Normative foundations of media welfare: Perspectives from the Nordic countries

Abstract

What does media welfare mean from a normative perspective? The notion of media welfare and “the media welfare state” has mainly been used descriptively, to depict the particular way in which the media are organized in the Nordic welfare states. In this article, we explore media welfare from a normative perspective. Our intention is to open up a discussion about the normative and political implications of the notion of media welfare and to bring the concept into the contemporary discussion on normative perspectives regarding the media.

Crosscurrents: Welfare

“…Media policy promoting a strong public service, for example in the Nordic countries, has been of particular importance here. On this note, Jakobsson et al (2022) have lately turned to the normative foundations and motivations of media welfare. Furthermore, investigations and conceptualizations of the media welfare state explore whether and how the premises of media welfare are still valid in a digital media ecology (Ala-Fossi, 2020; Enli and Syvertsen, 2020; Flensburg, 2021).…”

“…The notion of organized welfare through institutionalized provision for basic needs emerged first in the 20th century and the idea of the welfare state was first mentioned during the Second World War in 1939. It is built on normative ideas of universalism, equality and decommodification (Jakobsson et al, 2022). Based on these principles, arguments for the welfare state are put forward such as its ability to enhance social cohesion, as well as a balancing of risks while preserving human dignity (Jakobsson et al, 2022).…”

Retrofitting and ruining: Bunkered data centers in and out of time

“…Equinix itself was among the first companies to make headlines in the years preceding the dot-com bust by repurposing a bunker into a data center and offering “unprecedented security” by placing armed guards and modern video surveillance in a military bunker in the United States (Wallack, 2000). As documented by a range of scholars, the thick bomb-proof walls of bunkers, their invisibility from public sight, and underground location have been used strategically by companies providing collocation services to craft an idea of the eternal preservation of an ephemeral object like data, that would seemingly persist long after catastrophes and disasters have possibly rendered humans extinct, inscribing data in the long-durée temporalities of geological time (Graham, 2018; Hu, 2015: 82–110; Jakobsson and Stiernstedt, 2012; Taylor, 2021a).…”

“…Indeed, much of the critical scholarly work on data centers has so far been guided by the overarching assumption that data centers are here to stay, and like other infrastructures, will endure and produce effects that last beyond generations (Hogan, 2018; Jakobsson and Stiernstedt, 2012; Johnson, 2019; Taylor, 2021b). The dismantling of HE2 urges us instead to recognize that just as the “cloud” is infrastructurally made, it is also simultaneously unmade.…”

Concrete clouds: Bunkers, data, preparedness

“…In doing so, I explore how data bunker companies and cloud disaster recovery providers work to position clients in anticipative relation to a future data loss event. In recent years, these bunkered data centres have attracted considerable journalistic and academic attention, capturing the imagination of the popular press and scholars alike (Charles, 2016; Graham, 2013; Hu, 2015; Jakobsson and Stiernstedt, 2012; Jha, 2009; Mingard, 2014). The excessive materiality of the concrete data bunker jars with the images and imaginaries of immateriality typically associated with the digital computing ‘cloud’.…”