Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to better understand the world-view of cultural consumers who download and share copyrighted content for free.

Design/methodology/approach – By utilizing a critical discourse analysis of the arguments given by file-sharers in online forums and in interviews, focusing on the arguments which arise for justifying certain everyday uses, and contrasting these with their material and structural conditions, a critical approach is sought, inquiring on the validity of certain tropes. Particularity was achieved by making a geographically delimited case study.

Findings – The case study helps to conceptualize online sociality, with wider application than this geographical setting only. As BitTorrent technology makes every downloader share his/her files while downloading, file-sharing is found to accommodate individual opportunism, and a world-view that puts the consumer at the centre of agency, in turn reinforcing the civic idea of cultural access and diversity as a human right.

Research limitations/implications – Previous findings have correlated heavy file-sharing with heavy consumption of culture. However, given the greater ability of previewing material and of acquiring more obscure content, how have the habits and consumption patterns changed among media consumers who routinely file-share? More detailed studies are needed, on how individual users come to question their own role, and the impact of their own actions – and what the level of awareness actually is (in different geographical/demographic settings) of the conditions for cultural production, distribution and consumption. A range of potential new research areas and scenarios is listed.

Practical implications – Given the common constituents seen in the world-views of file-sharers, this civic approach to intellectual property could prompt professional producers, distributors, rights holders and regulators to consider the actual visibility of potential impacts of file-sharing. The civic approach suggests that file-sharers can reconcile with individual authors or artists, as long as these are found to have precarious economic conditions, and not be affiliated with an industrial mode of reasoning. Cultural producers that are seen to adhere to a civic (amateur- or fan-like) mode of reasoning – rather than an industrial (professional) one – are met with more sympathy among consumers.

Originality/value – The paper is of interest for media sociology, cultural studies, and policymaking within the cultural industries.

If it is possible to speak of a coherent file-­sharing movement in Sweden, what are the principal societal factors shaping it? This paper contextualises the recent history of Swedish peer­-to-­peer­-based file­sharing as forming part of a wider shift in politics towards a late-modern collective ethic. Everyday file-­sharers operate as ‘occasional activists’, as pirate institutions not only speak for, but also run and build the networks. Such institutions ­ The Pirate Bay, Piratbyrån, and The Pirate Party ­ cannot be explained by invoking market logics, online communitarianism, or political motivation alone. The cyberliberties activism animating these hubs is connected to the larger framework of balancing utilitarianism, nationalism, individual autonomy and collectivism in Sweden. Further, the emergent Swedish file­-sharing justificatory regime hinges on a general view of what the internet is, what it is good for, and how it should look in the future, as the file-­sharer argumentation rests on the inevitability of unrestricted file exchange on the internet, while the industrialist concerns of the cultural industries emphasize instead how exchange should be regulated and sanctioned by accountable providers.

This article conceptually outlines P2P-based file-sharing as a totality, a mass utility, and a backdrop to everyday cultural life. It elaborates on a recent study of Swedish file-sharers to sketch some important constituents of what would constitute a "piracy culture." It shows that the actual file-sharer argumentation is not fully synonymous with established notions of "piracy" but rather reveals the complexity of the phenomenon and how the discourse invoking it relies on modes of justification that are not entirely commensurable. Moreover, the file-sharer rhetoric is contingent on a range of entities and infrastructures that condition actual usage. Noting the institutionalized, semi-anonymous, and depersonalized elements to file-sharing, I propose a different interpretation than regarding it as a "gift economy" like the tight-knit communities Mauss described in 1923. Instead, I propose a metaphor borrowed from Titmuss' example of blood donors that acknowledges the perceived "need" for culture and the associated "right" to access content that file-sharers are exercising.

This dissertation analyses social critique, communication critique and aestheticalcritique in television produced by artists. Theoretically it draws on researchon alternative media, TV studies, especially genre analysis and narratology,and media aesthetics. It conducts a text-production study of three examplesof alternative television from the period 2004-2008: ContemporaryArt Center TV (CAC TV): A show produced by the CAC in Vilnius, Lithuaniaand aired on a commercial TV-channel; Good TV who aired video art ona local public access channel in Stockholm, Sweden; and Candyland TV, apirate transmission from an art gallery in central Stockholm.Empirically it builds on TV-texts, web sites and documents, as well asinterviews with participants. Through a study of form and stylistics, relationto conventional genres and modes of narration, it engages in a discussionabout the features of a critical, alternative media text.The study shows how these televisions work in a tradition of alternativetelevision and connects them to tactics and aesthetical forms as found inhistorical examples, but also how this type of formalist media critiquemight inform an understanding of alternative media. From the analysis ofrelations between social and formalist aspects of alternative television, adistinction between alternative as ”alternative worldview” and as ”alternativeexpressions” is suggested, a distinction that contributes to the developmentof theory in the study of alternative media.

Linus Andersson belyser relationen mellan medier och samhällets unga medborgare i denna text. Han menar att aktivister förhåller sig till medier på ett annat sätt idag än vad de gjorde för ett fåtal decennier sedan. Nu finns mer oberoende förhållningssätt där egna mediekanaler har fått en utökad betydelse. Proteströrelser kan genom dem ta en aktiv del i den politiska offentligheten.

This article was written in order to contribute to a discussion about a critical definition of alternative media. Askingwhat role alternative media could play in challenging neoliberal discourse in an age where capitalism have become immune to criticism, it elaborates on the concept of “the alternative” and the media through three sections. The first section discusses neoliberalism and the connection between neoliberal doctrine and mainstream media. This connection is described as promoting “public amnesia”, financialization and economization of news journalism. The second section discusses alternative media from the perspective of new social movements and symbolic resistance, claiming that the symbolic resistance framework undermines the critical potential of alternative media, it also comments on some recent critical literature on neoliberalism and capitalism. The third section takes examples from artistic explorations of capitalism and television to propose how a distinction between social and formalist aspects of “the alternative” could inform a critical notion of alternative media.

This article presents an analysis of the role of the media in the symbolic construction of work and leisure at home. Dealing with individuals who represent a post-industrial and cultural labour market and who work mainly at home, the analysis focuses upon the ritual transformations of everyday life and the role of the media within it. Leaning on social interactionist Erwin Goffman and his concepts of regions and frames, as well as a dimension of the materiality of culture, this analysis combines a perspective on media use as ritual, transformations in everyday life and the organization of material space. From this perspective, the discussion penetrates the symbolic dimension of media use in defining borders of behaviour and activities in relations to work and leisure at home.

På samma sätt som skillnaden mellan hur don Quijote såg på världen och hur den verkligen var beskaffad, finns en skillnad i ungdomskulturen mellan föreställningar om verkligheten och verkligheten som den faktiskt ser ut. Artikelförfattaren tar avstamp i Pierre Bourdieus tankar om hur smak för viss slags kultur kan dröja kvar trots att samhället förändras radikalt. En sådan förändring kan dagens ungdomar i Estland sägas ha varit med om. De var barn när helt andra förutsättningar rådde för medier och kultur i deras land. Vad tycker då ungdomar i Estland är bra film och litteratur? Och hur förhåller sig deras smak till svenska ungdomars preferenser?

How should youth culture be understood in the globalised world of today? How do patterns of cultural taste develop in societies undergoing fundamental change? This book presents a comparative analysis of media use and cultural preferences among students at the University of Tartu in Estonia and at Södertörn University College in Sweden. In some respects, the patterns found in the two countries converge, in others they diverge. Explanations for this are to be found both in the present living conditions and in social norms from the past.

The essays in this volume discuss both the culture of technology that we live in today, and culture as technology. Within the chapters of the book cultures of technology and cultural technologies are discussed, focusing on a variety of examples, from varied national contexts.Cultural Technologies brings together internationally recognized scholars from the social sciences and humanities, covering diverse themes such as intellectual property, server farms and search engines, surveillance, peer-to-peer file-sharing, the construction of techno-history, technology and epistemology and much more. It contains both historical and contemporary analyses of technological phenomena as well as epistemological discussions on the uses of technology.

This article reflects on the consequences of digitization for multiplatform television/media production, the ways in which it affects textual expressions, and how this might have a bearing on changing audience roles. It takes its departure empirically from two Swedish examples of multiplatform production: The Truth About Marika and Labyrint, produced by SVT and TV4, respectively. It is argued that multiplatform media texts challenge our conceptions of categories such as work, text, program, etc., and, following from that, also challenge our notions of audience activity and engagement.

This article compares the dissemination and usage of mobile phones in post-Soviet, transitional Estonia with patterns in Sweden (a long-time Western democracy). Using a domestication perspective, the study examines the use of voice calls compared with texting by youths (aged 18—24) to probe the role of Estonia’s transition from a state-controlled to a market economy in shaping mobile usage. Results show that while the dissemination of mobiles among young Swedes and Estonians is similar, the patterns of texting and calling are not. In Sweden (as in Japan and even the USA), young people text more than they call, while the reverse is true in Estonia. These findings reflect the fact that unlike Swedes, many Estonians obtained mobile phones before getting landlines, and again unlike Swedes, Estonians are likely to give up landlines in favour of mobiles.