Mid Sweden University

Bourdieu-inspired journalism scholarship, and journalism studies at large, could benefit from an approach that can holistically explain how journalists make sense of technology-related change in the journalistic field. By merging key insights from field theory with philosophy of technology, and by analyzing 40 qualitative interviews with agents across a wide range of positions in the Swedish journalistic field, we uncover how journalists view technological change in relation to the field's autonomy, capitals and habitus. At the macro-level, the analysis shows how technology is constructed in the journalistic field at large, indicating a digital heteronomy. At the meso-level, findings indicate that positions become rearranged when new skills such as metrics and engagement management become collectively recognized as capital. Field-specific, journalistic, capital is supplemented with a virality capital. At the micro-level, we unravel an emerging journalistic habitus formed in relation to structural transformations in the field – the feel for engagement.

Hopes are high for enhancing public sector capabilities in addressing complex challenges and creating value from digitalization through various multi-actor and multi-level approaches. Yet, scholars also raise concerns that an emphasis on digital resource configurability may overlook important contexual dimensions, leading to increased managerialism and reduced legitimacy within new public sector paradigms. This paper explores the concept of public service ecosystems, both as an analytical lens and a subject of critique, focusing on the shifts brought about by digitalization, while scrutinizing the optimism and technological focus that often accompany these transformations. Drawing on a longitudinal case study from the Swedish public sector, we unveil how a public service ecosystem, facilitated by modular open-source architecture and multi-actor engagement, faces challenges including i) demand-supply gaps in digital services, ii) governance issues, and iii) integration between digital and physical channels. As such the framework of public service ecosystem is challenged as a sometimes naïve idea underplaying the complexity of e-service development in the public sector. At the same time it worked as a lens to structure and nuance the findings and bridge the gap between technological and contextual focus, and informed suggestions for further research.

To what extent did the Covid-19 pandemic affect the tools, priorities and organisation of cultural policies? And did the pandemic enhance the digital aspect of these policies? This paper compares pandemic cultural policy measures in seven European countries to answer these questions. The countries all installed a plurality of mitigating measures, combining grants and subsidies, compensation of lost income, income support and financial flexibility, creating a tendency towards cultural policy turning into economic policy, fiscal policy, and labour market policy. Cultural policies have not been fundamentally challenged by the pandemic, in the sense that it has affected the essential political tools, divisions of labour, or core goals. The responses have confirmed an existing policy structure or enhanced existing developments. The importance of a state-centred or a federalist cultural policy system has not been challenged in a substantial way. Secondly there is little evidence to show a general acceleration of national digital cultural policies. 

To contribute to digitalization and accountability research, this study adopted a pattern arising from failure due to weak accountability that was initially identified in Great Britain. This was done to investigate if the pattern reappeared in digitalization initiatives at the Swedish municipal level. Attempting to answer this, the present study structured a survey sent to every municipality in Sweden, resulting in a response rate of 40.4%. It was not possible to statistically claim that the pattern repeated itself in the chosen context, making this study’s main contribution to stress that there might be a pattern as an effect due to weak accountability, without any knowledge of how this pattern presents itself. 

This chapter critically explores and analyses the framing of digitalization in current cultural public policy in Sweden to reach a deeper understanding of how the idea of digitalization is narrated and what kind of desired outcomes surface in these narratives. It is based on a thematic analysis of eight policy documents departing from Andrew Feenberg’s two-fold understanding of technology, as both essence and construct, in order to disclose the dominant and formative narratives of digitalization. As such, the chapter contributes to digital cultural policy research with a national-specific analysis of policy narratives on expectations and goals coupled with digital transformation. 

Public-sector digitalization has gained traction over the years, and with it has come a flood of official documents (policies and grey literature) highlighting what the (digital) future is supposed to look like and proposing a range of digital solutions to inspire action. Such policies and strategic documents propose what will be important in future societies. In this paper, we employ the policy-analysis framework, ‘what’s the problem represented to be’ (WPR), first developed by Bacchi. We conducted a workshop with a Swedish municipality, inviting key actors to work with the idea of digitalization to re-read their digitalization policy in light of the WPR framework. The purpose of this paper is to investigate what surfaced when the policymakers and public servants used WPR to dissect their own digitalization policy. The results show that the key actors’ reflections centred around the value of the policy itself, and the WPR framework seemed to enhance their ability to reflect upon the usability of the policy and the work needed to implement and evaluate it. Furthermore, they pinpointed that the digitalization policy appeared rather naïve in terms of contextual factors (lack of recontextualisation on the municipal level) and hindrances (lack of resources to tackle existing hindrances). 

Digital government often addresses how, where, and by whom digital transformation is brought into the complex institutional framed practices of governments and governance of society. However, digital transformation also points at critical demands to address the basic underlying institutional design of governments. The ongoing digital transformation of public welfare institutions opens for a gradual redesign of public institutions. It is important to address core values, such as inclusion, diversity, and literacy, to ensure a reflected transformation and re-design of public institutions. The purpose of this paper is to show how new forms of digital public services may have to be matched with institutional re-design to sustain public values and legitimate governments. We build on Ostrom’s eight design principles for institutional governance of common-pool resources and propose four principles for analyzing potential needs for re-design of institutions. Through a re-analysis of two case studies on automation in Swedish public organizations, we illustrate and discuss the institutional design. Hereby, we identify critical points for further analysis of emerging demands for institutional re-design. The analysis indicates that we must see beyond the organizational changes of digital government reforms and programs. We need to stretch into the institutional and foundational models of the public sector and how to provide equal and resilient welfare in a digital and changing world. We conclude by suggesting an agenda for research on institutional re-design in the digital era.

Though ‘digitalization’ has become a buzzword and policy objective in public-sector development, the struggle tograsp and define it as a modern phenomenon continues. Furthermore, research has long shown that it is difficult to extractthe value with which digitalization is associated. Against this backdrop, the aim of this paper is to uncover the enactment bya specific set of actors of digitalization as production and reproduction practices. We interviewed a group of governmentallysanctioned regional digitalization coordinators to identify how digitalization was translated and implemented by the appointedprofessionals. We applied Orlikowski and Gash’s three levels of technology (nature, strategy, and use) and combined thesewith Feenberg’s matrix of four views on technology to produce an analytical framework. Our findings show that the making ofdigitalization can be described like ‘nailing jelly to a wall’, owing to the lack description of its capabilities and functionalities,coupled with a raison d’etre that is highly elusive beyond ‘change’, in very general terms. 

I den här rapporten sammanfattar vi de lärdomar som dragits i projektet ”Digitalt deltagande i offentlig sektor: en kritisk granskning”. Projektet har finansierats av Naturvårdsverket och Havs- och vattenmyndigheten. Syftet med projektet var att skapa kunskap och förståelse om digitala verktyg som används för att stimulera olika former av digitalt deltagande, det vill säga insatser där myndigheter skapar (digitala) former för fördjupade samarbeten med medborgare i olika frågor.

Vi har avgränsat projektet till att a) fokusera på statliga myndigheter, och b) litteratur från det så kallade e-Participationfältet (forskningen kring digitalt deltagande). Tidigare forskning har främst inriktat sig på lokal nivå, det vill säga kommuner, och vi har därför ringa kunskap om hur myndigheter arbetar med digitalt deltagande. Dessutom så saknas det inom e-Participationfältet en kunskapssammanställning av vilka nivåer av deltagande digitala verktyg utvecklade av forskare möjliggör. Vi ställer två forskningsfrågor:

• FF1: Vad kännetecknar användning av verktyg för digitalt deltagande bland svenska myndigheter?

• FF2: Vad kännetecknar verktyg för digitalt deltagande i e-Participation-forskningen?

För att beforska dessa använder vi ett ramverk som består av nivåer av deltagande, och deltagarkonfigurationer. Två delstudier utförs, en enkät till svenska myndigheter och en litteraturöversikt av e-Participationlitteraturen.

Resultaten visar hur svenska myndigheter arbetar relativt sparsamt med fördjupade former av digitalt deltagande, men även att detta skiljer sig åt beroende på organisationsstorlek. Myndigheterna arbetar ofta med generella verktyg med utgångspunkt i tre former av deltagarkonfigurationer: kunder, användare, och medborgare. I rapporten utvecklar vi en analys kring hur dessa skiljer sig åt och att de kräver olika kompetenser i organisationen, vilket gör det viktigt att ”prata konfigurationer” innan initiativ till digitalt deltagande initieras.

Litteraturöversikten visar att många av de verktyg som utvecklas är av en temporär art, ofta i prototypform, och vi identifierar typer av verktyg och vilka nivåer av deltagande de möjliggör, samt diskuterar forskares ansvar vid verktygsutveckling. Vi sammanfattar även erfarenheter forskare dragit från att applicera dessa verktyg, inklusive behov av institutionella processer för deltagande, och att fördjupade processer är resurskrävande.

Kunskapsbidragen från projektet inkluderar en ökad förståelse för myndighetspraktiker och digitala verktyg för deltagande i e-Participation-litteraturen. Inom ramen från projektet presenterar vi ett teoretiskt ramverk bestående av nivåer av deltagande och deltagarkonfigurationer som med fördel kan användas av praktiker. Rapporten avslutas med förslag på fortsatt forskning.

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 16 (SDG 16) promotes peaceful, just and inclusive societies, where people can influence decisions that affect their lives. As governments are increasingly relying on digital technology to facilitate communication with citizens, we take an interest in the tools and methods used to provide spaces for these communications. More specifically, we aimed to ascertain the characteristics of the digital methods and tools used for participatory processes in national government, and the role of the citizen in the associated participatory spaces. The research was conducted through a survey administered to representatives of Swedish national government agencies. Our study was guided by previous literature on levels of participation, and configuration of citizens. The findings reveal a concentration of participatory activities associated with tokenism, where citizens are commonly referred to as customers and users. Deepened forms of citizen participation were largely absent in the data. These results were used to inform a framework which combines levels of participation with additional dimensions that account for citizen configuration. We argue for the importance, both in research and practice, of distinguishing between different citizen configurations, since the associated activities these configurations entail are vastly diverse. Finally, we propose further research to extend our present framework by including results from additional levels of government and national contexts.