From Digital Hype to Digital Backlash: Shifting Educational Policy Discourses in Sweden and Beyond

Higher Seminar in Media and Communication Studies with Ingrid Forsler from Södertörn University

Welcome to the our first higher seminar of the year organised by the Media and Communication Studies department!

In this higher seminar, Ingrid Forsler will present her docent lecture on the topic: 'From Digital Hype to Digital Backlash: Shifting Educational Policy Discourses in Sweden and Beyond.’

Sweden has long held an ambition to be at the forefront of school digitalisation. As digital tools and systems have become increasingly embedded in classroom practices, however, critical voices have begun to question the educational value of these technologies and even suggest that they may have harmful effects on children’s and young people’s memory, concentration, and cognitive development. Drawing on selected inquiries and policy reforms in Swedish education between 2020 and 2025, the presentation examines this shift in the discourse on school digitalization and how it is underpinned by certain assumptions about digital media, knowledge, and learning. It further contextualises the ongoing digital backlash in education through comparisons with other countries, including Estonia, highlighting how both Sweden and Estonia stand out in the international landscape – Sweden through an increasingly radical de-digitalisation agenda, and Estonia through choosing not to introduce mobile phone bans in schools and instead invest in heavily in generative AI for education.

Ingrid Forsler is Associate Professor in Media and Communication Studies at Södertörn University. She received her PhD in 2020 with a dissertation on how different media technologies have contributed to shaping school arts edcuation Sweden and Estonia, and has since continued to research imaginaries surrounding digital media in education. Between 2021 and 2025, she participated in the project *Anticipating and mediating future classrooms: Ed-tech imaginaries of learning, communication and citizens making in Estonia and Sweden* (ÖSS), and since 2024 she has been part of the project *Art Education in Transformation: Reconstruction and Subject Development for Visual Arts in the Revised Primary Teacher Education* (VR). She has also conducted two smaller research projects funded by the teacher education at Södertörn, focusing on neuropedagogical discourses on media and learning (2020) and on GenAI in teacher education (2023).

It is possible to join the seminar on campus and online via Zoom. Contact us for the Zoom details if you'd like to join online.