DIGSUM team members Henrik Sigurdh, Felicia Lundstedt, and Simon Lindgren participated in the WASP-HS Winter Conference 2025, held from February 5th to 7th at Stockholm University.

On the 25th of February, DIGSUM researcher Samuel Merrill will participate in a roundtable panel discussing the question “Is AI the future of collective memory?”. The roundtable discussion is hosted by the Digital Memory Studies Association (dMSA) and is dedicated to a special issue of Memory Studies Review.

On the 28th of February, TAIGA, DIGSUM, and the Department of Sociology at Umeå University invite you to a talk on “Stochastic Remembering and Distributed Mnemonic Agency” held by DIGSUM researcher Samuel Merrill together with Rik Smit and Thomas Smits.

DIGSUM, at the Department of Sociology, welcomes Lina Eklund who will give a seminar entitled Post-critique in practice: using interactive fiction to explore the future of human-AI relations. Lina will speak about speculative design as post-critique to explore alternative human-AI futures.

DIGSUM is happy to present a new issue of The Journal of Digital Social Research, our open access journal. This special issue, with guest editors Fenwick McKelvey, Jonathan Roberge, Joanna Redden and Luke Stark, focus on “(Un)Stable Diffusions: The Publics, Publicities, and Publicizations of Generative AI”.

Simon Lindgren and Anne Kaun have recently published an article that introduces “programmable politics” as a new concept and perspective for understanding the complex relationship between technology, society, and politics in the 21st century.

On the 28th of January, Humlab invites you to a seminar where Frans Mäyrä, Tampere University, will talk about “The Future of Game Culture in Society”.

Here is some recommended (Swedish) listening in relation to Simon Lindgren’s book on Critical Theory of AI.

DIGSUM, Humlab, and TAIGA are co-hosting a seminar with Thomas Nygren, professor of history and civics education, Uppsala University.

DIGSUM Director and Professor Simon Lindgren was the lead author of a debate piece, published at the WASP-HS blog. Lindgren, together with Jason Tucker and Virginia Dignum, argue that the Swedish AI Commission’s roadmap, “Färdplan för Sverige”, prioritises an AI-first mindset rooted in urgency and global competitiveness, which risks framing AI as an inevitable force and a one-size-fits-all solution to complex societal problems.

Internetdagarna, one of Sweden’s premier conferences on the impact of digital technology on society, placed a spotlight on AI this year. Umeå University, via DIGSUM, made a strong contribution to the discussions by hosting three seminars in collaboration with the Swedish Research Council and Internetstiftelsen.

Early in December, DIGSUM researcher Samuel Merrill took part in a panel discussion on Technology, Memory and Ethics alongside Rik Smit and Yael Richler Friedman and moderated by Martin Winstone.

On the 29th of November, DIGSUM and the Department of Sociology at Umeå University are hosting a seminar where Amanda Lagerkvist, Uppsala University, will talk about “Parsing the AI Apocalypse”.

On the 22nd of November, DIGSUM is hosting a seminar where Cornelia Brantner, Karlstad University, will talk about her project “How Sourcing Behaviors of Generative AI-powered Search Engines Could Hurt Journalism and Democracy: A Comparative Study of Political News Retrieval in Five Languages”.

Markus Naarttijärvi has together with Ingvild Bruce (University of Oslo) received funding from Riksbankens Jubileumsfond for a three year project on The Digital Monopoly of Force.

Simon Lindgren and Moa Eriksson Krutrök have received funding from the Swedish Research Council for the project "Dynamics of Danger: The Role of Digital Platforms in Crisis Communication".

Humlab and DIGSUM at Umeå University invite PhD students to take part in our PhD course Digital Research (7.5 credits). The course runs, in hybrid format (online and on location in Umeå), February and March.

This weekend, Professor Helen Kennedy of the University of Sheffield was appointed honorary doctor at Umeå University’s Faculty of Social Sciences. The award was conferred at the university’s 2024 Annual Celebration to recognise her pioneering contributions to the field of digital sociology.

DIGSUM researcher Samuel Merrill and Professor Ann Rigney of Utrecht University have recently co-edited a special issue of the the SAGE Memory Studies Journal called Remembering Activism: Explorations in the memory-activism nexus (17:5).  

We are excited to announce that one of Umeå University’s Honorary Doctors at the Faculty of Social Sciences for 2024 will be Professor Helen Kennedy, University of Sheffield. She will be awarded the title at the 2024 Annual Celebration.