This abstract reflects on how to design a course on a topic which is fast evolving and which might change the nature of education, too? A DT course was taught to working graduate students attending an evening program in Business Studies during the spring semester 2019 in Istanbul, Turkey. The course delivery was rather traditional with classroom lectures, including 70% of compulsory attendance. These restrictions were set by the program management. Content-wise the lectures focus on discussing cases of successful DT companies during the lectures. Assignments are done as case study, data collection from the field of DT, and final exam. We followed (Krathwohl 2002) to reflect upon the course development. Feedback data from participating students were collected to serve as a base for analysis. Feedback was collected from 9 out of 14 participants, which represents a rather small population.

The number of mHealth devices and apps is growing continuously, and there is now a plethora of devices available to support health and wellbeing in health care as well as self-care settings. Devices and systems of this kind are increasingly interconnected through various forms of APIs (application programming interface), such as the Apple HealthKit and Google Fit, through which they become part of a larger ecosystem that allows for increased connectivity along with regulated and limited uses of data types. These backstage parts of mHealth and their behind-the scenes decisions are essential to take into account in order to understand what devices and systems of this kind could possibly do, and to what extent they allow for tinkering and everyday improvisation. It is uncommon that research in digital health engages with and question how these invisible backstage layers of control build on certain assumptions and how their design, marketing, and imagined functionality are underpinned by certain understandings of bodies, health, and wellbeing. Drawing on a literature review as well as critical readings of the Apple HealthKit API, this paper engages with how digital infrastructures of this kind could possibly be designed to address the complex nature of health and wellbeing.

Samverkan har blivit en nyckelterm för att förstå akademins förväntade roll i samhället. Genom samverkansprojekt ska nya värden, lösningar och framgångar skördas. Men hur går detta till i praktiken? Samverkan handlar om relationer, och relationer förändras över tid. Just föränderligheten och brokigheten när det gäller samverkan är viktig att förstå. Vilka är utmaningarna och möjligheterna? Samverkan kan leda till praktiska, etiska och även känslomässiga utmaningar, samtidigt som den också kan ge upphov till helt nya värden. I den här boken visar författarna på möjliga vägar för samverkansprojekt och hur forskning inom humaniora och samhällsvetenskap har en viktig plats även utanför akademin.

The chapter looks at the history of audience studies in order to reflect on the datafication turn that is exciting both researchers and practitioners worldwide. By distinguishing six stages in audience research, we discuss what we know of audiences and what we have considered important to study about audiences has changed over time. Now that there is an increasing amount of digital data tracking different aspects of audience actions, there is a sense that we know now more than ever before. However, the argument of the following discussion through the historical phases of audience studies is that we know less than we care to admit. Datafication is seldom connected to the ideas of what kind of questions can we ask about audiences and what the data is actually indicative of. What is collected is not always suitable in answering the questions we might have about the audiences, despite our excitement about the opportunities that the data provides in understanding audiences.

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 turns to the concept of “empowerment” as a result of disenchantment with the concept of “development” in the study of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and social change in the global South. It is a certainty that the proliferation of ICTs (mobile phones in particular) has opened up a range of possibilities and new avenues for individuals, aid agencies, and NGOs. However, overviews of communication supposedly for development reveal a field based on economic understandings of development biased toward techno-determinism. Moreover, these understandings lack sufficient critique and do not take larger contextual factors into account. Therefore, it is argued that empowerment is a better concept to draw upon in the critical study of ICTs and social change. However, empowerment is not an easy concept to define, and no analytical outline of the concept has been found in the existing body of literature. Addressing this lack, this chapter will trace the roots of empowerment in community psychology and in feminist and black power movements as well as explore different understandings of the concept from various disciplines. From this overview, the chapter suggests that empowerment should be studied on a) an intersectional level, b) a contextual level, c) an agency level, and d) a technological level. It further argues that these four levels intersect and must be studied in tandem to understand whether processes of empowerment are taking place, and if so, in what ways? The chapter ends by shortly applying these levels to a study involving market women’s use of mobile phones in Kampala.

This chapter departs from the dichotomy between techno-optimism and normalization and asks the questions how participation online has been – and can be – studied beyond this. The chapter focuses on the theory of media logics, how it has been and can be used when studying online participation. The chapter will end with a discussion of media logics locating it within the field of media and communication – increasingly a popular strand of mediatization.

As technology has become more advanced, self-tracking devices and data have become normal elements of everyday life. Imagining Personal Data examines the implications of the rise of body monitoring and digital self-tracking for how we inhabit, experience and imagine our everyday worlds. Through a focus on how it feels to live in environments where data is emergent, present, and characterised by a sense of uncertainty, the authors argue for a new approach to understanding the implications of self-tracking, and questions what this means for the status of big data. With contributions ranging across the social sciences, the book brings together the concerns of scholars working in design, social sciences, philosophy, and human-computer interaction. It problematizes the body and senses in relation to data and tracking devices, and presents an accessible analytical account of the sensory and affective experiences of self-tracking.

This article departs from active participants and their relationship to lurkers in a particular setting of cultural participation: flaming political discussions in an LGBTQ dating community. The question the article seeks to answer is how active participants positioned themselves and others in these discussions. Active participants did not expect to convince or reason with their opponents; they were addressing an audience of undecided lurkers; users without their opinions formed who were expected to lurk and thus possible to impress with their arguments. The article thus reveals a struggle for recognition on two levels – to be recognized for your flaming capabilities as well as for your arguments and ability to persuade, a struggle in which both opponents and lurkers were of importance

This research project is situated within the area mobile technologies for development (M4D), i.e. that mobile communication technologies play a vital role in the livelihood of people in developing regions. Out of a larger explorative study of how market women in Kampala use their mobile phone(s), this article focuses on the transformation of the so-called informal economy, here in the form of Kampala street markets. Departing from stories of the women themselves, the article discusses the role of mobile telephony in this transformation. The street markets today have become hybridized as mobile money allows for non-street transactions. The appropriation of the mobile phone into these micro enterprises, we argue, has the potential to produce new regulatory spaces, considering that mobile services, located in the formal sector, are deeply embedded in Kampala’s informal economic practices. To make sense of these results, we turn to science, technology and society studies (STS). STS helps us understand the mutual co-production of mobile phone practices and the transformation of the street markets. The mobile phone represents a force for change in the market women’s economic activities, at once challenging and reinforcing the informality of the Kampala markets.

We argue that algorithms are an outcome rather than a replacement of media logics, and ultimately, we advance this argument by connecting human agency to media logics. This theoretical contribution builds on the notion that technology, particularly algorithms are non-neutral, arguing for a stronger focus on the agency that goes into designing and programming them. We reflect on the limits of algorithmic agency and lay out the role of algorithms and agency for the dimensions and elements of network media logic. The article concludes with addressing questions of power, discussing algorithmic agency from both meso and macro perspectives.

Digital Transformation (DT) is an essential trend for manufacturing companies as digitalization of the value chain affects the entire company. Strategic management functions should consider DT technologies and their impact on assets and resources. The knowledge of the possible factors that influence DT positively may ease a realization of gains due to DT. In 20 qualitative interviews, we examined critical factors for DT's success in manufacturing companies. Based on the IS success model of DeLone and McLean, we have derived success factors that can trigger DT success. The success factors describe the three major dimensions in which DT takes place: technology, organization, and environment. The results show that DT can only be successful if companies collaborate with customers, suppliers and also other firms from the branch. A cultural change is necessary to enable an agile working environment as well as more interdisciplinary activities. It becomes evident that the choice of technology is essential. However, driving only technology forward is not enough to gain benefits from DT.

Digital transformation (DT) has become a buzzword, triggering different disciplines in research and influencing practice, which leads to independent research streams. Scholars investigate the antecedents, contingencies, and consequences of these disruptive technologies by examining the use of single technologies or of digitization, in general. Approaches are often very specialized and restricted to their domains. Thus, the immense breadth of technologies and their possible applications conditions a fragmentation of research, impeding a holistic view. With this systematic literature review, we aim to fill this gap in providing an overview of the different disciplines of DT research from a holistic business perspective. We identified the major research streams and clustered them with co-citation network analysis in nine main areas. Our research shows the main fields of interest in digital transformation research, overlaps of the research areas and fields that are still underrepresented. Within the business research areas, we identified three dominant areas in literature: finance, marketing, and innovation management. However, research streams also arise in terms of single branches like manufacturing or tourism. This study highlights these diverse research streams with the aim of deepening the understanding of digital transformation in research. Yet, research on DT still lacks in the areas of accounting, human resource management, and sustainability. The findings were distilled into a framework of the nine main areas for assisting the implications on potential research gaps on DT from a business perspective.