PURPOSE: This review examines the availability of information on welfare technologies for people living with dementia in Sweden.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: A scoping review of 21 counties and 290 municipalities was conducted to assess the degree of information provided on welfare technologies.

RESULTS: The findings of this review indicate that most Swedish municipalities offer limited information regarding these technologies. Additionally, we conducted a mapping survey to identify the various welfare technologies offered by each county based on the available online material.

CONCLUSIONS: We argue that greater attention should be given not only to how information is provided but also to the extent to which it is provided to people with dementia and their relatives. Improving these aspects is crucial for making informed decisions. Finally, our review suggests that counties and municipalities should coordinate with local and national resources (e.g., Alzheimer Sweden) to deliver more accurate information through different media forms.

The dataset is produced within the framework of the HORIZON 2020 project called MEDIADELCOM (Critical Exploration of Media Related Risks and Opportunities for Deliberative Communication: Development Scenarios of the European Media Landscape) in 2021-2022. The dataset is one of the 14 single-country data sets included in the consolidated file of country data sets (with 5623 entries), all in msw.xlsx format. All tables are searchable by 20 variables: full reference, year of publication, nationall/international publication, language, country the publication deals with, time of empirical data gathering, type of publication, open access/not OA, where referenced, focus on journalism domain, focus on media-related competences domain, focus on media usage patterns domain, focus on legal and ethical regulations domain, type of the approach, original key words, main topic, comments, country. As the data has been gathered specifically about the research done in four mentioned domains concerning potential ROs emanating from the news media development for deliberative communication, this database does NOT cover ALL the academic publications in the fields of media and journalism research. Consequently, the above-mentioned conditions limit the generalizations and comparisons based on the current database. 

PURPOSE: Digital technologies have a great potential to improve the quality of life of people with dementia. However, this group is usually not involved in their development and dissemination. A consumer-directed role in the delivery of digital technologies could allow this group to regain autonomy and certain independence. This article aims to conceptualise the components of the Consumer Direction theory in the context of digital technologies and people with dementia.

METHOD: A literature review was conducted. We searched for studies within the aforementioned context in five relevant databases, covering the years 2012-2020. Identified studies were screened and assessed for inclusion. The data were categorised using two-stage qualitative content analysis.

RESULTS: Forty articles were included. The results provide definitions of the four components of the Consumer Direction theory in the context of this study. Namely, what it means for people with dementia to be (1) in control of technology use, (2) offered a variety of technological options, (3) informed and supported regarding the use and training of digital technologies, and (4) actively participating in systems design. These can lead to the empowerment of people with dementia.

CONCLUSION: The four theoretical components of the Consumer Direction theory are conceptualised differently in the context of this study. By providing new definitions, this paper contributes to research and practice. We expect the definitions to be deployed by researchers, practitioners, and policymakers for the creation of a more consumer-directed delivery of digital technologies to people with dementia.Implications for rehabilitationDigital technologies have a great potential to improve the quality of life of people with dementia.A consumer-directed role in the delivery of digital technologies could empower people with dementia and give them the opportunity to take control over the offered services as well as maintain a degree of independence. The Consumer Direction theory and its components should be conceptualised differently in the context of digital technologies and people with dementia than in previous contexts that used the theory. The new definitions can be utilised by researchers, practitioners and policymakers for the creation of a more consumer-directed delivery of digital technologies to people with dementia.

This thesis looks at the Spanish Podemos party-movement in its attempt to both undertake and to a large extent ‘live’ a certain political experiment in the context following the 2007–2008 economic crisis. Podemos is thus perceived as performing and re/defining democracy as part of undertaking political action and building a political identity. Democracy is seen as being conceptualized and enacted in political discourse and in a variety of (mediated) contexts. At its core, the thesis examines how Podemos defines and enacts democracy in the lead-up to, and the aftermath of, the December 2015 general election, eventually bringing the partymovement into the Spanish Parliament. The thesis first explores how the notion of democracy is conceptualized and communicated in Podemos’ Twitter discourse and how these conceptualizations relate to various ways of performing democracy via the construction of Podemos’ and other parties’ (political) identities. The thesis then examines how Podemos’ online political communication campaign spots particularise various democratic imaginaries as well as discursively construct a political frontier between ‘us’ and ‘them’. Last, the thesis looks at how Podemos’ leader and his key counterparts perform political identity work as part of their own democratic imaginaries in a televised pre-electoral debate. By linking the above strands of analysis, the thesis shows that Podemos communicates visions and practices of democracy in line with social democracy and participatory democracy and in opposition to the neoliberalism and political elitism that have long dominated Spanish representative democracy. As is also shown, the party’s populist identity is not only constructed at the intersection of its party and movement identities but also intensely enacted as a disclaimer in the aftermath of its institutionalization. Overall, this thesis contributes in particular to demarcating ideological limits within populism, and it does so from a critical discourse and wider media and communication perspective. It is shown that leftwing populism à la Podemos constructs an inclusive ‘people’ and defends a vision of representative democracy that promotes social justice and popular sovereignty. This puts left-wing populism in stark contrast to the by now prevalent right-wing populism that constructs nativist visions of the people rooted in calls for the exclusion of various social groups and arguing for nationalist, authoritarian and conservative views of ‘doing’ politics.