New professor wants to understand how digital technology affects societal change

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– It is important to understand digitalization and how technology influences our possibilities to organize and transform political and social systems, says Lisen Selander.

To better understand contemporary collective action, Lisen has among other things collaborated with Amnesty International to investigate digital action repertoires and digital activism.

–  I investigated different forms and ways Amnesty engaged in developing digital action repertories, that is new ways to engage and take action. I have taken those insights with me to a research project I am active in now, called TechnAct. TechnAct is a cross disciplinary research network on digital platforms, gender, and social movements, she says.

Got her PhD from Lund University

Lisen Selander defended her dissertation in 2008 from Lund School of Economics. The year after she moved to Gothenburg and started to work at Viktoria Swedish ICT (now Viktoria RISE). From 2012 and on she has been working as a researcher and lecturer at the Department of Applied Information Technology, IT Faculty.

In addition to TechnAct, Lisen is also involved in several other research projects, including one that deals with critical aspects of algorithmic decision making and social injustices.

Paper of the year

Lisen Selander has twice been granted research funding from Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation and the current project, TechnAct, is funded by the Swedish Research Council.

Lisen has also been awarded Paper of the Year – the best research paper of the year – by the highly ranked journal MIS Quarterly for her research article Digital Action Repertoires and Transforming a Social Movement Organization

– I have worked intensively over a long period of time, promotion is important to me in so many ways, and a wonderful recognition of that work, she says.