MEDA Projects

The initiatives in this project are designed to address the challenges that inequality, exclusion, social fragmentation and polarisation pose to democratic society in Finland and the EU. To respond to these challenges and their risks for democracy, these initiatives seek to actualise the social and educational potential of the Commons. In the last three decades of so, academic interest in the Commons has been growing as a result of the effort to identify adequate alternatives to the excessive influence of the ‘self-regulating market’ in society.

An important signifier of this interest was, in 2009, the attribution of the Nobel Prize for Economics to Elinor Ostrom for her study “Governing the Commons” (1990).  After that a growing corpus of research has kept alive the debate and the quest for alternatives to the influence of Neoliberalism (Bollier, 2003) (Bollier, 2014) (Bollier & Helfrich, 2019) (Bauwens & Kostakis, 2014) (Bauwens, Kostakis, & Pazaitis, 2019) (Papadimitropoulos, 2020) (Birkinbine, 2020) (Kioupkiolis, 2023).

In this project the Commons are defined as a form of organisation of resources, authority and society alternative to Neoliberalism and more compatible with the values and processes of democracy.   

The main and common goal of the initiatives in this project is to promote the knowledge, the culture and the processes of the Commons in education. 

In support of this goal, these initiatives also seek to establish and consolidate a network of stakeholders.

For more information, please contact the project coordinator:
Matteo Stocchetti, E-mail: matteo.stocchetti@arcada.fi

FILM OCH IDENTITET (MEDA-CINEMA) (in Swedish)

Förstärkande av den finlandssvenska filmidentiteten genom en studie och filmprojekt av medie- och filmstuderanden.
Film och identitet är en empirisk studie om de grundläggande elementen för finlandssvensk film, så som den kan identifieras i det förflutna, men också, och framförallt, i framtiden. Denna studie kommer att framställas genom intervjuer med specifikt utvalda personer som i sin egenskap av erkända filmskapare eller sakkunniga är inflytelserika för denna identitet. Studien kommer att pågå från den 1 september 2016 till den 1 december 2019, och målet är att skaffa fram empiriskt bevis för att förstärka kursplanen för Kultur och kommunikation. Genom att till en viss grad identifiera de grundläggande elementen för finlandssvensk film kommer det att kunna erbjudas en mer inflytelserik källa av inspiration och riktning för undervisning, produktion och forskning på K&K.

Kärnan av den empiriska informationen kommer att sammanfattas av tre sorts intervjuer: en undersökning om studeranden genom att intervjua dem om filmer eller dokumentärer som representerar finlandssvenskar, en intervju med filmforskare och filmskapare. Ytterligare kommer det att utföras en studie bestående av jämförelser av andra minoriteters filmtraditioner: exempelvis tysktalande italienare och samiska finnar.

Läsåret 2015-2017 har det från skolan fristående projektet ”Points of View” (PoW) pågått på Arcada.Projektets mål är att utmana studerande att se förbi ”vad som säljer?” och istället tänka på vad ”Jag” vill berätta och ”varför?” – vilka problem i vårt samhälles digitala ålder är viktiga för mig att föra fram? 7-10 finlandssvenskar mediestuderanden kommer att inom loppet av ett läsår utforska ämnen i det moderna samhället som de personligen känner att är viktiga – i år har ämnen varit bland annat varit våld i relationer, äktenskap, modern synlighet – och därefter skapa ett faktabaserat manus för att producera en fiktiv kortfilm eller en kort dokumentär.

I och med en studie av den finlandssvenska filmidentiteten kommer studeranden att producera dokumentärer och fiktiva filmer – enligt eget val – baserat på självvalda ämnen men med samband till den finlandssvenska identiteten. Syftet att integrera PoW med Film & identitet är att undersöka om det finns en finlandssvensk identitet inom film, och därmed kunna identifiera den identiteten, eller till och med etablera den.

Projektkoordinatorer:

Matteo Stocchetti
Daniel Lindblom

In the last few years, a spat of revelations about the unethical and in some cases illegal practices by some large digital companies have brought to the attention of broader audiences the problems associated with the corporate control on the digital infrastructure.

In this project, the starting point is that the current digital infrastructure is dysfunctional for democracy because it is too dependent on proprietary software and a business model that prioritise private or corporate interests over functionality, transparency and access.

In order to challenge this dependence this project comprise two sets of activities addressing the technological and business dimensions respectively: MEDA-Demos 1 & 2.

The main goal of the former is to challenge this dependence by exploring the potential of non-proprietary software in support of data/privacy, digital rights and a new digital infrastructure more compatible with democracy. This goal is in line with the normative predicaments of the critical theory of technology and critical AI studies but also with the EU commitment to ‘digital sovereignty’ and digital democracy.

The main focus of MEDA-Demos 2 is the political economy of the current digital infrastructure. The goal here is to explore business models capable of assuring the commercial viability of digital services based on non-proprietary software.

Research team (in alphabetical order)

Dennis Biström

Pekka Buttler

Leo Espinosa

Kristoffer Kuvaja-Adolfsson

Johan Penttinen

Matteo Stocchetti (project coordinator)

Tore Ståhl

Contact person

Matteo Stocchetti (project coordinator) E-mail: matteo.stocchetti@arcada.fi

The notion of ‘epistemic injustice’ is described in the important study by Miranda Fricker (2007), Epistemic Injustice Power and the Ethics of Knowing, and the contributions that followed (Anderson, 2012) (Kidd, José Medina, & Pohlhaus, 2017) (Medina, 2012) (Pohlhaus, 2012) (Medina, 2011) (Fricker 2019).

With this project we want to explore the heuristic potential of this notion and the debates associated with to applied research on the digitalisation of higher education. The main goal is to develop the study of epistemic injustice and apply this approach to the effects of digitalisation, to support epistemic competence in higher education. The rationale for these competences is that while a true ‘digital revolution’ has not materialised, democratic societies are facing formidable challenges that cannot be ignored. In order to address these challenges, the ambition of this project is to support critical epistemic competences in higher education. In essence, these are the competences who combines ethical and epistemic knowledge, and enable people to recognise, support or oppose alternative truth-claims as legitimate or illegitimate.

In this project we address at least three set of research questions concerning: 1) concept development and theory building, 2) digitalisation, and 3) methods. The first set of research questions relates to the approach of epistemic injustice: its ontological grounds, the main features of its key concept, its relation with ideology, and its relevance in the tradition of critical pedagogy. The second set of research questions is about the relation between epistemic injustice and digitalization construed as both 1) a broad process affecting democratic society and 2) a more specific condition affecting the ways of knowing/learning in contemporary higher education. The third set of research questions are about method. These questions are important for at least two reasons. First, because of the elusive nature of epistemic injustice. Second, because a ‘method’ for the educational and pedagogical engagement with epistemic injustice in higher education is the main practical deliverable of this project.

Work cited

Anderson, E. (2012). Epistemic Justice as a Virtue of Social Institutions. Social Epistemology 26 (2): , 163–173.

Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic Injustice. Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Fricker, M. (2019). Afterword. In B. R. Sherman, & S. Goguen, Overcoming Epistemic Injustice. Social and Psychological Perspectives (pp. 303-305). London: Rowman & Littlefield.

Kidd, I. J., José Medina, J., & Pohlhaus, G. (2017). eds. The Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Injustice. London: Routledge.

Medina, J. (2011). The Relevance of Credibility Excess in a Proportional View of Epistemic Injustice: Differential Epistemic Authority and the Social Imaginary . Social Epistemology. 25, 15–35.

Medina, J. (2012). Hermeneutical Injustice and Polyphonic Contextualism: Social Silences and Shared Hermeneutical Responsibilities. Social Epistemology 26 (2), 201–220.

Pohlhaus, G. (2012). Relational Knowing and Epistemic Injustice: Toward a Theory of Willful Hermeneutical Ignorance. Hypatia. Vol. 27, N.4, 715–735 .

Research team & international network

Research team (in alphabetical order):

Leonardo Espinosa Leal

Lars Lundsten

Tiina Räisä (network coordinator)

Matteo Stocchetti (project coordinator)

Tore Ståhl

Epistemic Injustice Network

Johanna Enser-Kananen - Publications: https://www.jyu.fi/hytk/fi/laitokset/kivi/henkilosto/henkilosto/ennser-kananen-johanna External link

Katalin Fehér - Publications: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Katalin-Feher External link

Charles Mathies - Publications: https://ktl.jyu.fi/en/staff/mathies-charles/publications External link

Markus Naarttijärvi - Publications: https://www.umu.se/en/staff/markus-naarttijarvi/?flik=publikationer External link

Jenny Wiik - Publications: https://www.gu.se/en/about/find-staff/jennywiik External link

Ramon Alvarado - Publications: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ra… External link

Daniel Putnam - Publications: https://www.danielmputnam.com/#published External link

Reijo Kupiainen - Publications: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Re… External link

Contact person

Tiina Räisä - E-mail: tiinar@arcada.fi

Background

People read more than ever when using social media and mobile applications for various communicative functions. Yet, the decline in reading competences, i.e. abilities to read and comprehend longer texts, has become a major concern for educational institutions at all levels. In countries like Finland, 15-year old were ranked as the ‘best readers’ compared to other OECD-countries in 2000. More recent statistic has caused strong reactions; an ICILS report (2018) shows that 62% of the Finnish higher vocational training students have weak or only sufficient skills in critical reading. Also, library rates and sold hardcopies alike are in decline, while audiobooks are found more attractive. Overall, the understanding of function of books and reading is in turmoil (Jaakkola & Räisä, 2021; Kivistö & Pihlström, 2018).

While there is an ongoing debate on the direct effects of digital technology on, for example, the relationship between cognitive functioning and social media (Lara & Bokoch, 2021), or the relationship between health and gaming (Enevold, Thorhauge & Gerersen, 2018), a growing number of people report they face difficulties with concentration and focus, i.e. abilities required for perception and comprehension of the written word.

There is a long tradition of western research pointing out that when discussing reading there is always some extra-literary aspects at stake such as national identities, prosperity, and health. Less advantaged groups such as women and children has repeatedly been said to read too little or too much (Lehtonen, 2013; Mäkinen, 2017).

Also, research has shown that reading is not a natural ability, something humans are born with. Instead, reading is a cultural skill, something we have learned to appreciate as a practice for individual growth, for producing new knowledge and for constructing democracies. What is under threat is the love of reading (in Swedish läslust and in Finish lukuhalu) (Mäkinen, 1997), and the consequences that follow from people not reading longer texts. 

The starting point for the project Functional literacies in the digital age, is what emerges as a new, ‘cultural pandemic’: a situation where citizens, be they children, university students, old people, all alike encounter challenges with concentration and focus, i.e. required tools for reading and understanding longer texts, such as books.

There are two scenarios unfolding from people reading less.

Firstly, the role of higher education institutions is challenged by the fact that the prerequisites of its core activities or rationale, reading, critical thinking and writing, is eroding. What is more, universities are not only educating for real life conditions, for various professional functions, but also have a responsibility to ensure that societies work as democracies. 

Secondly, reading affects societies, and our democratic condition. With a growing number of digital technologies at hand, citizens would need substantially more critical reading competences, in order to navigate themselves and make informed decisions which support the democratic process. 

In short, with less people capable of reading and comprehending longer texts, we potentially have at hand a new class division: a border between those who can and cannot read.

Aim of project

We believe that we need more research on the relationship between functional literacies and democracy, while implementing the role of digitalization in investigation. To cure the ‘cultural pandemic’ we need to find solutions so as to change the negative development and improve the conditions for reading longer texts, for the sake of universities and for democracies.

The aim of the project is threefold:

1) Describe the qualities and power of digital media technologies in reference to reading. This includes an assessment of the media as an attention-seeking logic (cf. Räisä, 2022) and the instrumentalisation of digital practices in a reading context.
2) Formulate a research-agenda for researching the highly complex and co-dependent field of reading in the digital age. The problem requires an interdisciplinary approach in order to be described, and consequently a broad network of different expertise. 
3) Formulate research questions and methods for collecting and interpreting data for producing new knowledge on functional literacies in the digital age and for formulating policy recommendations.

The overall research question we pursuit to answer is:

What are the conditions of functional literacies in the digital age and what are their effects on higher education and democracies?

The research is relevant for higher education in general but also for the Swedish speaking community specifically. With less functionally literate people there is less changes of developing language specific cultures and uphold the Swedish speaking society.

Contact person

Tiina Räisä - E-mail:tiinar@arcada.fi

Project coordinator: Matteo Stocchetti

This project is inspired by the idea that no matter how disenchanted we may be about the democratic potential of digital technologies, that potential is not lost and applied research can give a fundamental contribution to its recovery. A core ambition of this project is to contribute to the revaluation of this potential through applied scientific research capable of improving the quantity and quality of political participation through digital media. Demos is a Greek word that, in the notion used here, indicates the people regarded as a political formation: a deliberative unit composed by formally equal members, willing and capable of performing organized collective action ultimately inspired by the effort of being master of its own destiny. In order to exist and survive, a democratic regime needs its demos as a body needs a soul to be alive. But demos can exists only if certain conditions are met. Coherently with the general guidelines of the MEDA programme, also in this project the focus is on those conditions that are more closely connected to education. From this perspective, the reconstitution of the public sphere in the digital age is a challenge that has to do with the formation of individuals as well as with the political economy of communication media. Research activities in this project are performed in partnership with the Audience Research Office of Svenska Yle and include:

MEDA_Demos Survey, an exercise that once a year collect information concerning youths access and contributions to online news.

The analysis of readers comments to the online news of Svenska Yle.

The initiatives in this project are designed to address the challenges that recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and related technology poses to formal high education. 

These challenges are many and diverse. They pertain to the context and the content of learning, to the processes of creation and justification of knowledge and, most significantly for the disruptive effects of new technologies on traditional methods, to the evaluation and certification of knowledge. The last challenge is especially significant because AI and related technologies make cheating easier and, so far, quite hard to identify.

In parallel with a growing interest in AI and pressures for its adoption, a growing body of academic research is looking for effective responses to the increasing of plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty facilitated by these technologies (for one of the reviews of available research see, for example, Moya, B., Eaton, S., Pethrick , H., Hayden, A., Brennan, R., Wiens, J., & McDermott, B. (2024). Academic Integrity and Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education (HE) Contexts: A Rapid Scoping Review. Canadian Perspectives on Academic Integrity, 7(3). https://doi.org/10.55016/ojs/cpai.v7i3.78123). External link 

An important element that emerge from this debate is the idea that effective responses to this challenge should involve both pedagogical and administrative aspects: effective sanctions but also effective interventions on the broader relationship learning relationship involving students, teachers and school managers.

The goal of formal education is not restricted to the certification of competences. In democratic societies, the main goal is the formation of individuals willing and able to combine democratic rights and duties in their respective communities. In this perspective, academic cheating is not primarily a behavior to repress and punish but rather the expression of a fundamental misunderstanding of the process itself. 

The core aspect of the challenges associated with AI and related technologies is thus not primarily ‘technological’ but ‘pedagogical’ and ‘ideological’. The problem that a new pedagogy need to tackle, in other words is not with technology per se but with the influence of a broader culture that privilege results over methods, the outcomes over the process and ultimately performativity over learning. In this culture, cheating can be seen as a form of defensive mechanism through which individuals afflicted by a fundamental fear of inadequacy, seek to pull through. The problem, on a macro level, is that the effective deployment of this defensive mechanism undermines the acquisition of competence and the formation of democratic subjectivities along the coordinate of truth and responsibility. 

The initiatives in this project are designed to support the formulation of effective responses to the challenges of AI and related technology in higher education, including cheating and other forms of dishonesty. To be effective, these responses by be compatible with and supportive of the educational and pedagogical goals and practices of democratic education.

For more information, please contact the project coordinator:
Matteo Stocchetti, E-mail: matteo.stocchetti@arcada.fi

Finnish society, as other advanced society, is highly mediatized: an increasing share of interpersonal relations and social life is mediated by a medium of some sort, most often a digital medium. The main question addressed in this project is the following: What is the role of the media in the practices or behaviours through which individuals try to preserve or improve their quality of life? Based on the insights of occupational therapy[2] and the approach of “salutogenics”[3], the scientific goal of thisproject is to collect, disseminate and possibly improve available knowledge on the role of digital technology on the social construction of the concept of quality of life and the practices, the needs and the aspirations associated to it.

• [2] External linkhttp://www.caot.ca/; http://www.aota.org/ External link;
• [3] http://www.salutogenesis.fi/eng/Salutogenesis.5.html External link

The evolution of communication technology is often described in terms of a powerful force of change. In this project we interrogate the role of this evolution on the educational functions of storytelling. Storytelling is one of the oldest form of communicative behavior: one that, throughout the history of humankind, participates in many important social activities, from religious rituals to informal communication. In this perspective it could be argued that, independently from cultural differences, the educational relevance of storytelling is a reflection of the importance of storytelling itself in the social construction of the real.

The main question we want to address here is about the direct and indirect impact of digital communication technologies on the educational role and functions of storytelling. In particular, we want to address three sets of interrelated questions: First, what are the functions of storytelling in education? Why is storytelling important on educational grounds? Second, what is the impact of digital technology on the functions of storytelling in education? Do these changes create conditions in education and in the broader society that require fundamental changes in the nature and processes of storytelling? To what extent, for example, does the incredulity of the ‘postmodern condition’ affect the social and educational functions of storytelling? Or are these changes overrated when it comes to the fundamental functions of this communicative practice? Third, what are the risks, challenges and opportunities associated with the impact of digital technologies on the traditional functions of storytelling?

Coherently with the mission of MEDA, in this project the focus is on practical problems, with conceptual or theoretical issues addressed only when strictly necessary to clarify the nature of these problems. Our main goal is to gather relevant information, knowledge and opinion concerning the past, present and future educational role of storytelling in the digital age for a primary audience of media and communication students, teachers and educators.