MCS@UU 50 years

Jenny Eriksson Lundström, senior lecturer in Information Systems, currently holds the position of Head of the Department at the Department of lnformatics and Media. She also serves as Director and President of the Head of Department Council of Campus Observatoriet of Uppsala University and as President of the Foundation for Legal Information. Her research focus on digitalisation, AI, ethics, knowledge representation, managing innovation, IT and practice. She is supervising five PhD students and teach classes on bachelor's, master's and PhD level.

Jenny Eriksson Lundström's profile page

Professor Michał Krzyżanowski holds the Chair in Media and Communication Studies at Uppsala University. He is one of the leading international scholars working on critical discourse studies of race, ethnicity and the politics of exclusion in the context of communication, media and social change. He is the Editor of Journal of Language and Politics and Bloomsbury Advances in Critical Discourse Studies. See Michał Krzyżanowski’s profile page for more information on his research and publications.

Therese Monstad is senior lecturer and administrative Director of Studies in Media and communication Studies at the Department of Informatics and Media. At the moment, she participates in two research projects: CRUSH Covid and Managing the Digital Transformation of Physical Space (TROPHY). Previously, she has contributed in research projects studying internal communication during changes, the use of an interactive video website, internal communication in companies applying Enterprise Architecture (EA) and, media's impact on political issues.

Therese Monstad's profile page

Göran Svensson, senior lecturer in Media and Communication Studies and Chair of IM Alumni, holds a PhD from the Department of Informatics and Media, Uppsala University, Sweden, with the thesis Understanding media criticism. Conceptual, empirical and theoretical studies of Swedish media criticism 1998-2013. He is also a trained journalist and has worked as print, radio and freelance journalist. He has taught media and communication and journalism at Uppsala University since 1988.

Göran Svenssons profile page

Lowe Hedman came to Uppsala to study Business Economy in 1966. When he finished his master's thesis in the subject he continued with studies in Sociology. In the spring 1970 he was asked if he could teach on a new course in information technique [informationsteknik]. Initially he said no, but after discussing the content and design of the course he accepted the offer and he was employed as a teacher the same year. He came to hold such a position until his retirement.

In 1999 he became the first professor in Media and Communication Studies at Uppsala university. Later he also became professor in MCS focusing on media development at Mid Sweden University. Media development is the research area Hedman has been studying throughout his academic career. He came to hold this later position until his retirement.

Hedman worked for a brief period at the Ministry of Employment. He acted as media expert in several commissions, among them Närradiokommittén, Diskrimineringsutredningen and TV-reklameffektutredningen. He has also been a member of The Swedish Broadcasting Commission [Granskningsnämnden för radio ch TV]. He was also one of the founding members of FSMK, Föreningen för Svensk Medie- och kommunikationsforskning.

Tomas Palm, born in 1943 in Gävle, took a bachelor's degree in Uppsala in 1968, where the main subject was sociology supplemented by later doctoral courses. The following year, he graduated from IHR - Institute for Higher Advertising and Communication Education.

During the years 1969 - 1974 he was active as a teacher and substitute senior lecturer at the Department of Sociology in Uppsala with emphasis on sociological methodology and social psychology. The lectureship was concentrated in the last year on the newly established course in Information Technique, where the course responsibility was shared with Lowe Hedman. The time at the Department of Sociology meant a lot of teaching in Uppsala as well as in the rest of the country. "Sometimes I felt like a business traveller in sociology!", he says.

After 1975, interest in more practical information work took over. Until his retirement in 2010, Tomas mainly held three positions as information manager. First at crane-manufacturing Hiab-Focos' head office in Hudiksvall, where the new co-determination act required a flexible system for consultation with staff. Then six years at Jönköping County Council based on the values ​​"Patient in the Center". In 1984, Tomas returned to Gävle municipality with information projects such as British Week 1985, Kungaparets eriksgata 1987, Swedish Housing Fair 1988, Riksdag in Gävle 1992 and Gävle 550 in 1996. In the last years before his retirement, Palm was at the municipality's IT department, where he with mixed success tried to get the specialists to write comprehensible Swedish!

Peder Hård af Segerstad, PhD, associate professor in Media and Communication Studies, taught, researched and supervised at the Department of Informatics and Media until his retirement 2008. His main academic focus was communication and societal development, organisational communication and intercultural communication. His book Kommunikation och Information [Communication and Information] was for many years used as course literature for first semester students of Media and Communication Studies.

Anne-Marie Morhed, Phd, has been involved in teaching and administration in Media and Communication Studies since the mid of 1980s. When she started as a university lecturer, the subject was only available as individual courses and was given under the name Information technique [Informationsteknik] at the Department of Sociology, Uppsala University.

Sociology is also her research discipline and she defended her doctor dissertation 1993 with the title: Between women's question and women's science: the emergence of the discourse on women and the discipline of women's studies, and got a job as senior lecturer.

Information technique became its own discipline and changed its name to Information science. In 1998 the activities were reorganised within the framework of a new department, the Department of Information Science, together with Statistics, Computer and Systems Science and Human Computer Interaction. During this time, she was first the course director for Information Science and a few years later the director of studies at the unit, which was named Media and Communication Studies.

The presentation is about her perspective on the process of becoming its own discipline – Media and communication Studies – and the time as an administrative and teaching teacher at the Department until her retirement in 2016.

Ylva Ekström, senior lecturer in Media and Communication Studies, has been pedagogical director of studies and responsible for both the Bachelor's Programme in Media, Communication and Journalism Studies and the the Master's Programme in Social Sciences, specialising in Digital Media and Society. Besides being a teacher and researcher at the Department of Informatics and Media she is engaged as an educational developer at the Unit for Academic Teaching and Learning. She is currently involved as researcher in TROPHY: Managing the Digital Transformation of Physical Space and in CRUSH Covid.

 Ylva Ekström's profile page.

Oscar Fock is 22 years old and he entered the Bachelor’s programme in Media and Communication studies and Journalism in the fall of 2018 and in a few weeks he will (hopefully) have graduated from the program. He dreamt of one day working as a journalist and since he wanted to stay in his home town Uppsala this bachelor’s program was the perfect fit. On B- and C-level he has focused his studies on the field of journalism studies, culminating in a bachelor’s thesis on trust in news media. During his program studies he has also had the opportunity to take a semester of political science, be the chairman of the incredible student organisation Uppsala Medievetare and be an intern at Upsala Nya Tidning, UNT.

Amela Muratspahić is studying her second semester of the Master’s Programme in Social Sciences with a specialisation in Digital Media and Society. In June 2020 she received her bachelor’s degree from Uppsala University and was therefore part of the first class of programme students enrolled in the Bachelor’s Programme in Media, Communication and Journalism Studies. Throughout her education, she has been engaged in extracurricular activities, previously at Uppsala Medievetare as well as being a writer and editor for Holmiensis, Stockholm’s nation paper. Currently, she is the president of Tidningskonventet and a student representative in the Committee for Equal Opportunities at the Faculty of Social Sciences.

Amanda Lagerkvist is a professor in Media and Communication Studies in the Department of Informatics and Media at Uppsala University. Lagerkvist is also principal investigator of the Uppsala Informatics and Media Hub for Digital Existence.

As Wallenberg Academy Fellow (2014-2018) she founded the field of ‘existential media studies’. In her new project: “BioMe: Existential Challenges and Ethical Imperatives of Biometric AI in Everyday Lifeworlds” funded by the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation (within WASP-HS) her group studies the lived experiences of biometric AI, for example voice and face recognition technologies. She chairs the interdisciplinary research network DIGMEX, and she is the editor of Digital Existence: Ontology, Ethics and Transcendence in Digital Culture (Routledge, 2019) with a foreword by John D. Peters at Yale University.

In her monograph, Existential Media, she focuses the broader merits of existential philosophy for media studies in the context of the increasing digitalisation of death and automation of the lifeworld. She has recently published “Digital Limit Situations: Anticipatory Media Beyond ‘the New AI Era’”, Journal of Digital Social Research, 2:3, 2020. More information about key publications and output in the field of existential media studies.

Tomas Grönberg is CEO, marketing director and entrepreneur. To have the benefit to go to work and each day contribute to fight indifference in society. That is huge. The two words “fight indifference” [“bekämpa likgiltigheten”] were formulated by the first editor and owner of Gefle Dagblad already in 1895. Being just at relevant now as then, they are a guiding star for the professional life of Toma Grönberg. And that applies regardless if he is working as CEO for dailies in Gävle, IFU Arena, Wij Gardens or as chairman of House of Peace. It becomes easier and more fun if you are genuinely committed to the task, he affirms.

Solveig Öijeberg has a bachelor's degree from Uppsala University, supplemented with Information technique in 1983, and has since 1979 worked with communication in public administration. She began her career as an information officer and staff magazine editor at the Swedish Geological Survey, SGU. At that time, the communicator role in public administration was still in its infancy and more of a mouthpiece for the management. At the Swedish Veterinary Institute, SVA, she worked with editorial tasks but increasingly with strategic development work and crisis management. As acting information manager at the Medical Products Agency, her experience was expanded to also include international cooperation and more strategic use of the internet.

In 2002, she was recruited to the County Council in Uppsala County as information director with responsibility for the county council management's external and internal communication. In 2005, she took up the position as information director at the police authority in Uppsala County. Traditionally, external media communication had an important position within the police, while internal communication needed to be developed. The police authority's personnel magazine was changed and became not only the management's but also the staff's voice. Intranets and external websites were renewed and their importance was emphasized in the organisation. She also worked to strengthen the authority’s executives in their communicative leadership and strategic thinking. In 2011 she had a special assignment at the Swedish Security Service to develop a communication strategy.

Scaled Communications Manager within marketing and sale of Google ad technology, Google Marketing Platform. After finishing a double-degree at Uppsala University in 2010 Henri Nekmouche moved to Dublin, where he worked as a YouTube Specialist helping Google’s biggest advertisers in the Nordics succeed on YouTube. After three years in Dublin, he moved to London where he advised European customers about strategies across all social media platforms.

During the past eight years, Nekmouche has been working in New York as a storyteller for products within Google Marketing Platform (Google’s enterprise suite of advertising products). His team is developing and scaling value-driven marketing communications such as value props, narratives, podcasts, videos and case studies across North America and Latin America.

Cultural journalist, art critic and writer, raised on Åland, resident in Uppsala. After taking art and literary studies, he supplemented with journalism and since 2006 he has worked with writing. He has worked as a reporter, critic and editor. In parallel with journalism, he has written essays on art for exhibition catalogue, art books and the like. For a few years he ran a small Finnish-Swedish cultural magazine and in 2014 published the essay book "Kiss & go to hell!" and the 2020 novel "The Bridges".

He came to Upsala Nya Tidning as an intern during the education and worked for a long time with UNT as a base and wrote about all possible genres. In recent years art criticism has dominated and today he writes for Dagens Nyheter and Borås tidning, and sometimes in Hufvudstadsbladet and some smaller cultural magazines. From time to time, he also does something crazy outside of journalism for actors such as the Swedish Arts Council.

The field of cultural journalism is not very easy to work within and is in what appears to be a permanent crisis. But it is still possible to get ahead and even stay afloat. During the first years of the profession, he was almost in love with writing as such, and agreed to everything and wrote copious amounts. Recently, he has strived to structure his professional writing so that he can also have room for fiction projects, which has always been his intention but for a long time was made impossible by too much work.

Writing is always heavy, he says. But in return you have a lot of fun while you suffer, he continues.