Sofie Flensburg

I løbet af de seneste 30 år har digitaliseringen medført en markant restrukturering af de teknologiske, økonomiske og politiske vilkår for kommunikation: internettet er blevet en fælles infrastruktur, der kan erstatte alle tidligere kommunikationsnetværk, globale virksomheder har udfordret nationale institutioners forretningsmodeller og markedspositioner, og eksisterende kommunikationspolitisk lovgivning og regulering har vist sig tiltagende utilstrækkelig. Denne artikel tegner et portræt af internettets evolutionære udvikling i Danmark fra 1992 til 2020 og diskuterer de væsentligste politiskøkonomiske implikationer ved overgangen til digital kommunikation

The mobile market is frequently described as an ecosystem where powerful companies generate value from continuously harvesting and distributing data. In this article, we advance the ecological metaphor through both theoretical conceptualizations and empirical explorations of the contemporary app ecosystem. We thereby contribute to the emergent field of app studies by critically scrutinizing the political economy of mobile communication. The article identifies the prime infrastructural resources that ground appbased communication (devices, operating systems, app stores, apps, third-party services, and data accesses) and their ownership structures to discuss how power is obtained, exercised, and amplified in the app ecosystem. To illustrate the value of the theoretical approach, we provide a critical asset analysis of Google LLC (Alphabet, Inc.) and discuss its position as an invasive species in the app ecosystem.

This article presents a framework for mapping digital communication systems and thereby analyzing how and why structural conditions differ across national contexts. Following the ‘turn to infrastructure’ in Internet studies, we conceptualize communication systems as made of infrastructural, market, and policy structures that enable and constrain mediated communication in a given society. As opposed to media system analyses that typically focus on legacy media institutions, we take individual Internet users as our theoretical point of departure and ask how their communicative capabilities are regulated. In order to exemplify the application of the framework, we describe the methodological steps in a mapping of the components of the Danish communication system. In conclusion, we discuss the overall findings that the method uncovers and its implications for future comparative research.

This article offers a research tool for comparative studies of digital communication systems. It brings together the fields of infrastructure studies, Internet governance, and political economy of the Internet with the tradition of systemic media analysis and argues that existing frameworks are inadequate for capturing regulatory and power structures in a complex digital environment. In the article, we develop a framework for conceptualising and mapping the components of digital communication systems – the DCS framework – and operationalise it for standardised measurements by outlining twelve key indicators that can be analysed using empirical data from a number of existing databases. The framework provides a basis for measuring and comparing digital communication systems across national or regional contexts, and thereby developing new typologies for how to understand structural differences and similarities.

It has long been acknowledged that the use of ‘free’ mobile apps comes at a price, but few empirical studies have looked into this supposed trade-off. This article combines qualitative interviews with mappings of infrastructures for datafication in order to study the implications of mobile app usage from the perspective of individual users. It analyses users’ understanding of online tracking, maps the infrastructural tenets of mobile datafication, and finds a disconnect between what users believe happens to their data and the actual data harvesting and distribution mechanisms of their apps. We thereby argue that users’ resigned attitudes should be understood in light of the material conditions of the app economy and, as such, that user and infrastructure studies should join forces in exploring and enhancing users’ agency, empowerment and emancipation.

The article traces the evolution of over-the-top (OTT) services in order to analyse how the growing use of Internet distribution influences the structural conditions and institutional arrangements in Denmark. This story is told in four parts: first, I outline how the shift from postal services to e-mail restructured the conditions for asynchronous one-to-one communication; second, I examine the introduction of web-based services and the declining role of the press as gatekeeper for asynchronous one-to-many communication; third, I focus on the impact of mobile broadband and smartphones on synchronous one-to-one communication and the telecommunications sector; and fourth, I analyse the emergence of streaming technologies and the reorganisation of synchronous one-to-many communication and broadcasting. Building on these examples, I argue that key welfare state principles have come under pressure and that research tends to underestimate the fundamental transformations of the institution...

The increasing use of mobile applications (apps) has turned data harvesting, mining, and distribution into commercial as well as functional backbones of mobile communication. Acknowledging that contemporary markets for mobile communication are increasingly datafied, this article maps and discusses how infrastructures for mobile datafication are controlled. It combines perspectives from critical data studies, political economy of communication, and app studies in an empirical analysis of the 500 most downloaded apps in the Google Play store (November 2020). Focusing on control over and ownership in the three interdependent markets for apps, data accesses, and third-party services, the analysis documents, confirms, and explains established power structures and sheds light on the mobile datafication processes that frame the use of apps and commodification of users. As such, it provides an empirical baseline for future monitoring, and ultimately regulation, of mobile app ecosystems.

A growing body of research centers around the concept of “datafication” suggesting a buzz around data studies and, perhaps, the emergence of a research field. This article analyzes and discusses the current state of datafication research. Our dataset comprises 463 publications on datafication identified through a systematic literature search in Web of Science and Scopus, an explorative network analysis of keyword co-occurrences and a content analysis of these publications. We map datafication research interests in various research fields, find that the majority of studies are theoretically oriented, whereas empirical analyses largely apply qualitative approaches and rarely make use of data-driven methods. We suggest studies on datafication can be devised into categories reflecting research interests in either user understandings and practices or in infrastructure and technological processes of datafication. The latter strand is particularly sparse in empirical anchoring, and needs e...

I løbet af de seneste 30 år har digitaliseringen medført en markant restrukturering af de teknologiske, økonomiske og politiske vilkår for kommunikation: internettet er blevet en fælles infrastruktur, der kan erstatte alle tidligere kommunikationsnetværk, globale virksomheder har udfordret nationale institutioners forretningsmodeller og markedspositioner, og eksisterende kommunikationspolitisk lovgivning og regulering har vist sig tiltagende utilstrækkelig. Denne artikel tegner et portræt af internettets evolutionære udvikling i Danmark fra 1992 til 2020 og diskuterer de væsentligste politiskøkonomiske implikationer ved overgangen til digital kommunikation.

The article develops a methodological and empirical approach for gauging the ways Big Data can be collected and distributed through mobile apps. This approach focuses on the infrastructural components that condition the disclosure of smartphone users’ data – namely the permissions that apps request and the third-party corporations they work with. We explore the surveillance ecology of mobile apps and thereby the privacy implications of everyday smartphone use through three analytical perspectives: The first focuses on the ‘appscapes’ of individual smartphone users and investigates the consequences of which and how many mobile apps users download on their phones; the second compares different types of apps in order to study the app ecology and the relationships between app and third-party service providers; and the third focuses on a particular app category and discusses the functional as well as the commercial incentives for permissions and third-party collaborations. Thereby, the a...

It has long been acknowledged that the use of ‘free’ mobile apps comes at a price,but few empirical studies have looked into this supposed trade-off. This articlecombines qualitative interviews with mappings of infrastructures for dataficationin order to study the implications of mobile app usage from the perspectiveof individual users. It analyses users’ understanding of online tracking, maps theinfrastructural tenets of mobile datafication, and finds a disconnect between whatusers believe happens to their data and the actual data harvesting and distributionmechanisms of their apps. We thereby argue that users’ resigned attitudes shouldbe understood in light of the material conditions of the app economy and, as such,that user and infrastructure studies should join forces in exploring and enhancingusers’ agency, empowerment and emancipation.