A paper I co-authored with Øyvind Ihlen and Ketil Raknes was recently awarded the best paper award during the 2019 EUPRERA conference. Here’s what the jury had to say about our paper, entitled “The democratic success of Twitter as a lobbying tool”:

The paper discusses the contribution of Twitter to democratic goals of engagement and debate by asking “What type of interest groups and organizations succeed in having members of parliament react on (retweet) their Twitter messages?”. To answer this question, the authors analyzed the extent to which Norwegian politicians retweet messages from interest groups and lobbyists during normal parliamentary activity. Despite the touted democratic potential of Twitter, the researchers find that it is the powerful groups and organizations that get heard more by politicians, also on Twitter. The paper is excellently written with solid links to the relevant literature and sound methodology.

I’ve spent the last couple of days at the university of Urbino, hosted by Fabio Giglietto as part of an ERASMUS teacher exchange between Westerdals Oslo ACT and the department of communication studies at the aforementioned university. Urbino proved to be a lovely little town – about 15 000 inhabitants live there, to which one has to add about the same amount of students, who mostly commute from out of town. While in Urbino, I held a few lectures and seminars on the undergraduate as well as graduate level, discussing (among other things) the consequences of personalized content on the Instagram pages of political leaders. Please refer to the picture of me in action available above (thanks to Giovanni Boccia Artieri, who tweeted the picture).

In mid-july, I accepted the position as Associate Professor at Westerdals Oslo School of Arts, Communication and Technology (Westerdals Oslo ACT). While I have enjoyed my postdoctoral stay at the Department of Media and Communication, University of Oslo, all temporary positions come to an end – and the position at Westerdals Oslo ACT looks like a nice opportunity for me to further my research and teaching interests. I’ll be assuming the position at the beginning of November of this year. More to come…

At the end of the 2013 spring semester I was fortunate enough to be presented with not one, but two awards for my PhD thesis. First, the Börje Langefors Award (site in Swedish) for best Swedish thesis in Informatics defended during 2012. Apparently, the jury haven’t gotten round to updating the site with this year’s winner yet, but someone (not me, I swear) has provided Wikipedia with the correct details. The Wikipedia entry also features a nice translation of the motivation for me getting the award, which reads as follows:

The thesis is based on a socially relevant contemporary topic, well-designed and well-defined subject area with contrasting perspectives based on exceptional and interesting empirical material. The thesis is easy to read and well structured with well linked articles. It has a very good international exposure.

Second, I was named the first ever recipient of the FSMK (The Swedish association for media and communication research) Doctoral Dissertation Award. While neither the FSMK web, nor Wikipedia feature information regarding this, I have the diploma to back it up – in fact, both diplomas are pictured above. The motivation for this latter award translates as follows (translation by myself)

A well-written, well-structured and advanced thesis making valuable theoretical and methodological contributions within a topical and important area – especially in the study of Twitter, and utilizing Gidden’s theories. Larsson has contributed with important knowledge to the research area of new and social media in relation to politicians and audiences, thereby making an important contribution to the international field of media and communication studies.

Obviously, I feel very proud and honored to have received recognition from the two disciplines that I consider my two academic homes. Drawing on methods, perspectives and ways of thinking from both traditions have proven extremely fruitful for me so far, and I hope to be able to continue to do so in my future efforts.

On may 16th, I (successfully) defended my PhD thesis.  The picture above was taken just afterwards, as I was presented with lovely gifts from friends and family. It’s been an intense couple of weeks after the big day: on may 22 I left for ICA in Phoenix, Arizona. Now, focus is on wrapping up things here in Uppsala. In a couple of weeks, we’ll be moving to Oslo, Norway, where I’ll be guest researcher at the Department of Media and Communication, University of Oslo.

Just got this test print of my phd thesis from the printers. Looks good, to me at least. The cover picture turned out good, save for the small “wavy” traces visible above. The printers assured me that this will not be an issue with the final edition. The whole batch will be delivered on april 24th.

As of april of this year, I have been appointed Director of Communication for The Swedish IT-User Centre (NITA). The web page is in Swedish, but english speakers can find information on NITA and its objectives here.

Together with Else Nygren, I co-authored this article on digital generations in schools for the Swedish debate site Newsmill.

I’ve been interviewed in german media regarding “webwills” – digital last wills. Brush up on your german and read the article here.