate the public sector through automation to avert potential collapse, and the reshaping of current work practices to suit an automated, albeit uncertain, future. At the core of this analysis is the idea of automation as a continual journey, not a final solution. This journey is akin to a form of repair work, where automation technologies act as provisional, duct-tape solutions, perpetually pushing the boundaries of the future. The paper argues that the role of automation extends beyond the mere elimination of human labour; it is about its transformation. Automation emerges as a catalyst for organisational change, enforcing uniformity and challenging traditional, individualised work methods. In summary, this paper highlights the nuanced use of metaphors of breakage and repair in steering the public sector's organisational transformation. It positions automation as a pivotal yet elusive concept, emphasising the complexity and temporality of solutionism in the face of uncertain futures.

In the realm of Swedish public administration, there is a growing recognition of automation as a fertile ground for innovation and efficiency. This paper, drawing upon ethnographic research with key stakeholders in Swedish municipalities, investigates how the public sector is responding to an anticipated demographic crisis, with a particular focus on the challenges presented by an ageing population. It critically examines the dual role of automation, especially Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Generative AI, perceived simultaneously as a comprehensive remedy and a makeshift solution. Central to this exploration are two predominant themes: firstly, the urgent necessity to rejuvenate the public sector through automation to prevent an impending collapse, and secondly, the need to adapt current work practices to an automated yet unpredictable future. This paper posits that automation represents a continuous journey of adaptation, rather than a definitive endpoint. This journey is metaphorically likened to ongoing repair work, where automation technologies function as flexible, 'duct-tape' solutions, continually extending the horizons of what is possible in public administration. The analysis delves into the transformative role of automation, arguing that its impact goes beyond the mere reduction of human labour. Instead, automation is seen as a catalyst for organisational change, promoting standardisation and challenging the entrenched norms of individualised work methods. In conclusion, this paper demonstrates how the use of metaphors related to breakage and repair can be used to understand the public sector's organisational transformation. It offers insights into how the anticipated futures of automation are shaping the future of public administration in Sweden, not just as a tool for efficiency, but as a key driver of organisational evolution and adaptation.

With the rise of digital technologies, digital transformation (DT) has become an issue in nearly all industries. In enterprises, DT means to digitalize internal processes, offer digital services as well as products, and enhance the customer experience. As the transformation is complex, barriers hinder the successful transformation. However, an instrument for the measurement of barriers and their effects on the DT of an organization is missing. Our research questions are therefore: What are the barriers to DT in industry and industry-related areas? How can they be described and measured?

There is a distinction between participants and observers; the former performs an activity, whereas the latter spectates. The idea of observers who can influence activities is largely unexplored and could contain potential use-cases for eye-trackers and improve social presence in digital settings. This thesis adds to existing research by investigating whether higher degrees of observer influence correspond to increased social presence perception in digital co-located settings. It also provides designers with a tool that helps design and evaluate interactions accounting for observers' influences. The thesis presents five gaze implementations across two games that allow observers to influence them to investigate the hypothesised link between social presence perception and an observer's degree of influence. The results indicate that the link exists, although more tests are necessary to determine whether there is a noticeable difference between observers who impact activities directly and indirectly. 

This introductory chapter presents an overview and a synthesis of the chapters in the The De Gruyter Handbook of Automated Futures. Divided into sections on Imaginaries, Interactions, and Impact, the handbook presents a research agenda that explores futures, automation, and change from social scientific perspectives. These sections serve as heuristic sites for reframing narratives on automation, investigating human and algorithmic interactions, and exploring engaging ways for the social sciences, humanities, and design to participate in shaping automated futures. The Imaginaries section deconstructs dominant narratives of automated futures, emphasising historical antecedents and ideological tensions. Interactions delve into the complex dynamics between humans and automated systems, highlighting strategies to infuse automation with human dimensions and promote inclusivity. Impact focuses on making automated futures sustainable and ethical, advocating for innovative methodologies and interdisciplinary collaboration. Finally, this chapter offers insights into how the handbook can inspire into envisioning, understanding, and shaping automated futures in a playful and designerly manner. It encourages critical reflection, ethical engagement, and participatory approaches to ensure the development of inclusive, equitable, and sustainable automation futures.

How does automation affect us, our environment, and our imaginations? What actions should we take in response to automation? Beyond grand narratives and technology-driven visions of the future, what more can automation offer?

With these questions in mind, The De Gruyter Handbook of Automated Futures provides a framework for thinking about and implementing automation differently. It consolidates automated futures as an inter- and transdisciplinary research field, embedding the imaginaries, interactions, and impacts of automation technology within their social, historical, societal, cultural, and political contexts. Promoting a critical yet constructive and engaging agenda, the handbook invites readers to collaborate with rather than resist automation agendas. It does so by pushing the agenda for social science, humanities and design beyond merely assessing and evaluating existing technologies. Instead, the handbook demonstrates how the humanities and social sciences are essential to the design and governance of sustainable sociotechnical systems. Methodologically, the handbook is underpinned by a pedagogical approach to staging co-learning and co-creation of automated futures with, rather than simply for, people. In this way, the handbook encourages readers to explore new and alternative modes of research, fostering a deeper engagement with the evolving landscape of automation. 

Practice-based Experiential Learning Analytics Research and Support (PELARS) is a project about learning and making. The PELARS project finds ways of generating "analytics" (data about the learning process and analysis of this data), which helps learners and teachers by providing feedback from hands-on, project-based and experiential learning situations. In this paper, we present our proposal for improving analytics education with hands-on, project-based and experimental scenarios for engineering students. This is done through teacher and learner engagement, user studies and evaluated trials, performed at UCV (University of Craiova, Romania) and DTU Diplom (Technical University of Denmark, Campus Ballerup, Denmark). The PELARS project provides technological tools and ICT-based methods for collecting activity data ( moving image-based and embedded sensing) for learning analytics (data-mining and reasoning) of practice-based and experiential STEM.

Explainable AI (XAI) seeks to disclose how an AI system arrives at its outcomes. But the nature of the disclosure depends in part on who needs to understand the AI and the available explanation modalities (e.g., verbal and visual). Users’ preferences regarding explanation modalities might differ, as some might prefer spoken explanations compared to visual ones. However, we argue for broadening the explanation modalities, to consider also tangible and physical forms. In traditional product design, physical forms have mediated people’s interactions with objects; more recently interacting with physical forms has become prominent with IoT and smart devices, such as smart lighting and robotic vacuum cleaners. But how tangible interaction can support AI explanations is not yet well understood.

In this second studio proposal on Graspable AI (GAI) we seek to explore design qualities of physical forms as an explanation modality for XAI. We anticipate that the design qualities of physical forms and their tangible interactivity can not only contribute to the explainability of AI through facilitating dialogue, relationships and human empowerment, but they can also contribute to critical and reflective discourses on AI. Therefore, this proposal contributes to design agendas that expand explainable AI into tangible modalities, supporting a more diverse range of users in their understanding of how a given AI works and the meanings of its outcomes.

Computational systems are becoming increasingly smart and automated. Artificial intelligence (AI) systems perceive things in the world, produce content, make decisions for and about us, and serve as emotional companions. From music recommendations to higher-stakes scenarios such as policy decisions, drone-based warfare, and automated driving directions, automated systems affect us all.

But researchers and other experts are asking, How well do we understand this alien intelligence? If even AI developers don’t fully understand how their own neural networks make decisions, what chance does the public have to understand AI outcomes? For example, AI systems decide whether a person should get a loan; so what should—what can—that person understand about how the decision was made? And if we can’t understand it, how can any of us trust AI?

The emerging area of explainable AI (XAI) addresses these issues by helping to disclose how an AI system arrives at its outcomes. But the nature of the disclosure depends in part on the audience, or who needs to understand the AI. A car, for example, can send warnings to consumers (“Tire Pressure Low”) and also send highly technical diagnostic codes that only trained mechanics can understand. Explanation modality is also important to consider. Some people might prefer spoken explanations compared to visual ones. Physical forms afford natural interaction with some smart systems, like vehicles and vacuums, but whether tangible interaction can support AI explanation has not yet been explored.

In the summer of 2020, a group of multidisciplinary researchers collaborated on a studio proposal for the 2021 ACM Tangible Embodied and Embedded (TEI) conference. The basic idea was to link conversations about tangible and embodied interaction and product semantics to XAI. Here, we first describe the background and motivation for the workshop and then report on its outcomes and offer some discussion points.

This paper discusses the "Collaborative Foresight" process, which is an initiative organized by the authors in partnership with Media Evolution, a Swedish organization based in Malmö. The foresight cycle in focus aimed to explore potential futures of work with emerging AI technologies by engaging a diverse group of experts and community members in forecasting and “futuring” activities, following the methodology offered by Media Evolution. The authors actively participated in this cycle, which allowed for a thorough examination of the methodologies utilized in such foresight exercises.

At the heart of our investigation is the dynamic tension between "future-makers" - those actively shaping possible futures, and "future-takers" - individuals adapting to these projected scenarios. Our study explores how the interplay and evolving tensions between these roles are influenced by the structure of foresight practice and the facilitator's practices. We investigate how this approach fosters a participatory environment where participants are encouraged to not only predict but also contribute actively to the creation of future work paradigms within the boundaries of the foresight cycle structure.

Our analysis focuses on the methodology of the foresight cycle, highlighting its role as a facilitative and inhibitory tool that requires participants to oscillate between the imaginative realms of future-making and the practicalities of future-taking. The research illuminates the importance of questioning initiatives such as collaborative foresighting and their role in shaping industry narratives about the future of work.

This thesis project explores how interactive technologies can facilitate a sense of social connectedness with others whilst remotely located. While studying the way humans use rituals for emotional management, I focused my interest on the act of commensality because it is one of the oldest and most important rituals used to foster togetherness among families and groups of friends. Dining with people who do not belong to the same household is of course hard during a global pandemic, just like many of the other forms of social interactions that were forcibly replaced by the use of technological means such as video-chat apps, instant messaging and perhaps an excessive use of social networking websites. These ways of staying connected, however, lack the subtleties of real physical interaction, which I tried to replicate with my prototype system, which consists of two sets of a lamp and a coaster which enable to communicate through light and tactile cues. The use of such devices creates a new kind of ritual based on the simultaneous use of the devices by two people, thus enabling a new and original form of commensality that happens through a shared synchronized experience. 

In our progressively digitized world, the escalating demand for software solutions intensifies the need for proficient developers. Low-Code Development Platforms (LCDPs) present a promising approach to address this necessity, empowering individuals without traditional programming skills to create software applications. However, despite their potential, these platforms are often not accessible or intuitive for non-professional developers. This research examines the design of LCDPs, with an emphasis on enhancing the user experience for non-programmers. By investigating the usability of LCDPs and designing a prototype based on the findings, my aim is to contribute to the ongoing discussion about the democratization of software development and to propose enhancements that could make LCDPs more user-friendly, inclusive, and usable across devices. The research involves a combination of literature review, interviews, prototype development, and user testing, providing a multifaceted perspective on the topic. Moreover, it discusses potential implications for the design of LCDPs, as well as for the broader field of interaction design.

As a consequence of the burgeoning awareness about the degree to which communication and information technologies transformed democratic deliberation, political struggles over disinformation ensued in a number of countries. This master’s Degree Project focuses on the politics of falsehood to answer the following question: to which degree does the theory on post-truth worlds (PTW) explain the main themes articulated by legislators and platform representatives at parliamentary hearings about disinformation in comparison to a MCD-inspired perspective defined as ICT3D? The theoretical framework explains the main concepts in PTW (Farkas & Shou, 2020) and ICT3D, which is defined by this DP as the contentious field concerning the mediation of collective affairs by the intersection of deliberation systems, data politics and development dimensions within and across societies worldwide. The empirical section presents a thematic content analysis of three study cases that are used to compare both approaches, consisting of 15 parliamentary inquiries of digital platforms in the United States, the United Kingdom and Brazil within the context of right-wing ruling between 2017 and 2020. The results confirm the relevance of PTW as an interpretative key to the meta-deliberation between legislators and platform representatives, but also identify many contents that either go beyond the scope of PTW or present nuances and tensions within PTW-related codes. The findings also provide a number of conclusions on the potential of ICT3D as a theoretical approach: the contentious intertwining of data politics, deliberative systems and development dimensions was demonstrated to be present in meta-deliberation; the wide array of development dimensions raised in all cases shows the pertinence of ICT3D to Comdev; and ICT3D has also proven to be of value in demonstrating the absence of certain themes and contents that should be expected in meta-deliberation from a critical perspective. The discussion elaborates on the explanatory potential and limits of PTW and ICT3D, concluding that they operate at different levels: PTW are specific discursive formations - among others - that articulate themes and contents about ICT3D.

Från och med 1 april 2022 klassas inte längre Covid-19 som en allmänfarlig- eller samhällsfarlig sjukdom och restriktionerna som tidigare tvingade fram digital vägledning i skolor gäller inte längre.Studiens syfte och frågeställning är att undersöka hur studie- och yrkesvägledare förhåller sig till digital vägledning efter covid-19 pandemin och vilka fördelar- samt nackdelar de upplevt med digital vägledning.I denna kvalitativa studie intervjuades sex studie- och yrkesvägledare där alla informanterna var verksamma på olika grundskolor. Intervjuerna har gjorts med utgångspunkt i en semistrukturerad intervjuguide.Genom att analysera intervjuerna med hjälp av Malténs kommunikationsteori och Egans The Skilled Helper Model har vi besvarat vårt syfte och frågeställning. Egan och Maltén beskriver bland annat att icke-verbal kommunikation är en viktig komponent i kommunikation då denna utgör en stor del av samtal.Resultaten i denna studie visar att digital vägledning missar en del av den icke-verbala kommunikationen då parterna till viss del inte kan se varandras kroppsspråk.Det framkommer även att samtliga informanter har uppfattningen att den digitala vägledningen aldrig kan ersätta det fysiska mötet face-to-face men att det finns fler fördelar än nackdelar med digital vägledning.I studien lyfts också att vissa särskilda grupper, till exempel elever med NPF-diagnos och hemmasittare gynnas av digital vägledning.

The UNECE strategy (2022) empowers vital HESD initiatives and virtually extended, reality-based education. Challenges in hybrid meetings beyond classrooms need to be synchronized virtually connecting participants in different time zones. Challenges identified are on how an all-day programme could look like during a conference, focusing on how teachers can break through deep-rooted normative learning and teaching patterns and encourage eco-reflexive thinking to catch sustainability learning affordances inspired by non-formal (i.e., grassroots) organizations as a foundation towards sustainable development. The purpose of this study is to investigate what happens when student teachers are offered innovative tools to transform and design hybrid learning spaces for the Caretakers of the Environment International (CEI), an international sustainability focused network of school youth and subject teachers, ahead of an upcoming conference CEI 2024 in Sweden. A MOOC was launched as outreach at Malmö university for the CEI (n=350) from twenty countries. In a partnership with Landskrona Municipality and MaU Innovation Center a hackathon was conducted for further research and educational development of higher education didactics for sustainability, remote learning, didactic modelling, Bildung and critical eco-reflexive perspectives. Within that context, student teachers were designing learning activities in the prolonging of the MOOC course on "Education, Regulation and Collaboration for a Sustainable Future" for the CEI 2024, to advance awareness of the urgent knowledge formation in professional networks, pedagogical development of hybrid solutions and digitization of learning moments to share and implement critical knowledge capabilities between different actors in society. The findings illuminate student teachers’ struggle with innovative concepts i.e. entrepreneurial design versus stereotypes of teaching roles. The study concludes that subject didactics and didactic modelling are beneficial within a systematic design thinking framework to enable student teachers to deliver a substantive quality of powerful sustainability knowledge bridging to augmented learning reality via hybrid citizenship contexts.

Museums are participating in the capturing of global data for the perceived benefit of improved relationships with the public. This article proposes a framework for critically analyzing the ratification of museum visitors and visitor engagement, combining a critical lens from data studies with a social view of datafication as practice—a set of practices within a sociotechnical assemblage that is continuously reproduced by the choices made within and outside the museum. Museums are situated at the intersection of PierreBourdieu’s economic, cultural, and political fields; thus, I highlight some of the external social and technological pressures driving datafication in museums. Relying on public accounts and previous case studies, I argue that datafication of visitor engagement is made to work through data loops: circular processes between institutional practices of museums and social practices of audiences where data are collected, processed, and decided upon.

This anthology contributes to creating awareness on how digital ageism operates in relation to the widely spread symbolic representations of old and young age around digital technologies, the (lack of) representation of diverse older individuals in the design, development, and marketing of digital technologies and in the actual algorithms and datasets that constitute them. It also shows how individuals and institutions deal with digital ageism in everyday life.

In the past decades, digital technologies permeated most aspects of everyday life. With a focus on how age is represented and experienced in relation to digital technologies leading to digital ageism, digitalisation’s reinforcement of spirals of exclusion and loss of autonomy of some collectives is explored, when it could be natural for a great part of society and represent a sort of improvement.

The book addresses social science students and scholars interested in everyday digital technologies, society and the power struggles about it, providing insights from different parts of the globe. By using different methods and touching upon different aspects of digital ageism and how it plays out in contemporary connected data societies, this volume will raise awareness, challenge power, initiate discussions and spur further research into this field.

Hay muchos desafíos con la dataficación de las sociedades contemporáneas. Uno de ellos son los sesgos de diseño de los algoritmos que usan las plataformas digitales. Otro desafío se refiere a los sesgos de los datos que los algoritmos usan para tomar decisiones automatizadas y cómo se usan estas. Tanto el diseño algorítmico como los datos refuerzan la discriminación de los colectivos menos favorecidos, y particularmente de las personas mayores.

In data societies, as everyday activities are mediated by digital technologies, individuals are thrown into a digital existence, even if they are not aware of their digital interactions. Digital technologies are not value-free or unbiased. Contemporary discourses about digital natives and late adopters contribute to reinforcing negative stereotypes about older users of digital technologies and influence the design, development, marketing and usage of digital technologies. Such discourses disregard how digital trajectories and personal circumstances influence media use in all stages of everyday life. Hence, occasional digital technology users, and older adults in particular, stand a higher risk of exclusion and loss of autonomy. In this chapter, we briefly introduce ageism and digital ageism in data societies, definitions and previous research as a background and introduction to the following chapters. Our aim is to underline how socio-technical and cultural analyses may contribute to raising awareness about digital ageism in data societies. Only by initiating a discussion may existing power relationships be challenged and contemporary inequalities understood.

This chapter addresses a neglected issue within the field of social media and political communication. It focuses on interaction processes on Instagram asking how political parties used Instagram—a platform that is centered around images—when engaging in interaction with their followers on the platform. The focus is on political parties' use of Instagram in the 2014 Swedish national election campaign. This gives an impression of the first attempts of political parties' use of this communication platform. The quantitative content analysis focuses on Instagram images including their captions and comments (posts) that Swedish parties published four weeks prior to Election Day. The results suggest that not much changes on Instagram compared to other social media platforms: Swedish political parties hardly used Instagram to interact with their followers, and the very few interactions taking place did not contribute to the exchange of relevant and substantive information about politics. Interaction and deliberation are also not enhanced by the images.

In 2024, widespread usage of generative AI affects ComDev practitioners in their day-today jobs and have far-reaching implications for our societies. This thesis aims to (1) discover if humanitarians communicate about GenAI ethically and responsibly, (2) examine the existing power dynamics in shaping the discourses, and (3) determine if AI ethical frameworks help to safeguard the interests of vulnerable communities effectively. Though existing paradigms in Critical ICT4D and Digital for Development have suggested the need for critical reflections, this thesis has identified a gap in practical recommendations for Communication for Development. This research was conducted using a semi-systematic literature review and critical discourse analysis with two coding cycles on NVivo. Subsequently, themes, stakeholder maps, and a longitudinal analysis were derived to provide a practical toolkit to ComDev practitioners. Currently, there are multiple discussions and workshops in the area of GenAI in Geneva. However, the digital divide remains an ICT4D problem. Despite a boom in AI regulations and frameworks, organisations work in silos and maximise profits. Thus, there is a need for cross-sector collaboration and de-colonial programmes to mitigate the risks of the digital divide for vulnerable communities.  

For sexual minorities in Africa, fake news is nothing new. However, with the arrival of self-controlled digital platforms, sexual minorities are presented with new ways to counter coverage that misrepresents the community. Inspired by affordance theory and agenda-setting theory, this study explores whether self-controlled digital platforms are used to challenge false media reports on sexual minorities in Uganda, and if so, to what extent. Through a cross-media research design, the largest English-language daily newspaper, the government-owned New Vision, is analysed and positioned against the main sexual minority network's (SMUG’s) public Facebook and Twitter accounts at two points in time in 2013/2014 and in 2018. The study finds that, although social media channels afford direct engagement with false media reports, the platforms are under-utilised as spaces regarding countering false reporting on LGBTQIs. Furthermore, this lack of engagement with the media was found to be stable over time.

With ample evidence that foreign state actors and non-state norm entrepreneurs are engaged in misinformation and disinformation campaigns challenging the European Union’s human rights framework on LGBT+, this study analyses the narratives that these actors disseminate. Based on two methods – a standard literature review of academic and “grey” literature, as well as complementary analysis of entries in the EUvsDisinfo database – the study identifies four main narratives that can be attributed to or are actively sponsored by non-European actors: 1) Opposing gender ideology and protecting God’s order, 2) Heteroactivism and the protection of the rights of the “natural” family, 3) LGBT+ rights as Western colonialism, and 4) LGBT+ rights as a threat to the rights of children. Even though EU’s strong protection of freedom of speech makes it challenging to address misinformation and disinformation that falls outside hate-speech legislation, this paper argues that exploring the following counter measures could be worthwhile: 1) harmonization of European legal frameworks, 2) financial scrutiny and 3) strengthened automatic detection, editorial policies, and community flagging, as well as the capacity to systematically deal with misinformation and disinformation campaign targeting LGBT+ across digital spaces in Europe.

This chapter zooms in on the Silicon Valley, the US centre for innovative technology and home to 2000 technology companies. Inspired by the terminology of Sassen (2014), this chapter will describe how the technology industry has created a system of multiple modes of expulsions of “older” workers – from work relations, workspaces, ideologies and values, as well as digital products and services. The main purpose is to propose a theoretical framework guiding future empirical and critical research into the phenomenon of ageism, as well as other systems of oppression and discrimination in the technology industry. In this chapter, we propose a concept of “Silicon Valley Ageism” which is understood as negative attitudes, beliefs and behaviours towards adults perceived as “older” and manifested in interpersonal relations and institutional practices, as well as their narratives. This type of ageism can affect people already in their 30s. The aim of the chapter is to explore (1) what narratives of “older” age are constructed in Silicon Valley, (2) how this relates to workplace practices in the Valley and (3) how this has a bearing on the products and services coming out of Silicon Valley.

Svensk sjukvård har som ambition att ligga långt fram i den digitala utvecklingen samtidigt som man idag har problem med en stor mängd mindre system och integrationen mellan dessa. Det beror mycket på den styrning som man använt sig av. Detta arbete avser att besvara frågan kring hur svenska sjukvårdsorganisationer arbetar med styrning av digitalisering och vilka utmaningar som finns där. För att besvara detta har 6 st personer inom olika regioner med betydande roller inom förändringsarbete intervjuats. Resultatet från materialet visar på att digitaliseringsarbetet utgår från behov för att minimera risker samt att den digitala mognaden är svårdefinierad inom organisationen vilket leder till bristande kommunikation. Diskussionen utgår från individens perspektiv och organisationens perspektiv. I mötet mellan  individen och organisationen identifieras fyra stycken utmaningar inom IT-styrningen. Sammanfattningsvis så behöver svenska sjukvårdsorganisationer ta steget ifrån den klassiska organisering och IT-styrning som råder idag och öka sin omställningsförmåga för att överkomma de identifierade utmaningarna.

Departing from popular imaginations around artificial intelligence (AI), this article engages in the I in the AI acronym but from perspectives outside of mathematics, computer science and machine learning. When intelligence is attended to here, it most often refers to narrow calculating tasks. This connotation to calculation provides AI an image of scientificity and objectivity, particularly attractive in societies with a pervasive desire for numbers. However, as is increasingly apparent today, when employed in more general areas of our messy socio-cultural realities, AI- powered automated systems often fail or have unintended consequences. This article will contribute to this critique of AI by attending to Nicholas of Cusa and his treatment of intelligence. According to him, intelligence is equally dependent on an ability to handle the unknown as it unfolds in the present moment. This suggests that intelligence is organic which ties Cusa to more contemporary discussions in tech philosophy, neurology, evolutionary biology, and cognitive sciences in which it is argued that intelligence is dependent on having—and acting through—an organic body. Understanding intelligence as organic thus suggests an oxymoronic relationship to artificial.

In order to discuss, evaluate, and address social consequences of digitalization, we need to study and understand key people and events behind today’s digital innovations. This research contributes to an ongoing discussion within critical data studies by focusing on humans and meeting places shaping digital innovations that are/will be realized in this connected and data-saturated society we find ourselves in. The focus will be on angel investors and venture capitalist, pitching events and conferences where innovators and investors meet and intermingle. I will present conclusions from pilot studies conducted in Sweden (Malmö, at MINC-Malmö Incubator), South Africa (Stellenbosch, at the LaunchLab) and the US (Austin, at SXSW – South by southwest conference & Silicon Valley, at Facebook and Google headquarters). The overall research question is how key people and events contribute to, and shape, current and future digital innovations. With my expertise coming from the Social Sciences, the focus will be on culture (in an anthropological understanding of culture) which in this project operationalized through norms, values, rituals, and imaginaries surrounding humans and meeting places behind digital innovations. What consequences does these norms, values, rituals, and imaginaries have in our digitalized societies?  

The project departs from the importance attributed to digital innovations, the promise they bring with a more connected world where digital innovations are believed to solve most, if not all, problems that our society faces such as climate change, infection tracing, increased polarization, and intolerance. I am still conducting these pilot studies (the last will be in June) and by the time of the conference I will have results to present. 

This chapter seeks to make sense of automated decision-making and the role of humans in it by zooming in on imaginaries of algorithmic automation and the socio-institutional practices these were embedded in, in the everyday life of a news-ranking algorithm. The study is set in the newsroom of a Swedish daily. Algorithms are understood as culture, as unstable and developed through a variety of imaginaries and social practices that people in institutions employ and engage in when navigating algorithmic automation. One such practice was Algorithm Coffee; involving regular meetings to discuss the working and potential bettering of the algorithm. Imaginaries revolved around technological solutionism, how the algorithm could solve the newspaper’s problem with profitability by automating tasks previously undertaken manually by an editor. Nevertheless, the algorithm was labelled editor-led, allowing human editors to still oversee some of its parameters. Thus the algorithm did not interfere with journalisms’ imagined democratic purpose. By attending to everyday social dynamics around the news-ranking algorithm, the chapter underlines how algorithms are caught up within a set of relations through which the meaning and boundaries of algorithmic automation is negotiated. Therefore, the chapter argues that the everyday impacts automation as much as automation impacts the everyday.

Det här kapitlet handlar om människor och medieteknik. I vår tids uppkopplade samhälle är det svårt att undvika digitala medieteknik eftersom vi kastas in ett digitalt mänskligt tillstånd som vi inte kan undkomma. Det påverkar dig, ditt liv och det samhälle som du lever i. Således är det viktigt att förstå - inte bara hur digitala medier påverkar oss som människor - utan även människorna bakom medietekniken, den kultur de kommer ifrån och i vilken de verkar. Jag har forskat på den roll som programmerare spelar för vilken medieteknik som utvecklas samt hur den utvecklas. Men hur skulle man kunna studera medieteknikens människor? I detta kapitel utgår jag ifrån teknikens mänskliga aspekter, hur teknik, samhälle och individ ömsesidigt påverkar varandra, samt ger ett verktyg för hur man kan studera medieteknikens människor utifrån en kulturell analysmodell. Med det här kapitlet som guide kommer du kvalitativt – genom intervjuer, observationer eller textanalys – kunna genomföra studier av medieteknikens människor, samt reflektera över hur teknik, människa och samhälle hör ihop och påverkar varandra. 

This article attends to how opponents of LGBT+ rights today frame themselves as pro human rights and pro the ‘natural’ family, something that has been highlighted in the recent scholarship of heteroactivism. But the role of digital media has not yet been given the attention it deserves. Since there is reason to suspect that heteroactivism is well adapted to the logics of digital media, we therefore exploratively study the International Organization for the Family (IOF)s Twitter feed June - August 2021. The study finds that contrary to expectations, the emotional tone of the tweets was more negative than positive. This suggests that the supposed shift from anti to pro is more cosmetical and directed to the outside, while the Twitter feed is directed towards supporters. To mobilize these, IOF combines a clear positive goal with a sense of urgency being under attack by outside adversaries. 

This presentation attends to tensions and negotiations surrounding the introduction and development of a news-ranking algorithm in a Swedish daily. Approaching algorithms as culture, being composed of collective human practices, the study emphasizes socio-institutional dynamics in the everyday life of the algorithm. The focus on tensions and negotiations is justified from an institutional perspective and operationalized through an analytical framework of logics. Empirically the study is based on interviewswith 14 different in-house workers at the daily, journalists as well as programmers andmarket actors. The study shows that logics connected to both journalism and programming co-developed the news-ranking algorithm. Tensions and their negotiations around these logics contributed to its very development.One example is labeling of the algorithm as editor-led, allowing journalists to oversee some of its parameters. Social practices in the newsroom, such as Algorithm-Coffee, was also important for its development. In other words, different actors, tensions between them and how these were negotiated, co-constituted by the algorithm itself.

This article attends to tensions and negotiations surrounding the introduction and development of a news-ranking algorithm in a Swedish daily. Approaching algorithms as culture, being composed of collective human practices, the study emphasizes socio-institutional dynamics in the everyday life of the algorithm. The focus on tensions and negotiations is justified from an institutional perspective and operationalized through an analytical framework of logics. Empirically the study is based on interviews with 14 different in-house workers at the daily, journalists as well as programmers and market actors. The study shows that logics connected to both journalism and programming co-developed the news-ranking algorithm. Tensions and their negotiations around these logics contributed to its very development. One example is labeling of the algorithm as editor-led, allowing journalists to oversee some of its parameters. Social practices in the newsroom, such as Algorithm-Coffee, was also important for its development. In other words, different actors, tensions between them and how these were negotiated, co-constituted by the algorithm itself.

This contribution revolves around political discussions in forum discussion threads on the Swedish online LGBTQ community platform, Qruiser. Political discussions in these online forum threads are studied as cultural participation in an online cultural public sphere. The specific question the chapter seeks to answer is what role so-called lurkers play for active participants’ meaning-making practices. Lurkers could be understood as a fantasy, an imagined audience willing to listen and be persuaded by active participants’ arguments. However, applying a Lacan inspired analytical framework, the chapter will conclude that the fantasy is not so much about the lurkers themselves (that may be imagined or just invisible), but the belief in persuasion. Hence, the answer to the question of why users participate in verbal battles with each other online would be because they are driven by a fantasy of persuasion as a way to cope with the lack of enjoyment in terms of them being split from a harmonious world of political unity.

This chapter aims to understand tech culture, its values, and its biases. The chapter revolves around a mapping of the magic metaphor in tech, how it is used, and what its function is. It concludes that the magic metaphor signals the possibility of the impossible, of solving all kinds of problems: the physical so-called “real” world has shortcomings that can be addressed through programming languages on big sets of data, which can make our world a better place in the future. Manipulation, control, and progress are themes that resonate in modernity. Therefore, I argue that tech culture could be understood as modern mathemagics. I depart from the current disenchantment with tech, most passionately addressed in the field of critical data studies. I will connect this to 16th-century theologian and philosopher Bruno’s teachings on magic, in which he argued that mathematical magic risks becoming evil.

With mis-and disinformation actively challenging the European human rights framework on LGBT+ and ample evidence of foreign actors’ norm entrepreneurship; this study analyses the narratives that can be tied to foreign actors. Based on two methods: a standard literature review of academic and ‘grey’ literature as well as complementary analysis of entries in the EUvsDisinfo database; the study identifies four main narratives that can be attributed to or sponsored by non-European actors: a) Opposing a ‘gender ideology’ and the attack on Gods order, b) Heteroactivism and the protection of the rights the ‘natural’ family  c) LGBT+ rights as colonialism by the West d) LGBT+ rights as a threat to child safety. Mis- and disinformation narratives appear to be carried out by a variety of constellations of heterogeneous actors, where international actors cooperate with European partners. Albeit the EU’s strong protection of freedom of speech, makes it challenging to address mis- and disinformation that falls outside hate-speech legislation; the following counter measures may be worthwhile exploring: 1) harmonization of European legal frameworks, 2) scrutiny of financial flows and 3) strengthened AI and human capacity to create detections systems for mis- and disinformation across digital spaces in Europe. 

How do professionals at the forefront of digital technologies perceive their own work? Conducting 39 interviews with programmers around the world I asked them to describe their workday and then reflect upon an ideal workday.  Ideals revolved around the pleasure of solving difficult problems, to disrupt and to innovate, but ultimately to make the world a better place through their work. Many talked about a pleasurable state of “flow” in which they almost merged with the computer (their work tool). The empirical material reveals two interesting differences; one is between freelance programmers and those employed in big tech. Freelance programmers, in general, valued a work-life balance, clearly separating home and office, while big tech employees, on the other hand, tended to be younger (without kids), spending time in offices that blurred boundaries between home and office, providing employees with everything from ice cream parlors to fitness centers. Second, while most programmers looked at their profession as a vocation, programmers growing up in Asia (India and China) approached their profession as a means to a comfortable and exciting life (in terms of salary and working outside of their home countries). From this study, I will suggest that sustainable socio-technical work futures will be shaped around the new, the innovative and the meaningful. Work will, also in the future, be understood as a means to earn a living, but a meaningful one, and meaningful while earning it, as well as flexible and individually adaptable.