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Live stream of a symposium about the public value of communication infrastructures in the Nordics

Event
 | 8 February 2024
Are the Nordic states too reliant on tech giants to sustain the critical communication infrastructures of the welfare state? Nordicom and Nordregio have invited media scholars and industry and policy actors to debate this at a symposium in Stockholm on 8 February. The symposium was live streamed and is available to watch afterwards.

The Nordics have been described as “one internet". This interconnection relies heavily on American tech companies like Akamai, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft – most of whom base their Nordic operations in Stockholm.

These companies own the cloud services, data centres, and content delivery networks that store, transmit, and process data for the Nordic media industries. None of these sectors are regulated under welfare state provisions, which threatens the resilience of welfare state principles such as universal access, transparency, and privacy.

The legal jurisdiction of Nordic states to regulate these digital communication infrastructures is currently challenged by a range of uncertainties: the implementation of the Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act, the revision of telecom law, and the increased surveillance of digital data. We are witnessing a total reconfiguration of the universal provision of communication infrastructures as the digital readiness of nation-states becomes beholden to tech giants.

We are inviting three panels – representing research in the field, media policy and oversight, and the media industries – to debate the following question:

How should Nordic welfare states respond to these challenges?

Watch the symposium

Part 1 - Keynote: Gateways: Comparing Digital Communication Systems in Nordic Welfare States. Sofie Flensburg and Signe Sophus Lai, assistant professors at University of Copenhagen




Part 2 - Research panel: The preparedness of communication infrastructure in the Nordics

  • Carl Heath, senior researcher at RISE Research Institutes of Sweden
  • Signe Ravn-Højgaard, assistant professor at the University of Greenland
  • Kaarina Nikunen, professor at Tampere University
  • Julia Velkova, associate professor at Linköping University



Part 3 - Policy panel: Regulating critical communication infrastructures in the Nordics

  • Teis Lebeck, head of section at the Danish Ministry for Digital Government
  • Elfa Yr Gylfadottir, director of the Media Commission, Iceland
  • Mari Velsand, director General at The Norwegian Media Authority
  • Filippa Arvas Olsson, senior Adviser at the Swedish Ministry of Culture, Division for Media and Democracy



Part 4 - Industry panel: The future infrastructure for democracy in the Nordics


  • Karen Rønde, CEO at Danish Press Publications’ Collective Management Organisation
  • Tomas Granryd, head of Voice Products at Sveriges Radio
  • Jon Wessel-Aas, Supreme Court Attorney at Glittertind Law Firm, Board Member of the Tinius Trust
  • Julia Agha, CEO Alkompis, Swedish Independent News Channel in Arabic

 

 

Read and download the book Gateways: Comparing Digital Communication Systems in Nordic Welfare States by Sofie Flensburg and Signe Sophus Lai here

About the symposium 

The symposium is funded by the research project The Datafication of Communicative Power: Towards an Independent Media Policy for Norway’s Digital Infrastructures, The Research Council of Norway (grant number 314257), led by Professor Helle Sjøvaag at the University of Stavanger, and convened by Nordicom and Nordregio as part of the 2024 Swedish Presidency of the Nordic Council of Ministers.
 

Topic :
Event
The Nordic region