Vi anpassar oss ständigt till de medieteknologier vi lever våra liv med, men hur kan vi få kunskap om hur de får oss människor att agera på olika sätt? I det här kapitlet får du bekanta dig med digital teknografi, en metod för att studera och analysera framväxande digitala teknologier som sätter teknologierna och deras förväntningar i centrum. Kapitlet utgår från självövervakningsteknologier, företrädesvis ”smarta” smycken, men fungerar lika bra för tjänster som TikTok och Instagram. Du får veta mer om nyckelbegrepp för att analysera marknadsföringsmaterial av framväxande digitala teknologier. Genom detta lär du dig hur till synes oskyldiga mobilappar kan bli föremål för vetenskapliga studier, kritik och teoretiserande.

I en tid då medielandskapet är i ständig förändring och traditionell medieforskning konstant utmanas ökar behovet av att förena teknik, humaniora och samhällsvetenskap. Medie- och teknikforskning kräver innovativa angreppssätt för att navigera bland komplexa relationer mellan kultur, samhälle, ekonomi och teknologi.

I den här boken bjuder ledande forskare in till samtal om teknologins utmaningar och möjligheter. Här presenteras redskap för att utforska, beskriva, begreppsliggöra och förstå nya relationer mellan medieteknologier och deras omvärld – en kunskap som förbereder läsaren att på egen hand kombinera samhällsvetenskapernas kritiska analyser med teknikvetenskapernas tradition att utveckla tillförlitliga och effektiva system.

Tekniska mediestudier riktar sig till studenter inom ämnen som medieteknik, medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap, kulturvetenskap, data- och systemvetenskap, interaktionsdesign och informatik.

How can we, as social scientists, make sense of the promises and implications of automated and data-driven systems that are becoming increasingly ubiquitous and essential for the Nordic welfare states? What are the theoretical and methodological tensions and possibilities that these systems pose to research when they assemble and disassemble existing structures, organisational logics and dependencies?

Over the last few years, critical social science research has established that data harvesting and digital tracking, in particular, pose a general societal challenge that risks undermining Nordic values of autonomy and equity and the overall welfare of people. At the same time, the welfare state and welfare provision are increasingly characterised by processes of datafication, promoting uses of data analytics and automated decision-making (ADM). Researchers have flagged datafication as a specific concern for the public sector in relation to questions of ADM systems, and other forms of data-driven optimization. Despite the burgeoning literature on various concerns and the ethical guidelines and regulatory initiatives that try to respond to them, however, we have engaged so far with a limited range of theoretical and methodological approaches to explore the social dynamics at play in concrete contexts of ADM.

This roundtable brings together key scholars that engage critically with the social aims and implications of datafication to address how ADM is imagined, practised and experienced in different empirical contexts and across various organisational levels in the Nordics. The roundtable will open with short ’provocations’ through which the speakers present and contextualise concepts they have used or would like to promote in the study of emerging automated and data-driven systems. The provocations are followed by a joint discussion about how these concepts can support sociological research that studies the promises and implications of automated and data-driven systems as part of the myths and realities of the Nordic welfare states, now and in the future.

This paper explores the role of anticipated futures of automation in public administration. Engaging with ethnographic research with stakeholders from roughly ten municipalities in Sweden, this paper examines the tension between different ways of imagining automated work futures and the extent to which they are associated with (or not) technologies. Automating data-driven processes is believed to alleviate administrative drudgery and support a goal-driven, efficient public sector. Various stakeholders participate in the implementation of automation systems, including corporate actors, managers, politicians, and civil servants. This group of stakeholders has diverse perspectives and expectations regarding the future of work automation and its role in the organisation of public services. Some see automated work processes as a way to boost efficiency, productivity, and precision through algorithmic data processing; others, however, see them as ways to allow professionals to spend less time on repetitive, rule-based, and seemingly tedious tasks, so that they can focus on their core professional practice. Challenging established narratives about work automation, this paper suggests how automation can be used to visualise, think about, and communicate organisational change without involving any technology per se, but rather as an empty signifier to which future-making practices can be affixed and legitimised. By emphasising social expectations and experiences, the paper interrogates emerging automated work futures in ways that move beyond techno-optimism and economic-political goals of efficiency and optimisation, not the least by showing that automation is situated, social and contingent.

This article introduces “digital technography” as a methodology to interrogate and voice emerging digital technologies and their anticipated futures. I demonstrate, with reference to recent research on wearable self-tracking devices, digital food technologies, and platforms for work automation, how one can gain an understanding of these technologies by attending to the materials in which they are promoted; and actively engaging with them imaginatively and self-reflexively as a social scientist. This article outlines a digital technographic methodology centered around the three conceptual anchors of specification, valorization, and anticipation, all of which pertain to how a digital technology aims and perhaps even aspires to become a part of everyday life. 

This Open Access book brings the experiences of automation as part of quotidian life into focus. It asks how, where and when automated technologies and systems are emerging in everyday life across different global regions? What are their likely impacts in the present and future? How do engineers, policy makers, industry stakeholders and designers envisage artificial intelligence (AI) and automated decision-making (ADM) as a solution to individual and societal problems? How do these future visions compare with the everyday realities, power relations and social inequalities in which AI and ADM are experienced? What do people know about automation and what are their experiences of engaging with ‘actually existing’ AI and ADM technologies? An international team of leading scholars bring together research developed across anthropology, sociology, media and communication studies, and ethnology, which shows how by re-humanising automation, we can gain deeper understandings of its societal impacts.

This chapter discusses the Sarah Pink discusses how ethics and trust in AI and ADM have become bound up in industry and government frameworks which treat them as commodities which can be extracted from faceless publics and invested in machines. The second reason that automated technologies receive high levels of publicity or promotion is when they have saved, or are predicted to save, lives: for instance, through accident prevention, medical and pharmaceutical interventions or in humanitarian domains. In contrast, experiences and processes of automation as part of quotidian routines in our everyday lives in our homes, transport, at work and in education have slipped under the radar of much popular and academic attention. The messiness of the ADM and AI fields might be seen as a problem, and one way forward involves engaging in a cross-disciplinary mapping of ADM and AI definitions to produce taxonomies and classifications for a shared vocabulary.

In the Nordic countries, which are known for their expansive welfare systems, public administration is increasingly being viewed as a potential automation site. Data-driven process automation is believed to alleviate administrative drudgery and support a goal-driven, efficient public sector. In the implementation of automation systems, a variety of stakeholders participate, including corporate actors, managers, consultants, politicians and civil servants. As stakeholders, these groups have diverse perspectives and expectations regarding the anticipated future of automation and its role in the organization of public services. The idea of automated work processes is accepted by some as a way to boost efficiency, productivity, and precision through algorithmic data processing; others, however, see such systems as ways to let professionals spend less time on repetitive, rule-based, and seemingly tedious tasks so that they can focus on their core professional practice. This paper engages with the tensions between the different ways of imagining automatized futures by reporting from ethnographic research with stakeholders from roughly ten municipalities in Sweden, as well as digital technographic studies of two world- leading work automation platforms. Using the sociology of expectations as a theoretical framework to illuminate these tensions, this paper explores the role of anticipated automation when organizations imagine change. The paper shows that automation can be used to help envision, think about, and communicate organizational change without involving any technology, but rather as a metaphor to which future-making practices can be attached and legitimized. Work automation is understood in the paper as fundamentally social and structured as well as affected by expectations regarding future benefits and potential risks. By explicitly paying attention to expectations and experiences, the paper allows for an interrogation of emerging automated work futures that goes beyond techno- optimism and economic-political goals of efficiency and optimisation, not the least by illustrating work automation’s situated and contingent nature.