Umeå University's logo

Many public administrations advocate digital services that allow for the deployment of algorithmic automation and the use of artificial intelligence. This shift has been discussed as the expansion of the digital welfare state. However, numerous citizens remain excluded from digital services provided by the state. In this context, welfare service centers have emerged as important interfaces of the digital welfare state. These service centers undergird many of the operations of digitalization as a large-scale, societal infrastructure project. In this article, we elaborate the specific characteristics of welfare service centers in Sweden, relying theoretically on interface theory and broken world thinking. Methodologically, we rely on ethnographic methods including in-depth interviews and observations. The article ultimately argues that the digital welfare state continues to be based on material inequalities and exclusions.

Over the last decade, the news media increasingly seem to have become a target for politically motivated criticism seeking to delegitimise the news media. The prevalence of delegitimising media criticism is, however, unclear. Hence, the purpose of this study is to investigate the extent to which Swedish members of parliament (MPs) engage in delegitimising media criticism on Twitter, the party distribution of those engaging in such media criticism, and the targets and expressions of such media critique. Among other things, the findings show that when MPs tweet about the news media, they are more likely to be critical than supportive, and that a clear majority of tweets that are critical toward the news media contain delegitimising media criticism. Moreover, the results show that MPs from the political right - in particular the Moderate Party and the Sweden Democrats - are most active in tweeting delegitimising media criticism, and that the most common target is public service media.