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.

Vad kan falska nyheter, VR-glasögon och aktivitetsarmband lära oss om medieteknik som forskningsämne? Med utgångspunkt i tre forskningsbaserade exempel introducerar vi beräkningsmedier som ett nyckelbegrepp för framtida medieteknisk forskning. Begreppet bidrar till att ta fram digitala teknologiers datafierande karaktär och deras inflytande på relationen mellan människor och deras kroppar, mellan medier och vad som uppfattas vara verkligt i en medialiserad värld. Detta hjälper oss att bedriva vetenskaplig forskning inom ämnet medieteknik på sätt som både skapar förståelse för och bidrar till utvecklingen av digitala medier med hänsyn till deras tekniska, sociala, kulturella och ekonomiska förutsättningar.

I Sociologisk Forskning har undervisning och lärande tidigare diskuterats på flera sätt. Ämnet har bland annat behandlats i forskningsartiklar som undersökt skolbarns välbefinnande och utbildningsresultat (Aytar & Mella 2012), hinder för tillgång till högre utbildning (Ismail 2011), professionsutmaningar inom gymnasieutbildningen (Bruno 2012) och strukturella bestämningsfaktorer för akademiska karriärer (Behtoui 2017). Den sociologiska forskningspraktikens nära koppling till ämnets pedagogiska praktik har också medfört att personliga undervisningserfarenheter behandlats i olika texter (se specialnumret ”Sociologi i tiden”: Hansen, Johansson, Kollind m.fl. 1997).

Tidskriftens redaktion skulle framöver gärna se fler artiklar som behandlar frågor om undervisning och lärande inom sociologiämnet. Vi välkomnar därför sociologikollegor att inkomma med förslag till sådana artiklar eller färdiga manus. Det skulle kunna vara texter om hur vår praktik som sociologer påverkar vårt sätt att undervisa, hur sociologisk forskning omsätts i undervisning, hur olika pedagogiska metoder och material kan användas i sociologiundervisningen eller hur samhälleliga processer och strukturer påverkar vad som händer i klassrummet. Vi tror att sådana reflektioner med fördel skulle kunna ta sin utgångspunkt i utbildningssociologi och den svenska sociologins reflekterande tradition.

Som ett första steg mot att ge utrymme åt denna typ av artiklar publicerar vi i detta nummer ett samtal om hur undervisningen i sociologi har påverkats av övergången till digital undervisning under covid-19-pandemin. Vi bad fyra sociologikollegor, verksamma vid olika svenska lärosäten, att svara på några frågor utifrån sina erfarenheter som lärare, utbildningssamordnare och forskare. De medverkande är Martin Berg, professor i medieteknik och docent i sociologi vid Malmö universitet, som forskar om digital sociologi med särskilt fokus på kritiska studier av algoritmer och automatiseringsprocesser; Ida Lidegran, docent i utbildningssociologi vid Uppsala universitet, som ingår i Forskningsgruppen för utbildnings- och kultursociologi (SEC) och forskar om elitutbildningar och familjers utbildningsstrategier, migranters möte med det svenska utbildningssystemet samt utbildning och covid-19; Ulrika Schmauch, lektor i sociologi vid Umeå universitet, vars forskning handlar om social ojämlikhet i allmänhet och om ras, plats och kön i synnerhet; samt Glenn Sjöstrand, prefekt för Institutionen för samhällsstudier vid Linnéuniversitetet i Växjö, vars forskning i huvudsak är inriktad mot professionsstudier och särskilt ingenjörers professionella utveckling, men som även forskar om digital transformation, miljö och välfärdsfrågor.

Emerging digital technologies are becoming increasingly prevalent in contemporary society. As future- oriented, promissory, and sometimes yet to be realised, such technologies pose particular methodological challenges for digital social research since they partake in creating the future they aim at transforming. This paper proposes a methodological framework to study the construction of emerging digital technologies as meaningful phenomena. Corporate actors within this growing field adopt similar marketing strategies that involve sharing multimodal promotional materials on digital platforms where technical specifications blend with evocative stories. These stories employ a future- oriented vocabulary in which words such as change, re-imagination, reinvention, and transformation play an essential role. Building on recent ethnographic research, this paper demonstrates how emerging digital technologies are promoted by creating a symbolic and imaginary context in which such technologies make perfect sense. These studies focus on wearable devices, digital food technologies, and systems for work automation. The empirical examples demonstrate how the promotional materials involve discursive practices that produce a particular kind of situated and transformative knowledge that allows emerging digital technologies to appear meaningful. These empirical examples serve as a basis for the formulation of ’digital technography’ as a methodological framework that allows for an interrogation of how emerging digital technologies are imagined across different sites of knowledge production.

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.

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.

This paper demonstrates the role of pre-product user experience (UX) in product design. For automotive companies, questions concerning how users will experience not yet available products is pressing - due to an increase in UX design for products, combined with a decrease in time-to-market for new products. Conventional UX research provides insights through investigating specific situated moments during use, or users’ reflections after use, yet cannot provide knowledge about how users will engage with not yet existing products. To understand pre-product UX we undertook a netnographic study of three people’s experiences of expecting and owning a Tesla car. We identified how modes of anticipation evolve before using the actual car, through online social interaction, creating a pre-product experience. The study offers a foundation for theorizing pre-product UX as socially generated anticipated UX, as well as insights for UX design in industry.

Traditional User Experience (UX) research provides insights into situated uses of products, or reflections after their use, but tells us little about how products are experienced before use. In this article we demonstrate how people’s engagement in web-based discussion forums creates ways through which they can experience products before they have actually used them, and reflect on the implications of this for UX research. To understand how product anticipation emerges in a digital-material setting we undertook an ethnographic analysis of members’ contributions to http://www.teslaclubsweden.se, a web based discussion forum that connects Tesla car enthusiasts. Anticipation developed as a shared endeavour that evolved through five ways which forum members engaged and participated in their community of practice. Through their online interactions their UX evolved before using the actual car. Our findings provide deeper understandings of anticipatory UX, and insights for UX design in HCI.

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 number of self-tracking devices and apps is growing continuously and there is now a plethora of gadgets available for measuring, interpreting and optimising everything from bodily activities to embodied experiences and emotions. Despite the increased attention paid to the growing field of self-tracking, little is known about the discursive underpinnings of how these devices are designed, and their imagined functionality. Self-tracking devices are often presented as means for users to navigate through the varying temporalities and contingencies of everyday life, and they are often implicitly imagined to solve a series of problems for users. Approaching self-tracking devices through a prism of social theory, this paper advances current understandings within the field of self-tracking studies by drawing attention to how the imagined possibilities of these devices are deeply intertwined with the general characteristics of contemporary late-modern society. In particular, this paper engages with Hartmut Rosa’s concepts ”social acceleration” and ”resonance” in order to understand how the problems that self-tracking devices claim to solve result from the same social processes that make the idea of self-tracking meaningful, while at the same time reflecting on possible alternative ways of engaging with self-tracking.

The number of self-tracking devices and apps is growing continuously and there is now a plethora of gadgets available for measuring, interpreting and optimising everything from bodily activities to embodied experiences and emotions. Despite the increased attention paid to the growing field of self-tracking, little is known about the discursive underpinnings of how these devices are designed, and their imagined functionality. Self-tracking devices are often presented as means for users to navigate through the varying temporalities and contingencies of everyday life, and they are often implicitly imagined to solve a series of problems for users. Approaching self-tracking devices through a prism of social theory, this paper advances current understandings within the field of self-tracking studies by drawing attention to how the imagined possibilities of these devices are deeply intertwined with the general characteristics of contemporary late-modern society. In particular, this paper engages with Hartmut Rosa’s (2013) concept ”social acceleration” in order to understand how the problems that self-tracking devices claim to solve result from the same social processes that make the idea of self-tracking as such meaningful. Rosa, H. (2013). Social Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity. New York: Columbia University Press.

Breakout session (Breakout sessions are an hour long and are a time to discuss topics that are of interest to the QS community and set the agenda for our movement in the coming year): How do our perceptions of our body shift when we engage in self-tracking practices that involve sensors and apps? Do we "feel ourselves” differently when such devices are used?

“It’s getting late! Don’t you think you should get to bed?” In his youth, it often happened that Kelvin Kwong, nowadays Head of behaviour change at Jawbone, got this demanding question from his father, poking his head into the bedroom. A decade and a half later, not much has changed. '[B]ut what’s different is the nudge', he says, that instead of his father intervening, comes from the data-driven Smart Coach self-tracking system. Drawing on an analysis of online materials, this paper explores how the data collected by the Jawbone UP wristband are given a voice that not only feels personal but also relates to and somehow only makes sense in a particular social and cultural context.

Self-tracking devices and apps often measure and provide interpretations of personal data in a rather straightforward way, for instance by visualising the speed and distance of a run or the quality of sleep during night. There is, however, a growing number of devices claiming to support increased wellbeing by extensive data analysis to provide insights and algorithmic advice about unseen and neglected dimensions of our lives, bodies, and experiences. This article engages with two devices of this kind, namely the Moodmetric and the ŌURA which are two recently released ‘smart’ rings with associated smartphone apps that claim to measure emotions and rest, promote happiness and help users to perform better. Focusing on how certain values, visions and ideas are used to frame and explain the potential functionality of these devices, this article approaches the discursive underpinnings of their design as deeply intertwined with the temporalities of late modernity. Empirically, the article is based on a discourse analysis of blog posts, marketing materials and user guides from the ŌURA and Moodmetric companies along with video recordings of the public appearances and sales pitches of company representatives.

Wearable health technologies and fitness apps are increasingly interconnected through APIs (application programming interface) through which data from sensors are transferred, translated and interpreted. This paper builds on a close critical reading of the technical documentation of some of the most popular fitness APIs (Apple HealthKit, Fitbit, HealthGraph and Withings among others) and aims at establishing an understanding of how human bodies and their activities are conceptualised and measured as data through APIs. Departing from these empirical readings, the paper conceptualises fitness APIs as “health data superstructures” that to various extents render certain self-tracking and body-monitoring practices more feasible than others. Such a conceptualisation is important since it allows for further explorations of the limits and possibilities of how wearable technologies are designed, developed and used in conjunction with other apps and technologies.