In principle, liberal democracy is about an equal right to decision-making and presumes a public sphere, equally open to all. However, in practice, this normative ideal, articulated, among others, by Jürgen Habermas and John Dewey, is farther away today than ever since WWII. The “real” public sphere, distinguished from its ideal, is harmed by conflicting and divisive interests, often presenting themselves in the form of information campaigns targeting the most vulnerable groups of society. The information offered is often labelled as disinformation, i.e. information that is misleading or purposefully false. However, this article claims that we must distinguish between different uses of the concept of disinformation. Although disinformation campaigns are increasingly harmful for democracy, the label of disinformation can be used to silence necessary critical voices and movements in society, thus promoting a public sphere based on a forced consensus. This article focuses on current European developments, although there are references to the developments in other continents as well. It is based on a review of recent research publications and public policy documents about different aspects of disinformation and inequality.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, public service broadcasters (PSBs) have been confronted with the rise of the Internet as a mainstream medium of communication. This has sparked a debate on the transition from PSB to public service media (PSM). In this article, we present a review of the academic literature on PSM and the Internet produced from 2000 to 2021. We focus on contributions interrogating the implications of PSM’s online activities for the delivery of public service values. We identify seven streams of research and show how, as a whole, this body of work has highlighted the main tensions and dilemmas that PSM organizations have faced, given their special nature, when engaging with the technological affordances of the Internet. Researchers have also shown how the delivery of public value can be enhanced via PSM’s online services. Arguing for the continued relevance of PSM, they have reasserted traditional values while also identifying new roles that PSM are called to play in the context of today’s digital communications.

Tämä artikkeli on osin katsaus kahdenkymmenen vuoden päähän ja toisaalta katsaus eteenpäin. Artikkelissa hyödynnetään pohjana alkuaikojen viestintäoikeuden asemointia eri tutkimuksissa ja viisi vuotta sitten yhdessä Pauli Rautiaisen kanssa kirjoittamaani katsausta viestintäoikeuden vuosikirjojen sisältöön. Kirjoituksessani pohjana on näin ollen lukuisia omia tekstejäni ja yleisesti aikalaisena suhtautuminen käytyyn keskusteluun tuo oman perspektiivinsä. Tästä syystä tämän artikkelin tyylilaji on esseemäinen enkä pyri häivyttämään omaa osuuttani viittauksilla.

In this article, we demonstrate how international social-media discussions offer a platform for taking a stance on the war in Ukraine, redrawing national boundaries and legitimising their defence. We do so by analysing data that consist of comments triggered by a viral YouTube video depicting an encounter between an ageing civilian woman, labelled ‘Babushka Z’, and a Ukrainian soldier. Using a critical discursive psychological framework, we identify five interpretative repertoires: vulnerability, incapacity, national continuity, masculinised warriorship and righteousness. Our analysis illuminates how these repertoires draw on and reproduce intersecting categorisations based on gender, age and ethnic heritage. With the help of these categorisations, the repertoires build competing images of the actions of the figures in the video, which come to symbolise in various ways both patriotism and treason, heroism and cowardice. By aligning with competing historical-national narratives, the commentors use these images to (de)legitimise the war and its actors.

As social media is a key conduit for the distribution of disinformation, much of the literature on disinformation in elections has been focused on the internet and global social media platforms. Literature on societal and media trust has also grown in recent years. Yet, disinformation is not limited to global platforms or the internet, traditional media outlets in many European countries act as vehicles of disinformation often under the direction of the government. Moreover, the connection between trust and resilience to disinformation has been less discussed. This article is aimed at tackling the question of what makes a country vulnerable to or resilient against online disinformation. It argues that a society’s information resilience can be viewed as a combination of structural characteristics, features of its knowledge-distribution institutions including its media system, and the activities and capabilities of its citizens. The article makes this argument by describing these dimensions in four European case countries, based on comparable statistics and document analyses. The results indicate that European-wide strategies do not uniformly strengthen national resilience against disinformation and that anti-disinformation strategies need to be anchored in targeted assessments of the state of information resilience at the national level to be more effective. Such assessments are central, particularly to understanding citizens’ information needs in key democratic events such as elections.

In the past decades, the development of higher education institutions (HEIs) in industrialized countries has become intertwined with innovation policy and the goal of national competitiveness. Focusing on the discourses on innovation by the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC), this article illustrates the transformation of Finnish higher education policy ideas in the late 2010s following the demise of the previous policy consensus built around the notion of the National Innovation System. Through a critical policy discourse analysis of 35 publications by the MEC, we demonstrate that its recent policy discourses are dominated by an increasingly market-centric strategy of entrepreneurialism in conditions of major cuts to the public funding of universities and R&D. This strategy has serious limitations and contradictions, which have generated institutional conflicts and hinder the development of a more sustainable and balanced innovation agenda for the Finnish higher education field.

In the history of freedom of speech, the law has been seen as an obstacle to economic and commercial innovations. However, technological development is a key part of the history of freedom of speech. Freedom of speech has been synonymous with freedom of the press, which as a concept refers to specific communication technology. Internet regulation is based on the exemption of liability for certain internet companies. This has created a new public space and new business models. Now this activity is being reined in again through law. The central question posed by the article is how law and communication technology interact and how the law can act as an enabler.

This edited volume offers a comprehensive introduction to epistemic rights as a central public policy issue and features analyses of epistemic rights both as a theoretical concept and as empirical cases. The book demonstrates the impact of epistemic inequality on the crisis of democracy.

In the history of freedom of speech, the law has been seen as an obstacle to economic and commercial innovations. However, technological development is a key part of the history of freedom of speech. Freedom of speech has been synonymous with freedom of the press, which as a concept refers to specific communication technology. Internet regulation is based on the exemption of liability for certain internet companies. This has created a new public space and new business models. Now this activity is being reined in again through law. The central question posed by the article is how law and communication technology interact and how the law can act as an enabler.

We define tribalism as a mode of articulation that draws an antagonistic frontier between societal groups. Unlike populism, tribalism does not have a hegemonic character. It articulates groups through a horizontally oriented shared value system; whereas populism is an essential part of a democratic system, tribalism disregards democracy. To conceptualize tribalism as a separate theoretical frame from populism or (ethno)nationalism, we used discourse theoretical analysis to analyze the Facebook pages of four political party leaders in Slovakia (Marian Kotleba, Krisztián Forró, Igor Matovic, and Boris Kollár).

Recent research on digital constitutionalism highlights a rights-based approach to limiting the exercise of power in the digital communication environment. However, little research has examined multiple and political meanings of digital rights empirically from various actors’ perspectives. This article discusses findings from a discourse-theoretical analysis of 12 semi-structured interviews with civil society actors in the context of transnational digital governance. The analysis demonstrates that the concept of digital rights can be viewed as a “floating signifier” on one hand, partially fixed to human rights. On the other hand, digital rights function as a site of discursive struggles that highlight openness and contestation of norms, rights, and principles in relation to the Internet and other digital technologies. The article suggests that the very definitions of norms, rights, and principles related to the Internet and other digital technologies not only limit but also produce power, providing a novel perspective to digital constitutionalism.

Recent debates concerning problems in the digital environment have promoted different conceptualizations of digital rights. However, current problems of digital communication are often discussed separately from earlier debates pertaining to the democratization of the media. This article argues for the re-grounding of digital rights debates to address systemic communication problems.

Proceedings of the 24th Annual Conference of the European Association for Machine Translation

Viestinnän sääntelyä koskevan keskustelun yti messä ovat viimeisten kahden vuosikymmenen ajan olleet yksilön oikeudet. Koskaan aiemmin historiassa ei yksittäisillä ihmisillä ole ollut yhtä laajoja mahdollisuuksia julkaista, levittää ja vastaan ottaa erilaisia sisältöjä kuin nyt, digitaa listen julkaisualustojen aikakaudella. Keskustelu yksilön oikeuksista liittyy julkisuudessa ja tutki muksissa esitettyihin huoliin sisältöjen ja julkisen keskustelun portinvartijoiksi nousseiden alusto jen vallasta ja niiden aiheuttamista uhista yksilön autonomialle (esim. Zuboff 2019). Maksuttoman julkaisukanavan vastineeksi käyttäjät joutuvat solmimaan alustojen kanssa sopimuksen, joka antaa niille luvan yksityisyyden alaan kuuluvien tietojen hyödyntämiseen liiketoiminnassa sekä julkisen keskustelun ohjaamiseen muun muassa suodattamalla ja kuratoimalla sisältöjä salatuilla algoritmeilla.

The digital disruption of the media and society has changed how citizens participate in public debate and democracy. Today, internet platforms play a significant role in the public sphere. However, their role in the spread of disorders in the public sphere has increased fears about the future of democracy. The main hypothesis of this article is that the regulation of freedom of speech in Europe is fragmented. Therefore, the European Union and individual states are asking social media platforms to monitor their content. A lack of competence in regulating platforms has led to the introduction of various forms of regulation, such as loose co-regulation and the private censorship of content. These new regulations challenge the underlying rationale and justification of the freedom of speech doctrine and principle of the rule of law.

The sociology of news (SoN) paradigm laid out the foundations for journalism studies, a growing, dynamic, global and multidisciplinary field of inquiry. It is opportune to reassess its validity and influence, especially considering massive transformations in news and journalism, as well as recent trends in academic scholarship. In this paper, we argue that the SoN remains influential, despite major transformations in the journalism industry and the ways publics engage with news in the digital era. The classic SoN tradition built a theoretical and conceptual scaffolding and produced rich empirical studies that remain relevant. However, at a time of niche scholarship and middle-range theorizing, SoN does not hold the paradigmatic status it had in the past. Furthermore, radical changes in the information landscape and contemporary political trends make it necessary to revisit its original arguments and contributions.

The sounding board of worries about propaganda has often been the image or sense of social (and political) change and instability. This was the case during the first decades of twentieth century, when “propaganda” as a concept broke through to public discourse (Glander, 2000). The unpredictable power of the mass press, and the influence of emerging new media like film and radio, raised concern. Around the turn of the century, sociologists had coined a mental image about changing social order ushered in by industrialised modernity and the breaking of traditions. The populations of the Western democracies were considered uprooted from their earlier frames of social order and common sense, their attention and volatile loyalty seemingly up for grabs by manipulative communication. Against the imagination of masses of atomised individuals, the idea about the potential of propaganda made sense. Communication became a key social problem, an overdetermined object of hopes and anxieties:“There are abundant signs of interest in international propaganda since the War of 1914”, is the opening statement in Harold Lasswell’s (1927/1971) Propaganda Technique in World War I–one of the classic studies on the subject.

For the Habermasian theory of the “public sphere” to make sense in the 2020s, it must be able to address the modern tendency toward global systemic crises. To examine the relevance of the Habermasian public sphere to today’s deeply interconnected digital world, this article provides a selective reading of Habermas’ writings on the public sphere, examining how he developed the concept from its conceptual core (1962) through his Legitimation Crisis (LC; 1973) and The Theory of Communicative Action (TCA; vol. 1 [1981] 1984, vol. 2 [1981] 1987). Working from the perspective of the “differentiated lifeworld,” we show here that the theory’s background assumptions about reality (truth), solidarity (justice), personality (authenticity) are now being exposed and destabilized by current crisis tendencies and imaginaries. Here, we examine three exemplary (and interconnected) global disruptions that expose these assumptions: the climate crisis, the intensification of financial inequality in the Global North, and the rapid push toward datafication. Through our examination of whether the public sphere as Habermas conceived of it can exist in today’s world, we provide a more expansive form of criticism of the public sphere (which is usually critiqued on the narrow grounds of the rational bias of communicative rationality). Here, we underscore the fundamental importance of addressing the complex system-lifeworld dynamics that are today re-conceptualizing and re-contextualizing the “public sphere” in this era of contemporary global crises.

In spring 2019, there was a heated debate in the media concerning the Al-Hol camp in Syria, where a number of women and children were detained. This article explores intersectional dynamics of exclusion in online comments on news items regarding the repatriation of women and children from Al-Hol to Finland. The analytical framework is based on critical discursive psychology combined with an intersectional lens. The analysis distinguished three interpretative repertoires: the repertoire of a foreign threat, the repertoire of neglected maternal obligations, and the repertoire of irrationality. Within these repertoires, three subject positions were also applied to women—the deceitful villain, the bad mother, and brainwashed fools—with two subject positions applied to children—innocent children and future threats. The analysis shows the dialectical nature of positionings through which the Otherness of these women is constructed via the interplay with evaluations of their motherhood and positions applied to other actors, such as Muslim men and Finns. Moreover, the analysis shows how positionings mobilise intersectional categorisations based on gender, age, ethnicity, religion, nationality, and race.

The book provides a comparative constitutional analysis of the relationship between freedom of speech and disinformation. By examining reports which focus on Belgium, Canada, Croatia, the European Union, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Macau, Romania, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Vietnam, this book analyses the constitutional challenges of balancing freedom of speech and falsehood, and the approaches adopted to deal with the spread of disinformation. The chapter on Finland was written by Riku Neuvonen of DECA.

Perinteisen median aseman on katsottu rapautuneen ympäri maailmaa 2000-luvun aikana. Kehityskulun nähdään ilmentävän yleisempää yhteiskunnan legitimiteetin kyseenalaistamista (Edelman 2022). Synkimmät arviot ovat jo pitkään povanneet demokratian kriisiä (van der Meer 2017).

Sitran Digitaalinen valta ja demokratia -projekti järjesti maaliskuussa 2024 pyöreän pöydän keskustelun, jonka tavoitteena oli hahmotella toimenpidesuosituksia kansalaisten tiedollisten oikeuksien turvaamiseksi nopeasti teknologisoituvassa ja tekoälyistyvässä yhteiskunnassa. Raportti on koostettu tilaisuudessa tehtyjen muistiinpanojen pohjalta DECA:n ja Sitran yhteistyönä.

A diverse group of experts convened at the invitation of the DECA Project at the University of Helsinki in November 2023 to discuss the state of diversity in Finland and to consider concrete measures to increase it. This report has been compiled from notes that were taken at the round-table event.

This NORDIS study, co-funded by the C.V. Åkerlund Media Foundation, focuses on Nordic audiences’ experiences of media trust and experiences of disinformation, based on nationwide, representative surveys in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden in May-June 2023.

Miten suomalaiset päätoimittajat kokevat toimintaympäristönsä sekä yleisöjen luottamuksen rakentamisen osatekijät ja reunaehdot? Miten mediakuluttajat kokevat luottamuksen eri viestimiin – niiden vallan, ja vastuun sekä luottamukseen vaikuttavat seikat? Tutkimuskonsortio DECA ja Turun yliopiston Tulevaisuuden tutkimuskeskus ovat loppukeväästä 2023 toteuttaneet kaksi kyselytutkimusta: toinen päätoimittajille, toinen kansallisesti 15-79-vuotiaille suomalaisille, osin yhtenäisin kysymyksin.

Marraskuussa 2023 monipuolinen asiantuntijajoukko kokoontui DECA-hankkeen koollekutsumana Helsingin yliopiston juhlahuoneistolle keskustelemaan moniäänisyyden tilanteesta Suomessa ja pohtimaan konkreettisia toimia moniäänisyyden lisäämiseksi. Tähän raporttiin on koostettu keskustelun keskeinen anti.

Kooste 9.11.2023 käydystä pyöreän pöydän keskustelusta, jonka aiheena oli "Inklusiivisuus ja digitaaliset taidot – eri ryhmät käyttäjinä ja toimijoina tekoälyssä".

Kooste 30.8.2023 käydystä asiantuntijakeskustelusta.

Tietopaketti siitä, mitä suomalainen tai vertaileva kansainvälinen tutkimus on viime vuosina kertonut meille nuorten suhteista ja suhtautumisesta mediaan.

Raportti 17.3.2023 järjestetystä pyöreän pöydän tilaisuudesta.

Raportti 26.1.2023 järjestetystä pyöreän pöydän tilaisuudesta.

Tutkimuskonsortio DECA ja Turun yliopiston Tulevaisuuden tutkimuskeskus toteuttivat vuonna 2023 kaksi kyselytutkimusta: toinen päätoimittajille, toinen 15-79-vuotiaille suomalaisille, osin yhtenäisin kysymyksin.

Kommenttipuheenvuoro Oikeus-lehden numerossa 2/2023.

Blogiteksti perustuu Salla Tuomolan 10.3.2023 pidetyn väitöstilaisuuden lektioon.

Julkilausuma pohjautuu 26.1.2023 käytyyn pyöreän pöydän keskusteluun, johon osallistui parisenkymmentä medialukutaidon asiantuntijaa niin tutkimuksen, julkishallinnon kuin kansalaisyhteiskunnan kentiltä. Julkilausuman ovat allekirjoittaneet DECA:n lisäksi IMAGINE-hanke, CRITICAL-hanke, Sitra, Faktabaari, Kriittinen korkeakoulu ja Tiedonjulkistamisen neuvottelukunta.

Teksti on tuotettu taustaksi Pyöreän pöydän keskusteluun julkisen palvelun roolista alustojen aikakaudella 17.3.2023

Nopeasti muuttunut viestintäympäristö haastaa suomalaisen hyvinvointiyhteiskunnan turvallisuuden ja keskinäisen luottamuksen. Demokratian episteeminen toimintakyky algoritmien aikakaudella - konsortio (DECA) tutkii yhteiskunnan tiedollisia järjestelmiä, käytänteitä ja ongelmia yksilöiden, instituutioiden ja digitaalisten infrastruktuurien tasoilla.

DECA has a channel on SoundCloud that is filled with interesting podcasts on project’s themes, especially on communication rights, disinformation, and platformization. Interviewees include Tendai Chari (University of Venda), Karen Donders (Vrije Universiteit Brussel), Marko Milosavljević (University of Ljubljana), and many others.

Tiivis kuvaus DECA-konsortion tutkimuksesta ja yhteistyöverkostosta.

Tieteellisen tutkimuksen tietosuojaseloste/-ilmoitus. EU:n yleinen tietosuoja-asetus 12–14 artiklat. Laatimispäivä: 1.12.2022.

Tieteellisen tutkimuksen tietosuojailmoitus. Tiedon episteeminen ymmärtäminen vastahegemonisissa positioissa Suomessa.