Abstract
The way in which we describe processes of automation, the digital society and the technology companies that deliver many of its services carry implicit and sometimes contradicting values and ideas about the society envisioned. In this paper, we are interested in unfolding some of the metaphors that guide political discourses on digitalisation in Denmark, particularly those related to the nexus between the welfare state and the market. We propose that metaphorical analysis of policy documents serves to tease out and confront the implicit values and tensions related to how welfare ideologies are reconciled with market logics. This carries important messages about the Danish government’s imaginary of digitalisation and citizens, such as which role citizens are expected to play vis-à-vis digital services and welfare provisions. This paper argues that in contrast to the EU’s declared goal of human-centric digitalisation, the Danish government relies on metaphors that are technology-centric rather than human-centric.
Introduction
EU countries are currently occupied with regulating tech giants, thereby defining the boundaries for their impact on markets and democracy. In Denmark, the (former) social democratic government 1 launched a white paper on tech giants in June 2021 and then published follow-up policy reports in August 2021 (Regeringen, 2021a, 2021b, 2021c), as well as two strategies for digitalisation in 2022 (Regeringen, 2022; Regeringen et al., 2022) and a short follow-up policy document on digital exclusion from 2022 (Finansministeriet, 2022). The declared goal of these initiatives was to secure a more free, equal and safe society in the age of tech giants (Regeringen, 2021a). Denmark is presently one of the world’s most digitalised countries 2 and the case presents interesting insights into how digitalisation unfolds in the nexus between market and public sector values within a Nordic welfare model. The high level of digitalisation in Denmark combined with its unique identification of citizens provide the state with expansive means of both controlling and serving its citizens. The state’s collection of personal information from birth to death is an integral part of the Danish welfare model, and is generally accepted as a necessary and non-problematic component of an efficient public sector. For instance, all Danes have a personal identification number (CPR-number), 3 which is a 10-digit unique identifier that is used across all public (and some private) systems, from health care, to tax payment, to banking. It also forms the backbone of the digital identification system (MitID) used for signing into all public systems, as well as online purchases of some kinds of goods. The CPR-number is assigned to all new-borns after birth and is a necessity for acquiring a name and becoming part of Danish society in general. The majority of Danish citizens consider the CPR-number to be a non-controversial measure that is used to ease a lot of otherwise tiring tasks. A total of 76% of Danes have confidence in how the public authorities manage their personal information 4 a level of trust which is characteristic when compared to other European countries (Frederiksen, 2019: 393).
In terms of tech giants, the government’s practice and framing of their role in society carry competing and often contradictory values. For example, during the past 10 years the government has involved big tech companies in a variety of its public services. The Danish police has worked closely with Palantir to develop the predictive policing system Pol-Intel (Flyverbom and Hansen, 2019), which enables the combination of data from traditional police databases with public registers, such as the Central Person Register (CPR), and social media data. Furthermore, several municipalities have partnered with Google on digital infrastructure and smart city projects (Snow et al., 2016), Google Workspace for Education has been deployed as the default platform for children in most public schools (Cone, 2021), and Google Analytics and Facebook’s social media platform have been used by central and local authorities alike (Olsen and Tranberg, 2022).
In this paper, we will examine and analyse the metaphors used to describe processes of digitalisation. We will also examine the relationship between welfare ideologies and market logics through textual analysis of the (former) Danish government’s white paper and follow-up policy documents on tech giants (Regeringen, 2021a, 2021b, 2021c), as well as the two digitalisation strategies (Regeringen, 2022; Regeringen and Danske Regioner, 2022) and the follow-up policy document on digital exclusion (Finansministeriet, 2022). Digitalisation as set out in the strategies and implied by the metaphors can mean anything from the conversion of physical phenomena into digital data to the general process of embracing digital technologies in society. Following Wyatt (2004, 2021), we propose that metaphorical analysis can be useful in teasing out and confronting the underlying values and tensions that are inherent in Danish digitalisation policy and practice. This analysis is important because the way in which we conceptually structure our language of specific phenomena has implications for the possibilities and solutions that we can imagine. As we will show in our analysis, making the metaphors entailed in Danish policy documents visible helps to illustrate how the entailed target domain and its assumptions have consequences for the way in which digitalisation is imagined and countered. In other words, it matters how we talk about things because the metaphors become placeholders for how we understand the problem at hand. Effectively, they highlight certain issues and keep other aspects out of sight. Thus, by identifying the metaphors used by the Danish government to depict digitalisation, we can reveal important messages about digital citizenship and the type of agency that it entails. It also tells us something about where the Danish government stands in relation to the EU’s declared goal of human-centric digitalisation based in fundamental rights. The Digital Services Act (2022) and the Digital Markets Act (2022) require observance and protection of fundamental rights, as well as offering the opportunity for Union citizens to enjoy their fundamental rights.
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In the Ethics guidelines for trustworthy AI (AI HLEG, 2019), this rights-based framework is translated into a human-centric approach to the development of digital technologies (e.g. AI): The common foundation that unites these rights can be understood as rooted in respect for human dignity – thereby reflecting what we describe as a ‘human-centric approach’ in which the human being enjoys a unique and inalienable moral status of primacy in the civil, political, economic and social fields. (AI HLEG, 2019: 10)
Further, ‘The fundamental rights upon which the EU is founded are directed towards ensuring respect for the freedom and autonomy of human beings’ (AI HLEG, 2019: 12). Thus, in the European framework, the human (the citizens) comes before the technology.
The paper proceeds as follows. First, we describe the critical framework that informs the paper, which is grounded in the literature on digital welfare, as well as theories of (conceptual) metaphors. Second, we present five metaphors that are derived from our analyses of the selected digitalisation documents. Third, we tease out the tensions and implications carried by the metaphors used to frame digitalisation in Denmark, including the inherent tensions between welfare norms and market values and how these tensions are managed in current digitalisation discourses in Denmark. We propose that each metaphor implicates specific norms and presumptions in relation to what is required to be a digital citizen in Denmark, and as such conveys important messages and imaginaries in relation to the type of agency (or lack hereof) afforded to the citizens.
Critical framework and method
Digitalisation and digital welfare studies
While the Danish government’s initiatives on digitalisation are substantially linked to the EUs agenda-setting in the newly adopted Digital Services Act (2022) and Digital Markets Act (2022), they also reveal important messages about the ambivalent nature of digitalisation in Denmark – not least as it concerns the cooperation between the state and big tech companies.
Schou and Hjelholt (2018, 2019) have studied Danish digitalisation strategies published between 2002 and 2015 and point to digital citizenship as a key political figure that has been promoted in these strategies through discursive, legal and institutional means. As part of digital citizenship, Danish citizens are expected to perform digitally (e.g. in relation to public services and social benefits). Likewise, the public administration relies heavily on the processing of vast quantities of data about the individual, which it then uses to identify specific areas of intervention (e.g. to detect fraud or allocate social benefits) as part of its decision-making processes. The increasing datafication of the public sector has implied a growing reliance on big tech companies, who are by now involved in many public sector projects in Denmark. Most recently, the Danish government has appointed Microsoft’s (now former) CEO in Denmark and Iceland 6 as head of a new digitalisation council, which is tasked with advising the government on the national digitalisation strategy (Regeringen, 2022). In parallel to such close cooperation with technology companies, a more critical discourse has started to surface, exemplified by the government’s white paper and its follow-up reports on the tech giants from 2021 (Regeringen, 2021a, 2021b, 2021c).
We lean on digital welfare studies to inform the critical framework that this paper relies on (Justesen and Plesner, 2018; Kaun and Dencik, 2020; Pink et al., 2018; Schou and Hjelholt, 2018, 2019), particularly the relationship between digitalisation and the type of citizenship that it fosters. We deploy the notion of digital citizenship to analyse and understand how the government in its digitalisation policies envisions the role of the individual, including the type of agency that is afforded to citizens – while bearing in mind that up to 22% of the adult Danish population are considered to be digitally challenged (Digitaliseringsstyrelsen and KL, 2021), which is the key concern in the most recent strategy (Finansministeriet, 2022; Regeringen and Danske Regioner, 2022). Moreover, we are interested in the role that technology companies play (for example) as providers of public infrastructure (Maguire and Winthereik, 2021; Pink et al., 2022).
Metaphors
Our analysis of the Danish policy documents is informed by theories of metaphors, and on how our conceptual system is metaphorical in nature. For example, Lakoff and Johnson (1980) argue that ‘metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature’ (3). Metaphors enable us to move from the concrete physicality of our bodies to abstract concepts, such as time, argument, idea and communication (to mention a few). Metaphors can be further divided into structural metaphors ‘where one concept is metaphorically structured in terms of another’ (14), such as TIME IS MONEY, and orientational metaphors that ‘give a concept a spatial orientation; for example, HAPPY IS UP.’ (14). Structural metaphors help us to understand abstract concepts in terms of less abstract concepts (e.g. ideas are objects), whereas orientational metaphors help us to organise systems of abstract concepts through the spatiality of our bodies and our spatial orientation in the world. For instance, we understand time as moving forward due to our bodies as having a front and a back, which gives rise to the concept of direction. Thus, ‘our concepts structure what we perceive, how we get around in the world, and how we relate to other people’ (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980: 3). With both structural and orientational metaphors ‘the essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another’ (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980: 5 – italics in original).
Due to the pervasiveness of metaphors in language, thought and action, we often do not pay attention to them and might not even think of them as metaphors but just as normal linguistic expressions. By not paying attention to the metaphors, we miss out on how they structure and have implications for our lives, cultures and societies – for example, the way in which metaphors hide and highlight different aspects of a concept. For example, the metaphorical understanding of an argument in terms of war highlights disagreement and hides the possibility of reaching agreement. However, ‘since communication is based on the same conceptual system that we use in thinking and acting, language is an important source of evidence for what the system is like’ (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980: 3). In other words, we can scrutinise how we talk and write about different concepts to identify the metaphors at play, thereby coming to understand how they structure our thoughts and actions.
Metaphors are not merely the words used to talk about something, they are also the underlying logic for addressing the issue. As stressed by Krippendorff (1993), metaphors not only carry explanatory structures from a familiar domain of experiences into another domain in need of understanding but also have entailments for the target domain that they organise far beyond any initial structural similarity. Moreover, they organise their user’s perceptions and, when acted upon, can create the realities that are experienced (Krippendorff, 1993: 2-3). In short, metaphors not only tell us how others think, but they also structure how we can act.
In scholarship, policy and law-making, different metaphors have been applied to the processes of digitalisation. Consequently, they provide associational frameworks that have enabled us to understand and experience (for example) a certain technological development in terms of established concepts (Blavin and Cohen, 2002; Lakoff and Johnson, 1980; Larsson, 2017; Wyatt, 2004, 2021). In the internet’s early days, Stefik (1996) suggested four metaphors for thinking about the emerging information infrastructure, namely digital library (keeper of knowledge), electronic mail (communicator), electronic marketplace (trader) and digital worlds (adventurer) (Stefik, 1996: xx). The cyberspace and market of ideas metaphors were explored by Gandy and Farral (2010), amongst others, in their examination of legal cases related to enforcement of property law in cyberspace. Andrade (2010: 43) investigated how metaphors such as information highways, metaverse and cyberspace were used to create a societal identification with the technology at hand. In terms of policy discourses, Jørgensen (2013) has analysed the regulatory implications that are entailed in different metaphorical framings of the internet, such as a public sphere, a new media, an infrastructure and a cultural practice. As for more recent metaphors, such as the cloud and big data, Amoore (2020) and Wyatt (2021) have examined their pervasive power in current digitalisation discourses. A key point for deploying metaphorical analysis is the assumption that any given metaphor serves as a placeholder for important but often invisible norms and values about the subject matter, and that decoding these metaphors may therefore help us to confront these assumptions and their related policy implications.
Method
We have analysed six different policy documents that were launched by the Danish government between June 2021 and September 2022. These papers differ in form and include (in order of launch) a white paper (Regeringen, 2021a: 48) that presents an overall account of policy challenges facing the Danish society caused by tech giants; two policy reports (Regeringen, 2021b: 18; Regeringen, 2021c: 21) that respond to these challenges and outline some possible solutions with reference to the EU Digital Services Act and the EU Digital Markets Act; a digitalisation strategy for the Danish society that covers both the public and private sectors (Regeringen, 2022: 72); and a digitalisation strategy for the public sector that was authored by state and municipalities together (Regeringen and Danske Regioner, 2022: 35), which is followed by a short document by the Ministry of Finance outlining specific strategic initiatives to counter digital exclusion (Finansministeriet, 2022: 8). These six documents yield the current views on digitalisation, tech giants, social media and digital citizenship as expressed by the (former) Danish government and thus present a solid basis for teasing out the values, ideas and tensions underlying digitalisation in Denmark. To decode the texts, we have applied a loosely structured document analysis (Bowen, 2009) in which we first identified and thematically mapped reoccurring themes within the six policy documents. Second, we used this thematic mapping to identify the implied target domains and their associated metaphor(s). This process led to the identification of the following five metaphors: traffic, buildings, partnership, evolution and revolution. Note that this list is not exhaustive but represents our selection of prevailing framings across the documents that we analysed. Because the documents are written in Danish, we have translated the textual examples and quotes used in our analysis into English.
A metaphorical lens on Danish digitalisation
The strategies, values and practices around digitalisation as proposed and carried out by the Danish government are guided by metaphors. In particular, they entail metaphors about what the internet, digital media and digitalisation are as well as metaphors about the social welfare state. As Wyatt (2021) argues (in line with Lakoff and Johnson, 1980) ‘metaphors are not only evocative and political (. . .) they also suggest something about how the actors who use them understand the economic and physical materiality of new media’ (407-408). For example, focusing on metaphors can make the underlying tensions between the digitalisation strategy’s reliance on automation and digital citizenship visible in contrast to a more human-centric approach. Likewise, it directs our attention to the friction between the strategy’s close partnership between public and private sector actors (with different societal and commercial goals) vis-à-vis the white paper’s concern with the power and influence of big technology companies, not least regarding their data-driven business models and close entanglement with democratic life.
In our analyses of the Danish government’s policy documents, we have identified five prevailing metaphors that will structure our argument:
Traffic: digitalisation presents new roads and spaces that we must learn to navigate safely, and it presents new red lights and threats;
Buildings: digitalisation as resting on a sound foundation, with data being the pillars in a sound construction;
Partnership: digitalisation as something that we do together, involving public and private actors to ensure progress;
Evolution: digitalisation is part of (and important for) growth, learning and developing. We need it to survive and to be competitive. Data sharing is part of this, but digitally challenged citizens are left behind and
Revolution: digitalisation changes everything. It fosters societal acceleration and new powers that need regulation.
These five metaphors point to the understanding of digitalisation, and its opportunities and challenges by the Danish government, as well as what it takes to be a digital citizen in Denmark today. As might be apparent, these metaphors propose different and competing logics, which citizens need to be able to navigate at the same time – for instance, that digitalisation is standing on solid ground yet speeding ahead; it is something we need to accelerate, yet we have trouble following its speed.
Traffic
One of the reoccurring metaphors used by the Danish government is that of traffic. The traffic metaphor is used in two different ways, which highlight different aspects of traffic in connection to social media and IT-systems, respectively. Specifically, when used in relation to social media, it is the need for traffic rules and knowledge about these rules (entailing regulation), which is highlighted. Social media needs traffic rules for children (and all citizens) to be safe. Thus, the government would like a ‘digital traffic club for children and youth’ along with ‘school safety patrols’ promoting ‘digital traffic safety’ (Regeringen, 2021b: 13). The idea of social media as a place with traffic that can be regulated by applying specific rules is further emphasised by the establishment of a ‘digital police patrol’, which can ‘patrol visibly in open groups’ similar to patrolling the streets (Regeringen, 2021b: 9). Thus, the traffic metaphor reveals something about how the government understands social media, and thus what kinds of initiatives they find relevant and useful to protect Danish children and youth (and citizens in general) when navigating online. In the second use of the metaphor, which is related to IT-systems more generally, traffic is a derivative of the highway metaphor ‘which represented the view that the Internet was a suitable object for state intervention, in terms of investment and to regulate “the safety of those who pass on it”’ (Wyatt, 2021: 408 quoting Blavin and Cohen, 2002). In this use of the metaphor, the focus is on the infrastructure of IT-systems (i.e. the road) that can be regulated by rules but also needs maintenance: ‘The public IT-landscape is to be considered a critical infrastructure on a par with, for example, our bridges, tying the country together’ (Regeringen, 2022: 45). Together, these two uses of the traffic metaphor points to social media as an infrastructure that can be governed by establishing and enforcing specific rules that will help create a safe environment. It further highlights the importance of knowing how to navigate within this digital infrastructure, stressing that Danish children and youth must ‘learn the digital traffic rules’ in order ‘to navigate the internet in a safe and secure way’ (Regeringen, 2021b: 13, 12). This framing is interesting not only for what it brings to light, but also for what it leaves out (i.e. what it hides). It does not, for example, picture social media as a marketing company with high-risk products but as a new kind of public infrastructure that we must learn to navigate and which acquires a specific kind of skills set. Thus, human agency is here a matter of learning new rules to safely navigate the roads as they are. It is not a matter of contesting or challenging the established structures of (for example) social media and other IT-systems.
Buildings
The traffic metaphor speaks to the understanding of social media and the internet more broadly as a specific space with clear boundaries. This is a space that you enter and then exit again, when you have done what you needed to do; a space you can ‘navigate’ (Regeringen, 2021b: 9, 12, 13, 15). In the digitalisation strategy (Regeringen, 2022), this reliance on spatial metaphors is taken one step further when digitalisation in general is described as a building with a solid foundation and ground pillars that are made of data. The government describes digital systems as something, which ‘need to be examined and future-proofed in the same way as when we continuously maintain our roads and bridges’ (Regeringen, 2022: 45). Thus, the building metaphor highlights the materiality that is inherent in the traffic metaphor by pointing to actual bridges and roads, and it then uses these to describe otherwise abstract digital systems as something that needs care and maintenance. In line with Lakoff and Johnson (1980), the building metaphor also helps describe something very abstract (i.e. digitalisation and the digital) in terms of something very concrete (a building). It sets clear boundaries to an otherwise diffuse concept, helping us to grasp that concept in terms of something we understand better. For instance, ‘like the construction of houses has to fit in a larger city plan and be build using thoroughly tested methods, a digital solution must fit into an existing infrastructure and follow the principles and standards we have decided upon together’ (Regeringen and Danske Regioner, 2022: 32). While digital systems do have a concrete materiality in terms of servers, cables, hardware and so on, this dimension is not emphasised when the building metaphor is used in the digitalisation strategies (Regeringen, 2022; Regeringen and Danske Regioner, 2022). Rather, the metaphor of buildings and construction is expressed through phrasings such as the ‘digital foundation’, the ‘data foundation’, ‘digital ground pillars’, ‘public data form these common ground pillars’, ‘build on’, ‘data siloes’, ‘a supporting column’ and ‘robust solutions’ (Regeringen, 2022: 45-46). The human agent in this metaphor is someone who is obliged to help build and strengthen the foundation by providing data for the ground pillars: ‘Our health registers, tax system, and the digital post and self-service, that is a natural part of the everyday tasks of the Danes, stand on the shoulders of systems and data registers, which have been built over decades’ (Regeringen, 2022: 45). The citizens do not seem to have any influence on the shape and functionality of the building because this is for the public-private partnerships to develop. However, the citizens are expected to provide the raw materials for the construction by providing their data to the state in the public interest: One of these joint ground pillars are public data. The government will therefore, over the coming years, invest in the society’s joint data foundation, such that companies, authorities, and researchers also in the future can build on connected and available data that cuts across sectors in the society. (Regeringen, 2022: 45)
This perception does not leave much room for agency and the risks are that the buildings will fit the wrong purposes, that the purpose is tailored to the building, or that the building lacks access for disabled citizens (to stay with the building metaphor).
Partnership
The subtitle of Denmark’s Strategy for Digitalisation is Driving the digital development together (Regeringen, 2022). This ‘together’ points to the third metaphor, namely partnership. As stressed in the foreword, this strategy is a direct result of an explicit digitalisation partnership, by which private companies are closely involved in setting the direction for Denmark’s digital future and are an important premise to ensure progress. As is stated towards the end of the strategy, ‘we only succeed if we build on the good collaboration and pull together’ (Regeringen, 2022: 61). The partnership metaphor highlights private companies and public institutions as involved in a ‘broad and binding collaboration’ (3) committed to one another over time because ‘we are best when we do things together’ (7). The partnership metaphor speaks to common interests, values and goals, and may even signify a caring relationship. In the context of public sector digitalisation, the partnership metaphor seems to suggest that public authorities and private (technology) companies share similar interests and concerns in relation to (for example) digital welfare systems concerning unemployment or social benefits, digital learning platforms in public schools, health platforms and so on. The metaphor thus blurs the fundamentally different mandate of a public sector, which is guided by public values and obligations towards the citizens, and (technology) companies that are ultimately interested in selling their products and maximising shareholder value. While the partnership metaphor speaks to a growing and close relationship between private companies and the Danish government, it is in contrast to the white paper (Regeringen, 2021a) and the follow-up policy report (Regeringen, 2021c), which present a critical take on the role of tech giants in Danish society due to their business model (i.e. extensive data collection) and as someone making it difficult for smaller Danish companies to enter the market. As such, there seems to be a blurred distinction between the technology companies that the public sector teams up with (e.g. Microsoft), and the tech giants that cause concern and call for regulation, such as Meta (Facebook) and Alphabet (Google). The partnership metaphor highlights shared values, good intentions and the progress that one can make when working together on a shared goal. What the metaphor hides is the fundamentally different agendas of a public sector in a welfare state and international multi-corporations with employees, shareholders, revenue and specific business models. What is interesting about this partnership is that it is solely a partnership between the public authorities (the state) and private companies, and that citizen agency is not described or mentioned – rather, the citizens are left out of the partnership and thus have no agency in regard to what kinds of systems are developed and what kinds of societal goals are set. As with the building metaphor, the risk is that the citizens – with all their diversity and different life situations – are not foregrounded in these systems and solutions but that these become technology-centric instead of human-centric, thus forcing the citizens to adapt to the systems rather than adapting the systems to the citizens and their needs.
Evolution
The fourth metaphor, evolution, points to digitalisation, development and new technologies as something with a life of its own. Technologies and digitalisation develop whether policy makers and citizens want them to and are vested with their own agency. Therefore, we all need to take this new agent seriously, ‘if we are to keep up with the development’ (Regeringen, 2022: 17). At the same time, we need to accelerate the use of ‘ripe technologies’ (Regeringen, 2022: 27) because ‘data, new technology, and digitalisation contain new possibilities, which we need to catch’ (Regeringen, 2022: 39). Thus, technologies are described like fruit that ripen on trees or as something that falls from the sky. All we have to do is keep up with the speed and catch it when the technology is ready for us: ‘The digital development happens with increasingly intensifying speed’ and the government will work to ensure that ‘Denmark is prepared for the development’ (Regeringen, 2022: 61). Through these various terms and expressions, bringing to mind natural evolution, the metaphor highlights the inevitability of technological development and digitalisation. This is a natural force that we cannot fight, and which we need to do our best to keep up with and follow suit to gain the benefits that will come if we manage to not fall behind. In the evolution metaphor, there is no staying ahead of the development or leading the way. However, it is an orientational metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980) in the sense that there is a direction, a linearity, in the development – it goes one way and one way only, and we as humans cannot set the course. While highlighting the inevitability of development and digitalisation, this metaphor hides the possibility of constructing and designing the technologies the way we want, for our purposes, as well as only implementing technologies and digitalisation where we find that it makes sense. The metaphor of evolution strips away human agency. In the evolution metaphor, there are no developers who invent, construct and build the technologies or design digital systems, the ‘development happens’ and there is continuous mention of ‘the development’ (Regeringen, 2022: 17, 61) as some fixed entity with its own agency. Thus, agency is left to ‘the development’ and comes with a flavour of technological determinism – humans are not in a position to control, shape or intervene in the development of new technologies.
Revolution
Whereas the evolution metaphor speaks to digitalisation as a kind of natural development with its own life, the final metaphor, revolution, suggests that digitalisation is a complete game changer, something with disruptive power that forces us to think in new ways. We are part of a ‘digital revolution’ (Regeringen, 2021a: 4) that implies ‘social acceleration’ and ‘revolutionary technologies’ (Regeringen, 2022: 17), and which demands that we as society move very quickly to keep up with the development and its opportunities. Denmark is seen as a ‘pioneering country’, which is ‘in the lead’ and ‘shapes the course’ (Regeringen, 2022: 51). The ‘digital revolution’ is presented both as an important opportunity for ‘fantastic progress’, ‘innovation, growth and job creation’ (Regeringen, 2021a: 4), but also as something that presents new challenges for ‘our democracy and national interests’ (Regeringen, 2021a: 4). The challenges that are mentioned are particularly related to tech giants, platform economy and the data-driven business models. These new corporate powers pose threats to ‘Danish society’, by monetising our social engagement, time and personal data, wherefore, the digital revolution must be accompanied by a regulatory response to ensure that Danish values prevail (Regeringen, 2021a: 4). The tech giants are thus framed as the primary digitalisation concern, with implications related to both public health, law, media, democracy, work, taxation, competition and consumers (Regeringen, 2021a). They are part of a digital revolution that has spun out of (democratic) control and which now must be brought back on track.
In response, the white paper suggests nine principles for ‘a more responsible and just society’ (Regeringen, 2021a: 6). In the digitalisation strategy, Denmark is presented as a country that ‘leads the way’ taking steps towards ‘a common direction’ where technology and responsibility ‘go hand in hand’ (Regeringen, 2022: 55). The use of the concept of revolution to describe digitalisation and the technological development is metaphorical in two ways. First, it is metaphorical in the strict sense that it describes a specific development as a revolution; that is, it describes one abstract concept (digitalisation and technological development) in terms of another more well-known concept (revolution) (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980). Second, the concept revolution is in itself metaphorical because we are dealing with a specific understanding of revolution, which has become somewhat detached from the political revolutions that has turned over governmental regimes. When used in connection with the development of computerised or digital technologies, revolution simply points to ‘the dazzling magnitude of technical innovation and social effects’ as well as ‘a drastic upheaval, one that people ought to welcome as good news’ (Winner, 1986: 100, 101), which in and of itself will make society better. That is, revolution points to growth and expansion of technologies in terms of the number of actual devices and in terms of their capabilities as something that will inevitably bring about social justice (Winner, 1986). However, as Winner argues, Taken as a whole, beliefs of this kind constitute what I would call myth information: the almost religious conviction that a widespread adoption of computers and communications systems along with easy access to electronic information will automatically produce a better world for human living. (Winner, 1986: 105)
In the Danish digitalisation strategy (Regeringen, 2022) and the policy document on tech giants (Regeringen, 2021a), the Danish government does not employ the revolution metaphor to the same extent as suggested by Winner (1986) but it does acknowledge that the developments need to be regulated to further a responsible and just society. Thus, while using the revolution metaphor, the Danish government actively plays down some of the connotations that this metaphor holds by providing itself with agency for setting the course and leading the way. However, the revolution metaphor still highlights the disruptive forces of technological development and the speed with which it occurs.
Implications, tensions and conclusion
The five metaphors that we have described point to different assumptions and narratives about digitalisation, including what it entails to be a digital citizen in Denmark (as pictured by the Danish government in six policy documents and strategies). The metaphors suggest that being a digital citizen entails the ability to navigate social media safely by knowing and abiding by the traffic rules. You have to stand on firm ground with regard to your digital skills and be able to effectively use all the systems. At the same time you have to be able to follow the evolution of these systems continuously adapting to new practices and products, and you have to accelerate and move fast as required by the revolution. Lastly, you have to accept that public and private sectors ‘are doing it together’ in ways that present no real alternative to the continued digitalisation of public processes, practices and systems.
Taken together, these five metaphors point to a type of digital citizenship that is in stark contrast to the human-centric approach that is the agreed EU language when it comes to the development and use of digital technologies, and AI more specifically (AI HLEG, 2019). A human-centric approach means foregrounding people – including their situation, experiences and rights – when developing digital solutions and services. It follows that technological solutions should support the individual’s dignity and ability to govern their own life by being fair, non-discriminatory, and understandable for the individual, as well as accountable to these principles (Jørgensen, 2021: 12). In contrast, the digital citizen as described earlier in this paper is forced to adapt to these systems, to the pace of the development, and they also have to learn and apply new rules to be safe. Justesen and Plesner (2018) illustrate this in their discussions on digitalisation-ready legislation. Here the point is that in the course of digitalisation (including automation) it is not the digital systems that are tailored to people and the rule of law, it is instead people and rules that are tailored to the systems. In the context of automation in the public sector, Justesen and Plesner (2018) argue that the rationale guiding the quest for automation is a fundamental distrust in the human case workers in the public administration. Digitalisation and automation come with a promise of effectiveness, consistency and uniformity across case handling, which in turn will protect the rights of the individual citizen. However, when the development and implementation of digital systems are not human-centric and the citizen is left without agency, it is difficult to see how justice and citizen rights are secured. When digitalisation and the development of digital technologies are described with the metaphor of evolution – that is, as something that sets its own pace and that we have to ‘catch’ and follow (Regeringen, 2022: 39) – there is limited room for affecting or changing the course of action. The metaphor of evolution highlights that digitalisation and development of new technologies is a force of its own, while it hides that it is possible to steer and change the development. Thus, there is a tension between claiming a human-centric approach to the development of new technologies and viewing this very development as natural evolution.
There also seems to be a tension between the evolution metaphor and the building metaphor. The tension here is between digitalisation and digital development as a firm construction resting on solid ground (building), and digital development as something that evolves at its own pace and which we have to catch when it is ripe and ready and falls from the sky (evolution). It is difficult to see how a phenomenon can at the same time be a solid foundation and also fall from the sky, as well as being both something that we build and a natural given that is beyond our control. Taken together, these two metaphors highlight that Denmark is in the lead when it comes to digitalisation – we have done it for a long time and thus rests on solid ground – but at the same time the development is somewhat out of our hands and we need to speed ahead if we want to continue being in the front. Whether this leaves the solid foundation behind or whether this foundation is built (continues) into the future is unclear from the use of these metaphors. Maybe the citizens are simply presumed to expand the foundation by providing new ground pillars of data.
We see a further or supplementary tension between the metaphor of natural evolution and the metaphor of revolution, with its emphasis on disruption and radical transformation of society. Evolution simply occurs and entails little room for change of direction, whereas revolution is constructed and may be countered by regulatory responses. Thus, evolution and revolution when used to describe the same phenomena (i.e. digital and technological development) are direct opposites and highlight competing aspects of the phenomena – an inevitable and set course of development (evolution) vs. disruptive power and regulation (revolution). This opposition between the two metaphors makes it difficult to grasp and understand what is expected in terms of agency – both in terms of regulation (state agency), and in terms of citizens and their means of participating in processes of digitalisation. In terms of agency, it thus seems difficult to reconcile the contradictory demands placed by these two metaphors at the same time. According to Lakoff and Johnson (1980), it is normal that there is no consistency between different metaphors used to describe the same concept because the ‘various metaphorical structurings of a concept serve different purposes by highlighting different aspects of the concept (. . .) In general, complete consistency across metaphors is rare; coherence, on the other hand, is typical’ ( 96). However, coherence is not obvious (if it is there at all) in the various metaphors that are deployed by the Danish government to describe digitalisation and digital development. This leaves the citizens with the difficult task of figuring out or defining for themselves a coherence among the metaphors to know what is expected of them, and thereby how to act.
The revolution metaphor is also in stark contrast to the partnership metaphor. As part of the revolution metaphor, we see tech giants who are framed as a threat to democratic society, and who therefore must be regulated. However, in the partnership metaphor, we see an emphasis on collaboration between public and private actors to foster growth, innovation and sustainable solutions for our future. As already mentioned, there seems to be a tacit distinction between good technology companies and bad technology companies but this is never spelled out or addressed, which leaves the question of where the line between the two is drawn unclear (if there is indeed a line).
The five metaphors identified and discussed in this paper imply several inherent tensions, and more importantly point to an approach to digitalisation in which the citizen is reduced to someone that must learn the rules (traffic), contribute to the systems (buildings), adapt to new practices and services (evolution) and move fast (revolution). In terms of the partnership metaphor, the citizen is not mentioned as a partner because this framing primarily concerns the close and important partnership between public authorities and technology companies, which implies a shared agenda between public interests and market values. In contrast to the EU’s declared goal of human-centric digitalisation, which means foregrounding the situation, experiences and rights of citizens when developing digital systems and services, the Danish digitalisation policies imply a more limited role for the citizen. Rather than foregrounding the citizen as a human agent, these policies foreground the technologies and their development. None of the metaphors that the Danish government rely on have the citizens as a core concern or as an agent. Thus, these policies end up being technology-centric rather than human-centric, even when the concern is digital exclusion. The case illustrates that the Danish digitalisation policies pays limited attention to the inherent tensions between market logics and public interests, despite the country’s position as a Nordic welfare state.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
We wish to thank the members of the project ‘Don’t Take it Personal’. Privacy and Information in an Algorithmic Age, Bjarki Valtýsson, Jens-Erik Mai, Johan Lau Munkholm and Tanja Wiehn, for constructive feedback and encouragements along the way.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Independent Research Fund Denmark [grant number 8018-00041B].
