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Papers by Torbjörn Rolandsson

Social Media + Society, 2024

This article contextualizes contemporary forms of digital ghosting by examining how two of its hi... more This article contextualizes contemporary forms of digital ghosting by examining how two of its historical precursors—Victorian calling culture and answering machines—have been represented in North American women’s magazines. To do so, we develop mediated avoidance as an analytical heuristic. This concept captures the material, relational and social dimensions of a set of understudied media practices that seek to strategically engage with the gaps that are inherent in all communication, to defer, deflect, or disrupt mediated connections. Representations of mediated avoidance from respective eras were found to reflect different anxieties over the management of the public/private divide. Calling culture relied on unpaid labor to facilitate the transmission of printed messages between bourgeoise women and was constrained by an array of social protocols that regulated interactions along conceptions of propriety. The disconnective features of answering machines, meanwhile, were represented as giving women the upper hand in courtship, as well as providing means for increased productivity and self-care, foreshadowing contemporary justifications of digital disconnection. Concerns over contemporary ghosting are discussed as produced by a spillage of media practices. Ghosting is considered acceptable in feminine-coded spheres like courtship. But it is viewed as inappropriate—sometimes even as signaling a broader social crisis—when it bleeds into other contexts, like when an employee ghosts their employer.

Akademisk avhandling för avläggande av filosofie doktorsexamen i journalistik vid Stockholms univ... more Akademisk avhandling för avläggande av filosofie doktorsexamen i journalistik vid Stockholms universitet som offentligen kommer att försvaras fredagen den 15 september 2023 kl. 13.00 i JMK-salen, Garnisonen, Karlavägen 104.

Continuum, 2020

Appearances on entertainment television constitute opportunities for politicians, not only to con... more Appearances on entertainment television constitute opportunities for politicians, not only to convey political messages, but also to perform personality. Most research has focused on the interview setting as the locus of such performances. But in addition to being interviewed, politicians occasionally turn entertainers themselves, dancing, singing, playing instruments or doing comedy. This article analyses such performances as a specific communicative practice that plays a part in the construction of public persona. The analysis is theory driven and based upon the concepts of personalization of politics, performativity and the carnivalesque.Our conclusion is that such performances have the potential to communicate emotive sociality, accentuate celebrity status, construct ordinariness and work as a pre-emptive inoculation against satire and ridicule. There is, however, also a risk to appear undignified and scrupulously populist involved, since the performances negotiate borders of political decency.

Digital Journalism

This article studies the algorithmic project News values at Swedish public service radio, from th... more This article studies the algorithmic project News values at Swedish public service radio, from the perspective of datafied managerialism. Drawing on ethnographic observations and interviews with managers the study shows how the project, that outwardly works to automate news-sorting algorithmically, was employed to generate data about a number of internal journalistic activities, for a variety of purposes. Data was perceived of as a type of capital that could engender, amongst other things, increased knowledge about the internal workings of the organization, thus making it easier to audit its activities, and to standardize the practice of news-valuation throughout SR. Importantly, these goals were not planned in advance, but emerged over the course of the project. The results show how longitudinal approaches to algorithms and data-collection could benefit journalism studies, as they provide a more comprehensive picture of how data are operationalized in journalistic organizations.

Digital Journalism, 2022

This article studies the algorithmic project News values at Swedish public service radio, from th... more This article studies the algorithmic project News values at Swedish public service radio, from the perspective of datafied managerialism. Drawing on ethnographic observations and interviews with managers the study shows how the project, that outwardly works to automate news-sorting algorithmically, was employed to generate data about a number of internal journalistic activities, for a variety of purposes. Data was perceived of as a type of capital that could engender, amongst other things, increased knowledge about the internal workings of the organization, thus making it easier to audit its activities, and to standardize the practice of news-valuation throughout SR. Importantly, these goals were not planned in advance, but emerged over the course of the project. The results show how longitudinal approaches to algorithms and data-collection could benefit journalism studies, as they provide a more comprehensive picture of how data are operationalized in journalistic organizations.

Articles by Torbjörn Rolandsson

Continuum Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 2020

Appearances on entertainment television constitute opportunities for politicians, not only to con... more Appearances on entertainment television constitute opportunities for politicians, not only to convey political messages, but also to perform personality. Most research has focused on the interview setting as the locus of such performances. But in addition to being interviewed, politicians occasionally turn entertainers themselves, dancing, singing, playing instruments or doing comedy. This article analyses such performances as a specific communicative practice that plays a part in the construction of public persona. The analysis is theory driven and based upon the concepts of personalization of politics, performativity and the carnivalesque.Our conclusion is that such performances have the potential to communicate emotive sociality, accentuate celebrity status, construct ordinariness and work as a pre-emptive inoculation against satire and ridicule. There is, however, also a risk to appear undignified and scrupulously populist involved, since the performances negotiate borders of political decency.

Social Media + Society, 2024

This article contextualizes contemporary forms of digital ghosting by examining how two of its hi... more This article contextualizes contemporary forms of digital ghosting by examining how two of its historical precursors—Victorian calling culture and answering machines—have been represented in North American women’s magazines. To do so, we develop mediated avoidance as an analytical heuristic. This concept captures the material, relational and social dimensions of a set of understudied media practices that seek to strategically engage with the gaps that are inherent in all communication, to defer, deflect, or disrupt mediated connections. Representations of mediated avoidance from respective eras were found to reflect different anxieties over the management of the public/private divide. Calling culture relied on unpaid labor to facilitate the transmission of printed messages between bourgeoise women and was constrained by an array of social protocols that regulated interactions along conceptions of propriety. The disconnective features of answering machines, meanwhile, were represented as giving women the upper hand in courtship, as well as providing means for increased productivity and self-care, foreshadowing contemporary justifications of digital disconnection. Concerns over contemporary ghosting are discussed as produced by a spillage of media practices. Ghosting is considered acceptable in feminine-coded spheres like courtship. But it is viewed as inappropriate—sometimes even as signaling a broader social crisis—when it bleeds into other contexts, like when an employee ghosts their employer.

Akademisk avhandling för avläggande av filosofie doktorsexamen i journalistik vid Stockholms univ... more Akademisk avhandling för avläggande av filosofie doktorsexamen i journalistik vid Stockholms universitet som offentligen kommer att försvaras fredagen den 15 september 2023 kl. 13.00 i JMK-salen, Garnisonen, Karlavägen 104.

Continuum, 2020

Appearances on entertainment television constitute opportunities for politicians, not only to con... more Appearances on entertainment television constitute opportunities for politicians, not only to convey political messages, but also to perform personality. Most research has focused on the interview setting as the locus of such performances. But in addition to being interviewed, politicians occasionally turn entertainers themselves, dancing, singing, playing instruments or doing comedy. This article analyses such performances as a specific communicative practice that plays a part in the construction of public persona. The analysis is theory driven and based upon the concepts of personalization of politics, performativity and the carnivalesque.Our conclusion is that such performances have the potential to communicate emotive sociality, accentuate celebrity status, construct ordinariness and work as a pre-emptive inoculation against satire and ridicule. There is, however, also a risk to appear undignified and scrupulously populist involved, since the performances negotiate borders of political decency.

Digital Journalism

This article studies the algorithmic project News values at Swedish public service radio, from th... more This article studies the algorithmic project News values at Swedish public service radio, from the perspective of datafied managerialism. Drawing on ethnographic observations and interviews with managers the study shows how the project, that outwardly works to automate news-sorting algorithmically, was employed to generate data about a number of internal journalistic activities, for a variety of purposes. Data was perceived of as a type of capital that could engender, amongst other things, increased knowledge about the internal workings of the organization, thus making it easier to audit its activities, and to standardize the practice of news-valuation throughout SR. Importantly, these goals were not planned in advance, but emerged over the course of the project. The results show how longitudinal approaches to algorithms and data-collection could benefit journalism studies, as they provide a more comprehensive picture of how data are operationalized in journalistic organizations.

Digital Journalism, 2022

This article studies the algorithmic project News values at Swedish public service radio, from th... more This article studies the algorithmic project News values at Swedish public service radio, from the perspective of datafied managerialism. Drawing on ethnographic observations and interviews with managers the study shows how the project, that outwardly works to automate news-sorting algorithmically, was employed to generate data about a number of internal journalistic activities, for a variety of purposes. Data was perceived of as a type of capital that could engender, amongst other things, increased knowledge about the internal workings of the organization, thus making it easier to audit its activities, and to standardize the practice of news-valuation throughout SR. Importantly, these goals were not planned in advance, but emerged over the course of the project. The results show how longitudinal approaches to algorithms and data-collection could benefit journalism studies, as they provide a more comprehensive picture of how data are operationalized in journalistic organizations.

Continuum Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 2020

Appearances on entertainment television constitute opportunities for politicians, not only to con... more Appearances on entertainment television constitute opportunities for politicians, not only to convey political messages, but also to perform personality. Most research has focused on the interview setting as the locus of such performances. But in addition to being interviewed, politicians occasionally turn entertainers themselves, dancing, singing, playing instruments or doing comedy. This article analyses such performances as a specific communicative practice that plays a part in the construction of public persona. The analysis is theory driven and based upon the concepts of personalization of politics, performativity and the carnivalesque.Our conclusion is that such performances have the potential to communicate emotive sociality, accentuate celebrity status, construct ordinariness and work as a pre-emptive inoculation against satire and ridicule. There is, however, also a risk to appear undignified and scrupulously populist involved, since the performances negotiate borders of political decency.