I have conducted research projects exploring histories of media participation, media memories as well as civic engagement with and through social media. Currently, I am invested in the following projects:
The Digital Welfare State and Automated Decision-Making
In several projects I am exploring the increasing implementation of automated decision-making in the public sector with the help of algorithms. Based on interviews with heads of unit, civil servants, software developers and citizens, the project investigates the algorithmic imaginaries, algorithmic implementations and algorithmic implications of automated decision-making in the Swedish public sector. Bringing empirical and theoretical approaches from the field of algorithm studies to the sociology of the welfare state and public administration research, the project contributes new knowledge on how digitalization potentially changes the relationship between institutions for public administration, civil servants and citizens. Relying on a multi-case study approach that compares automated decision-making in three public sector institutions (social services, the employment services and the social insurance agency), the project will highlight the increasing delegation of tasks to algorithms that constitutes our contemporary algorithmic culture. It will provide important background knowledge to develop guidelines and strategies for the further implementation of automated decision-making while situating this form of digitalisation in a broader context of societal change and the restructuring of the welfare state.
Related Projects
I am the project leader of the Chanse-funded project AUTO-WELF exploring the automation of welfare across eight European countries.
I am also leading the comparative project Automating Welfare in the Baltic Sea Region funded by the Baltic Sea Foundation.
In 2022, I spent a sabbatical in Germany at the Leibnitz Institute for Media Research (Hamburg) funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond.
Previously, I facilitated the Network on Automated Decision-Making in the Public Sector funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond.
Prison Media: the role of prisons for media infrastructures
Prisons evoke both repulsion and fascination. They, therefore, figure prominently as sites in popular entertainment, for example in movies, series and novels. It is less known that prisoners have contributed considerably to our media in a very material sense as well. They have built the telegraph system; produced envelops and mailbags for the postal system; have been part of the printing industry; and repair shops for radio and television sets were an important part of prisons. Beyond this media work, prisoners are also objects of surveillance technologies that are spread with slight variations to the broader society. Ankle monitors have been remediated as fitbits and other self-tracking devices. CCTV technologies that increasingly integrate artificial intelligence have been developed for prisons and are now increasingly build into smart cities and smart homes. These contributions are here captured in the notion of prison media: media developed in and for the prison. Drawing on archival material on the development of prison media, in-depth interviews with staff of the Swedish Prison and Probation Services and observations at prison technology exhibitions, the project aims to explore prison media from a historical and contemporary perspective and ask for the political implications of media infrastructures and technologies being built, developed, maintained and repaired in the context of incarceration.
Related publications
Anne Kaun, Alexis Logsdon, Philipp Seuferling & Fredrik Stiernstedt (2023): Serving Machines and Heterotopias: Data Entry Work in Prisons and Refugee Camps in the US and Uganda. In: Lisa Parks, Julia Velkova & Sander de Ridder (eds) Media Backends: Infrastructure, Algorithms, and the Politics of Knowing. Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois Press, pp 144-161.
Anne Kaun & Fredrik Stiernstedt (2023) Prison Media. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Fredrik Stiernstedt & Anne Kaun (2022). Prison Papers as Alternative Media. International Journal for Community and Alternative Media 6(2): 197-216.
Fredrik Stiernstedt & Anne Kaun (2022). Prison Media Complex : Labour, Technology and Communication Infrastructures in the Prison System. Triple C 20(1), 1-17.
Fredrik Stiernstedt & Anne Kaun (2021). Fängelser och medier: arbete, arkitetur och teknikutveckling. Tidskrift för kriminalvård
Anne Kaun & Fredrik Stiernstedt (2021) Prison tech: Imagining the prison as lagging behind and as a test bed for technology advancement. Communication, Culture & Critique 15(1), 69–83.
Anne Kaun & Fredrik Stiernstedt (2020) Doing time the smart way? Temporality of the smart prison. New Media and Society, 22(9), 1580-1599.
Fredrik Stiernstedt & Anne Kaun (2020) Hallbladet – fängelsetidningen som ibland tog sig över muren. Mediehistorisk årsbok, pp. 155-176; republished as Fredrik Stiernstedt & Anne Kaun (2020) Kåkbladet som tog sig ut. I: Dagens Arena arenaessä
Anne Kaun & Fredrik Stiernstedt (2020) Prison Media Work: From Manual Labor to the Work of Being Tracked. Media, Culture and Society. OnlineFirst https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0163443719899809
Anne Kaun ”Släpp fångarna loss – det är strejk”, Debatt, Dagens ETC, 11 March 2020. https://www.etc.se/debatt/slapp-fangarna-loss-det-ar-strejk
Anne Kaun & Fredrik Stiernstedt (2019). Doing time / Time Done: Exploring the temporalities of datafication in the Smart Prison. In: Maren Hartmann; Elizabeth Prommer, Karin Deckner, Stephan Görland. Mediated Time. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 128-148.
Media, trust and information during the Corona crisis
Many people are very concerned about the current situation and struggle with keeping informed about the fast changing regulations to maintain the pandemic in Sweden. At the same time, public agencies have identified misinformation and disinformation as a major problem during the Corona crisis. Adopting and adapting to major changes in everyday life is closely linked to the ways in which people are informed about necessary changes and to what extent they trust the source of information.
Handling a crisis situation such as the corona pandemic is hence also a major effort in trustworthy communication especially in a media saturated society. In that context it is of utmost importance for public agencies to know which sources people trust and distrust and how media trust evolves in different phases of the crisis. This project will gather empirical material to document the changing trust in the media during the Corona crisis. The project will gather unique material that will allow for diverse studies that will improve our understanding of media trust during a severe crisis situation and, hence, allows us to further develop communication strategies by public agencies. It will also capture the voices of concerned citizens during
this unique situation.
Funded by: Formas
Related publications
Research Note preliminary findings; Press release
Blog including research notes and press coverage.
Open access data set with diary material Medier, tillit och information
Anne Kaun - Södertörn University 